Assessing the movement toward, and identifying the impediments to, standardized print advertising

This research investigates print advertisements in the United States and Germany to assess the degree of standardization of specific advertising elements. The results are compared to prior investigation by Mueller (1990), to learn whether print ads have become more or less standardized in the two countries. The results suggest that although nearly all elements of print advertisements have become substantially more standardized since the Mueller study, there are very few completely standardized ads. The authors discuss legal, image and cultural factors that contribute to the enduring differences in print ads from the two countries.