Special Issue Revised Submission

Journal of International Marketing

1-10
Borderless Media: Rethinking International ª American Marketing Association 2020
Article reuse guidelines:

Marketing sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1069031X19897044
journals.sagepub.com/home/jig

Jagdish N. Sheth

Abstract
This article focuses on the impact of digital platforms on international marketing. It describes the evolution of social media and its
influence on marketing. After identifying a typology of context for international marketing, the author identifies and describes five
dimensions of value creation in marketing: access, affordability, acceptance, awareness, and activation. Finally, this article provides
future implications for areas of research in social media and international marketing.

Keywords
cross-cultural marketing, influencer marketing, international marketing, social media, word of mouth

The purpose of this research paper is to analyze, understand,
and propose the impact of social media on international mar-
keting. Similar to the impact of the internet and smartphones,
social media is the next external driver of change, which has the
potential to disrupt and transform international marketing as we
know it today. More than 3.5 billion people are now connected
by social media such as WeChat, Facebook, WhatsApp, Goo-
gle, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Social media will
become virtually universal as more nations invest in the infor-
mation and communication technology infrastructure and pro-
vide internet access to every citizen (Ortiz-Ospina 2019).
Marketing is a context-driven discipline and practice
(Zinkhan and Hirschheim 1992). Context matters in market-
ing, and it matters even more in international marketing. This
is because there are more contextual factors that moderate,
and sometimes mediate, the marketing efforts and plans in
international markets.
As suggested by Sheth and Sisodia (1999), many law-like
generalizations in marketing such as laws of retail generaliza-
tion or location-based distribution and communication are
being questioned with the advent of the internet and the digital
revolution. All over the world, brick-and-mortar-anchored
retailing has been disrupted significantly by online retailers
such as Amazon, Alibaba, Flipkart, and Tencent. It is estimated
that in 2018 alone, 2,800 retail stores were closed down, and
several large retailers (e.g., RadioShack, Toys ‘R’ Us, Sears)
have gone out of business. Many other retail brands, including
some luxury brands, are selectively closing stores (The Fashion
Law 2019; Peterson 2019).
Similarly, newspapers are declining in circulation in most
advanced countries; most likely, they will not be sustainable as
printed copies distributed in the morning and the afternoon
at the subscriber’s doorsteps. All three major advertisers in
local newspapers are shifting their expenditure to digital
media, including social media. These include classified ads,
department stores, and automobile dealers (Pew Research
Center 2019).
Context matters even more in international marketing. The
old debate about standardization (Jain 1989) versus localiza-
tion (Ghemawat 2001) is transcended by trade wars and
tweets from global leaders. Who would have imagined that
liberalization of trade and tariffs in the late 1980s and early
1990s to spark economic growth by establishing the World
Trade Organization regime would be struggling for survival
in less than 30 years? Similarly, given the rise of emerging
markets (Sheth 2011) as the next growth engines and the
aging populations of most advanced economies, researchers
are beginning to shift their focus to markets of China, India,
and Africa.
The context of international marketing is not only dynamic
and volatile but also affected by policy and regulation change
with the rise of populism all over the world. For example,
Brexit will affect not only local UK consumer and capital
markets but also many global enterprises that do business in
the United Kingdom, including the United States, Germany,
France, and the Netherlands. Similarly, the new United
States–Mexico–Canada Agreement treaty replaces the North
American Free Trade Agreement, bringing about changes in
Jagdish N. Sheth is Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing, Goizueta
Business School, Emory University, USA (email: jagdish.sheth@emory.edu).
2 Journal of International Marketing XX(X)
Technological advances Social media
Global Environmental e-commerce
sustainability Emerging markets
Capital markets
(c) (d)
Markets (a) (b)
Economic Development Demographics
Public Policy (Fiscal and Culture
Domestic
Monetary) Values and lifestyles
Marketing Infrastructure Unbranded competition
Macro Micro
Forces
Figure 1. Typology of context of international marketing.
the supply chain in North America. All over the world, global
supply chains anchored to China as the manufacturing capital
of the world are in turbulence.
I first provide a typology of context for international mar-
keting and then offer definitions, dimensions, and worldwide
growth of social media. This is followed by a discussion on the
impact of social media on international markets and its impli-
cations for the practices and the perspectives for international
marketing.
Context of International Marketing
As mentioned previously, the context of international market-
ing is more complex. There are many factors that moderate and
mediate between marketing plans and programs and desired
outcomes such as growth, loyalty, market share, and margins
(Katsikeas, Samiee, and Theodosiou 2006; Schilke, Reimann,
and Thomas 2009).
Figure 1 provides a typology of the context for international
marketing based on two factors: market scope and external
forces. It is a 2  2 typology of context; the market scope
dimension reflects whether the market is domestic or global,
and it categorizes the context into macro versus micro external
forces. That creates four distinct contexts for international mar-
