From an Empire to Brexit: Globalization and Glocalization in British Advertising

Introduction

In today’s world, shaped and understood through the lens of globalization (especially since the 1980s), common features and similarities between markets, target audiences, products, and marketing messages increasingly attract attention and celebration. However, despite the similarities increasing in global scale caused by technological developments and communicational convenience (Levitt, 1983), culture remains the dominant factor in communication (Singh & Appiah-Adu, 2008, p. 133). This means that although global trade and commerce would prefer a target audience with homogenised tastes, ‘desires and behaviour are not converging’ (De Mooij, 2014, p. 22); therefore, how to address and influence these desires and behaviour remains culturally specific. Douglas and Isherwood (1978) argue that products and culture have a reciprocal relationship in which they shape and carry meaning through each other. On this basis, advertisements act as a front for a culturally established world of consumers and consumer goods (McCracken, 1986). This close connection between culture and, specifically, marketing communication inspires different schools of advertising across several countries and regions.

The United States (US), being the origin country for the theory and thinking of advertising, is considered the benchmark of marketing communication (De Mooij, 2014, p. 273). Comparison between the US and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) reveals the highly constitutive role of culture in advertising, as well as the American impact on British advertising during much of the 20th century. Although these two countries seem superficially alike, sharing a common language, similar political and commercial systems, and Anglo-Saxon history, they are distinguished by their approaches to advertising, resulting from their socioeconomic, geographical, cultural, ideological, and communicational differences (Pigott, 1996, p. 248). To better explain, this chapter follows the early history and development of British advertising and the relations between marketing communication practices in the US and UK. The chapter also unfolds the nature of ownership in British advertising and how US dominance was overcome, aiming to understand what forces shaped the unique characteristics of British advertising such as humour, the soft-sell approach, entertainment value, and class division (Nevett, 1992, p. 65).

To take a snapshot of British advertising, this chapter reviews historical events and phenomena such as colonisation, world wars and the Industrial Revolution that directly affected the British advertising field. The UK’s colonial past, its international relations during and following the First and Second World War, its ability to translate its past to continue to be a powerful player in the modern globalised world, and finally its re-emerging localization through Brexit will be debated. Moreover, to comprehend how British advertising gained its unique identity, the cultural structure of British society and the advertising industry’s political-economic structure are discussed. Through these discussions, this chapter establishes a historical and cultural outline against which to analyse HSBC’s ‘Home To So Much More’ TV commercial.

‘Home To So Much More’ was deemed appropriate for this study because of its close affinity to the Brexit phenomenon and post-Brexit social climate. Its precursor in 2019, the ‘We Are Not An Island’ campaign, was perceived as a direct response to Brexit by the British public. Concerned by being perceived as a strictly global bank for wealthy foreigners, and thus lacking relevance to the British public, HSBC UK has been focusing on what it means to be British and how this naturally entails being international and multicultural too since December 2018, when it first published the commercial titled ‘The Global Citizen’. Therefore, the latest instalment of these efforts provides a unique post-Brexit viewpoint and offers an opportunity to consider what makes an advertising campaign quintessentially British. ‘Home To So Much More’ encompasses complex features of British advertising that can be traced back to the field’s roots, such as geographical, political, local, and multicultural features, along with the use of humour and soft-sell strategies, all in one single ad.