Robert's Globalization Blog

Globalization is the process of diminishing cultural barriers and interacting more and more with each other. From culture to culture, ideas or goods can be shared and interacted due to technology. Media is now reaching across borders and is helping to integrate cultures.  

Due to new technology, Globalization has increased in the last years as well as Glocalization. Glocalization is used to describe a product or service that is developed and distributed globally. Just like Globalization, Glocalization interacts culture with culture in different ways.

A good example of Glocalization is McDonalds. McDonalds is all over the world, but they do not have the same menu for every single one of their locations. In order to be successful McDonalds makes some changes to satisfy the culture where it is located. Some example are :  there are no Big Macs in India due to the fact that Hindu people do not eat beef, McDonalds serves beer in Germany, and in Chile you can dress your burger with avocado paste instead of ketchup. Glocalization allows McDonalds to do this in order to expand and diffuse cultures.

Robert's advertising blog

We see hundreds of advertising commercials every day on television, and every single one of them is trying to get us to buy their product. A recent commercial that I saw and caught my attention was the Life Alert Commercial. An elderly alert system, for when senior citizens fall or need rapid emergency assistance.  During the commercial, they show elderly people falling and accident statistics with the intent to scare their safety and catch their attention.

I feel that elderly people are very vulnerable to this type of commercials.  They hear about senior citizens falling and then they see them on TV on these commercials, they start fearing for themselves. They are using their safety appeal in order get their attention on their product. They see an elderly women fall to the ground and fight desperately to get up and call the medics, but due to her fall she cannot get up and just lay on the floor until someone has to find her. This clearly directed to senior citizens who live alone.

How can they not be scared with images like these shown to them on a daily bases. That if they do not have Life Alert the worst can happen if no one is there to help during a fall or accident.I feel that the commercial is scary and grabs their attention.