keting: domestic-macro, global-macro, domestic-micro, and
global-micro. I have provided some examples of each of these
contextual situations for each cell. For example, at the bottom
left (cell a), domestic-macro (aggregate-nation-level) context is
represented by local compliance (regulations and laws), eco-
nomic development, and domestic fiscal and monetary policy
to which international marketing needs to be adjusted for stra-
tegic fit.
Similarly, in cell b, international marketing must be adjusted
to domestic-micro (household-level) forces that are represented
by demographics (including aging of population, working
women, ethnic diversity, declining middle class, and living
alone by choice) as well as by consumer culture (values and
lifestyles) and unbranded competition (Prahalad and Hammond
2002; Sheth 2011).
In cell c, representing the global-macro context, interna-
tional marketing may be affected by the level of technological
advances, concern for sustainability of the environment (Apte
and Sheth, 2016), and development of capital markets in the
specific market context. Finally, in cell d, which represents the
global-micro context, international marketing strategies may
need to be adjusted due to the rise of the new brand-
conscious middle class, particularly in the emerging markets
(Burgess and Steenkamp 2006); diffusion and development of
global e-commerce; and the extent of use of social media by the
people in specific international markets.
The context of international marketing is complex, dynamic,
and often unpredictable. Several international marketing scho-
lars have attempted to provide context-based explanations and
empirical support for why products flourish in one market and
fizzle in another (Kashani 1989; Kernan and Sommers 1967;
Yoder, Visich, and Rustambekov 1986).
Tsunami of Social Media
In my view, the context of social media will be more disruptive
and transformative than any other mass media (e.g., print,
radio, television) in shaping the future of international market-
ing. This is because social media, after all, is word of mouth
(WOM) on steroids. Since the early days of communities,
bazaars, international trade, and commerce, WOM has been a
major influencer (Chevalier and Mayzlin 2006; Trusov, Buck-
lin, and Pauwels 2009).
According to Nielsen’s global trust in advertising report
(Grimes 2012), 92% of consumers around the world say they
still trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends
and family, above all other forms of advertising.
“Recommendations from people I know” (92%) is followed
by “Consumer opinions posted online” (70%).
Historically, WOM influence was local (neighbors
recommending neighbors) and oral. Social media has made
WOM global with the richness of text and video communi-
cation. Historically, WOM was anchored to opinion leader-
ship, in which a handful of local community leaders acted
as either gatekeepers or influencers. In contrast, social
media is more egalitarian and interactive. Today, through
social media, what was once referred to as “six degrees of
separation” has further reduced to two to three degrees of
separation between two people anywhere in the world (Bha-
gat et al. 2016; Christley 2017).
The explosive growth of social media is simply mind
numbing. As Figure 2 shows, the number of people on social
media platforms (monthly active users) reached more than two
billion in 2018 on Facebook alone. This will soon be followed
by YouTube and WhatsApp in less than five years. A new
nation has emerged, referred to as the “Facebook Nation”; it
is larger in population than China and India and is truly trans-
national (as opposed to international) and subject to less regu-
lation of traditional jurisdictions. Social media seems to have
developed a truly global village and global mindset, along with
e-commerce marketplaces such as Alibaba and Amazon. The
Sheth
Figure 2. Exponential growth of social media.
Source: Statista and TNW (2019).
Figure 3. Use of social media in international markets.
Sources: statista; statista DMO 2019 (https://www.statista.com/statis-
tics/278341/number-of-social-network-users-in-selected-countries/).
use and reach of social media in international markets is quite
pervasive, as Figure 3 shows. Ironically, while social media is
reducing the between-country differences, it is also increasing
within-country differences since its use is diffused across all
socioeconomic classes. In other words, international marketing
is becoming more like domestic marketing, from a social media
perspective.
Traditionally, global marketing plans were developed in a
brand’s headquarters and tailored to cater to the needs of large
markets. More recently, the emergence of social media has led
brands to embrace global marketing at a much deeper level.
The lines between separate markets have become blurred. Digi-
tal campaigns in one region inevitably “leak” to others through
3
social media channels, as do the public comments, reactions,
and opinions to them (whether positive or negative). In other
words, it is becoming increasingly difficult for international
brands to contain themselves within single markets as local
issues seldom remain local (Berthon et al. 2012).
There are several comparative advantages of social media
compared with traditional mass media. Social media generates
enormous user-generated content in text, voice, and video. The
best example is YouTube, on which more than 500 hours of
video content is posted every minute and over 5 billion videos
are watched everyday (https://www.omnicoreagency.com/you
tube-statistics/). Second, social media has significant network
effects (Katona, Zubcsek, and Sarvary 2011; Liangfei, Tang,
and Whinston 2015), which enables a given user-generated text
or video message to go viral with millions of viewers within a
short amount of time (Bonner 2013). All social media have
global reach, whether it is friends on Facebook or messages
on WhatsApp. Finally, social media is interactive and, there-
fore, more engaging than traditional media. In the next section,
