Media Channels in a regulated market : A case study of ABSOLUT VODKA

Abstract: It is widely known today that marketing plays an important role for the success of a company. The process of marketing is extremely complicated as it is, thus there are markets where this process is complicated even further. In these regulated markets, factors occur during the launching and marketing of a product that interferes with the marketing activities. In these markets advertisers has to obey to laws and rules on how to advertise their products. One of the most regulated markets today is the one of alcoholic beverages. The two largest consumer countries of alcohol today are the United States and the Republic of China. Even though these countries have some similarities as the two largest consumer markets in the world, laws, regulations and attitude towards alcohol vary greatly between them making the process of penetrating the markets even harder. The purpose with this thesis is to get an understanding of how differences in the choice of media channels in the United States and China can be explained by differences in culture and ways of communication as opposed to legal and ethical restraints. This thesis will be carried out as a case study on ABSOLUT VODKA. The authors have used a qualitative approach to the problem at hand together with structured and unstruc-tured interviews with employees at ABSOLUT VODKA that have knowledge about the American and Chinese market Due to limited contact possibilities the empirical findings will also be based on secondary data. The authors have reached the conclusion that ABSOLUT VODKA has to first of all clearly identify its target group to be able to use the media channels efficiently. The authors believe that differences in media channels between China and the United States can to some extent be explained by differences in culture, communication, regulations and ethics. The concepts that are believed to have most impact are believed to be the ethical and moral considerations. Thus the authors are also of the opinion that the factors mention above has a heavier impact on the design of the advertisement than it does on the choice of media channels operating in a regulated market