The world is getting smaller.

Imports and cross-border communication, technologies like the Internet and email, and multi-national corporations that create mushrooms of their branches all over the world: The world is indeed getting a little tighter. Products from countries at the other end of the globe can be purchased in local stores—if not, there is always online shopping (and sometimes you get to save on import costs too). In fact, everything has become so commercialized and globalized that it is difficult to avoid hearing about the newest what’s what in the market. Not that it is bad… at least we get our DKNY’s and Estee Lauder’s to please our expensive taste buds. But when it results in multiple Taiwanese idolizing Czech writer Milan Kundera when they “don’t really know who he is”, it is far worse than bad. It is “empty worship”—says Taiwanese poet, YS.

And where else can we attribute this terrible syndrome, but to globalization?

The West is overarching and continually thriving because of its advanced technological developments and established media wires. The West dominates the radio and television with BBC, CNN, ABC and other abbreviations, the computer with Microsoft and Macintosh, and the big screen with Hollywood—no wonder little Asia is getting influenced by them. Collectively, we are now moving on to the next larger-than-life wave that is sweeping over the world: campaigns and advertisements.

Food for regurgitation: A successful advertisement is one that you remember.

Advertisement is nothing more than propaganda on a more personal level—it seeks to speak to the consumer’s heart in order to move one into action of purchase. Communication is the process of sending information to another entity via a language (source by Wikipedia). And while the core of communication used to be interpersonal and relational, the language of communication has now diversified into various universal ones that hardly cater to a specific person, no matter how they try. The widespread of advertisement results in a lack in individual communication and is more of a kind of mass persuasion, as Hitler to his Germans, albeit with an intent less than to crucify the Jews—but similar in its tenacity, nonetheless.

Coca Cola: “It’s the real thing.” Taco Bell: “Yo Quiero Taco Bell.”    Volkswagen: “Liebe zum Automobil.”

Taglines and slogans like you’ve never heard are circling the globe in every single language there is. So globalized is advertising that even if it is done in Swahili, you could probably guess its meaning at a second glance. While English is considered the official common language in the trading markets of the globe, the target groups of different brands makes their advertisements a foreign advocate even to people in the same country who share the same roots underground. In short, Macdonald’s “I’m lovin’ it” is English to the young people, but probably second language to the older generation.

Pringles: “Once you pop, you can’t stop!”

Researchers deduce that no other consumers will have as profound an impact on the media business as the Millennial Generation—the nine to 28-year olds. This generation has grown, or is growing up, using multiple media platforms and need to be marketed to differently, says President of Magid Associates Brent Magid, implying heavily that the tactics used to reach out to this group of consumers can remain similar—but the language must change to relate to the new generation. With this, however, the world can expect another significant alteration—the adults must and will learn to grow with the changes and flow with the young or risk being left behind, and the young will get even harder to grasp with emerging alternative cultures and varying values.

Once the language renovation starts for the next generation, there is no stopping it. As clichéd as it is, the only constancy there will always be is, “Change”.

Cheryl Chan

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