I discuss the impact of social media on international marketing.
Five Dimensions of Value Creation in
International Marketing
Since the 1950s, there has been significant academic research
in international marketing as more companies and industries
(particularly from the United States) began to invest in foreign
countries and became truly multinational. Prior research on
trade (exports) shifted to marketing as the United States began
to invest in foreign markets with a focus on marketing com-
munication, branding, and local distribution. From the 1960s
through the 1990s, the focus was on international opportuni-
ties and challenges. Books and articles were written on inter-
national business blunders and marketing mistakes (Dalgic
and Heijblom 1986; Ricks 2006). The classic debate was
standardization versus localization, epitomized by Levitt
(1983), on the one side, arguing that standardization is a better
marketing strategy as it provides efficiency and better finan-
cial returns, and by Ghemawat (2001), on the other side, who
argued that distance matters because of cultural, administra-
tive, geographic, and economic development differences
between countries. This led to a new hybrid model called
“glocal” (“think global, act local”), first coined by Honda
(Quelch and Hoff, 1986) and followed by most industrial
manufacturers including General Electric, General Motors,
and General Dynamics.
More recently, with the rise of emerging markets as the
growth engines, this debate has morphed into a third paradigm,
called “Reverse Innovation,” in which advanced-country mul-
tinationals innovate in emerging markets by focusing on
affordability and accessibility challenges and then globally
marketing the successful innovations in the underserved mar-
kets of advanced countries. This has been especially the case in
the medical device and prescription drug industries.
Ultimately, the role of international marketing is to create
value specific to each country or the region outside its domestic
4 Journal of International Marketing XX(X)
Activation Access
(Offering and (Affordability and
Engagements) Convenience)
5 1
Awareness Affordability
(Product and 4 2 (Ability to Pay
3 “Iron Curtain” policy, and seems to be true today for countries
Brand and Willingness
Awareness) to Pay)
Acceptance
(Functional and
Psychological)
Figure 4. Five characteristics of international marketing differences.
market. What works domestically may not work internation-
ally. Adapting the 4As framework of Sheth and Sisodia (2012),
I propose five dimensions of value creation for customers that
account for differences between domestic and international
markets (Figure 4): (1) access, (2) affordability, (3) acceptance,
(4) awareness, and (5) activation differences.
Access differences in international marketing have two
dimensions: availability and convenience. Availability is
directly related to more macro factors, including regulations
(e.g., product safety, product standards) and infrastructure
(e.g., physical, financial, and informational technology). Com-
mon examples are specialty chemicals, such as pharmaceutical,
agricultural, and industrial chemicals, as well as automobiles
and appliances for which there are cross-border differences.
Convenience, in contrast, is more anchored to micro factors,
such as ordering and delivery of products and services. This is
especially true for services such as health care, education, and
financial services offered across international markets.
Affordability differences between markets have two
dimensions: ability to pay and willingness to pay. In gen-
eral, antecedents to ability to pay are measured by per
capita income, savings, wealth, and borrowing power
(credit) of household markets and comparable measures for
the business markets. Antecedents for willingness to pay are
wants and desires (aspirations) as well as personal values.
They are more micro in nature.
The third aspect of international market differences is
acceptance of the products and services. Again, there are two
dimensions of acceptance: functional and psychological. Func-
tional acceptance is represented by the quality, reliability, or
performance of the product or service. The antecedents to these
functional differences are generally embedded in countries’
safety standards, climate, and market competitiveness. In con-
trast, psychological acceptance is driven by reference groups,
feelings of nationalism, brand reputation, and emotional attach-
ment to the brand. While functional acceptance is more
anchored to macro factors, psychological acceptance is more
anchored to the micro-level antecedents.
The fourth cross-national difference is awareness. The two
dimensions of awareness are product awareness and brand
awareness. Again, more macro antecedents tend to generate
heterogeneity between countries, with respect to product
awareness. For example, a product may not be allowed by
regulation, or the country may have policy of isolationism from
the world. This was the case with the Soviet Union, with its
such as North Korea and Myanmar.
Countries also vary with respect to brand awareness. For
example, some countries have many domestic brands, of which
the rest of the world is unaware. This seems to be especially
true of nations with large domestic markets, such as the United
States and India. Therefore, going global is often not necessary.
The antecedents for brand awareness tend to be more micro
factors associated with individual customers. One would
expect greater variance between countries with respect to brand
awareness compared with product awareness.
The fifth and final dimension on which countries vary is
activation. Activation has two dimensions: offers and engage-
ment. Offers include sales promotions and event-based dis-
counts such as Black Friday in the United States, Christmas
in Europe, Singles’ Day in China, and Diwali in India. Again,
the antecedents to activation offers often tend to be more
macro, such as government policy and national holidays. In
