• by Steve McClellan , February 18, 2016

MediaCom, part of WPP’s GroupM, has formed a partnership with cross-cultural research organization The Hofstede Centre, and its parent company ITIM International, to update media and marketing research first published by the group’s namesake, Dr. Geert Hofstede in 1980.

Much has changed in the media /marketing landscape since then  and the comprehensive update will include a survey of over 60,000 consumers across 52 countries in partnership with Lightspeed GMI, part of Kantar Worldwide, also part of WPP. Once complete, MediaCom said it would have exclusive rights to apply the new data in the field of marketing communications.

The updated research is designed to give multinational advertisers insights on how different cultures and countries respond in different ways to content and media, hopefully providing them with more effective planning choices.

More specifically the agency said the updated work would help identify market clusters and where similar creative and content approaches are likely to work (or not).  The new research may also provide better guidance on how brand spokespeople should be used in different markets, and help advertisers with both the selection of endorsers, and the media strategy and message tonality in different markets.

Also, it’s hoped that the updated research will help marketers design better product launch strategies and provide new cultural training techniques and placement guidelines for marketing managers and employees.

The first set of data is expected to be published in May 2016, and will subsequently be incorporated into MediaCom’s planning process and tools.