contrast, engagement activation, which includes social media
activity, viral campaigns, and customer experience, is usually
more anchored to micro factors such as a household’s brand
loyalty and level of social media participation.
Overall, social media can cause a groundswell of support in
international markets by not only shaping views and public
opinion but also creating value on all five dimensions. For exam-
ple, social media can provide access value by informing cus-
tomers in foreign markets about the availability of products and
services; offer convenience of faster, easier, and on-demand
access during micro-moments of need, especially when custom-
ers want to know, want to go, want to do, want to say, or want to
buy. Social media addresses the immediacy versus context
needs of customers and integrates access with experiences.
Overall, it creates more simplicity in access for customers.
Affordability value is achieved through both precision mar-
keting to identify the relevant target audience that has the ability
to pay and creating wants and desires among this audience,
thereby affecting willingness to pay. The social contagion effect
on willingness to pay is accentuated through social media engage-
ments, particularly through reviews and recommendations that
assure customers that the price is worth the value being offered.
Both the functional and psychological acceptance of prod-
ucts and services are accentuated when potential customers are
able to see their reference groups use a product or when they
are emotionally attached to a brand. The value-in-use
demonstration of a product among social media mem-
bers—who may be geographically separated by thousands
of miles but are emotionally connected to one another—has
Sheth
the power to bridge the psychic distance often talked about
in international marketing. It is more powerful than general
advertising, which tries to make cultural and subcultural
adjustments in a mass media message across nations. In
particular, images and videos of products’ and services’
value-in-use shared on social media energize friends across
foreign (and domestic) markets. An example of this is
Airbnb, which encourages sharing of experiences and neigh-
borhood happenings wherever people are visiting to create
social acceptance for the places and properties that friends
or other social media members have been to.
Through buzz feed content marketing and contextual adver-
tising (including within-app advertising), social media can
quickly build awareness for products and brands across domes-
tic and global markets. By tapping into potential customer net-
works and amplifying the WOM effect through engagement
(likes, comments, posts, shares, retweets, sentiment emojis, and
reviews and recommendations), international marketers can
create awareness value in desired international markets. Beha-
vioral targeting and retargeting, as well as identifying similar
audience lookalikes, is made possible through social media
platforms, thus making awareness value creation more precise,
effective and efficient.
Many firms have used social media to effectively create
activation value as well. For example, many brands and com-
panies (e.g., Reynolds, Ziploc, Unilever, Procter & Gamble)
have activated market entry and launched new products on
e-commerce and social media sites even before bringing their
products into the traditional retail channels in some foreign
markets. The social media platform makes it both more con-
venient and less expensive to launch the sales promotion activ-
ity for targeted customers. It also allows for personalization and
customization of offerings and messages. In fact, personalized
experiences for existing and new customers can be easily
achieved through social media and precision marketing. Social
media also provides the ability to target promotions according
to customer life cycles (e.g., children growing up with fast-
changing needs for diapers, young adults’ changing economic
status and life-stage financial needs).
In addition to events and sales promotion, activation value
can also be created by engaging customers in collaborative
activities that help build the enterprise—for example, inviting
customers to collaborate for cocreation, codesign, codevelop-
ment, and comarketing in foreign markets. Several companies
have succeeded in creating groundswell in both domestic and
international markets by leveraging social technologies to talk,
listen, help, energize, and embrace existing and potential cus-
tomers on social media (Li and Bernoff 2011). Carefully planned
activities can yield very significant results in value creation.
Rethinking International Marketing
As discussed previously, the impact of social media on inter-
national marketing will be transformative. In the process, it will
generate new research opportunities.
5
Policy-Driven Think Local,
Deconsumption Act Global
International
Value in Use
8 1 Marketing Goes
7 2 Domestic
6 3
WOM Goes
Cocreation 5 4 Viral
of Value (Influencer
Marketing)
Global Virtual
Online First
Communities
Figure 5. Rethinking international marketing.
In Figure 5, I have provided a list of several new areas of
research as marketing practice shifts from international to
transnational and from physical (brick and mortar) to digital
marketing.
International Marketing Goes Domestic
Most of the research in international marketing is to identify
cultural, infrastructural, and administrative factors and how
they influence the marketing of products abroad. The five char-
acteristics of value creation in international marketing differ-
ences (access, affordability, acceptance, awareness, and
activation) are today equally important in many domestic mar-
kets that are becoming increasingly heterogeneous with respect
to faith, income, and lifestyles. This is manifested today in
mainstream supermarkets and big box stores that carry prod-
ucts from all over the world. Thus, the divide between interna-
tional and domestic marketing is not clearly visible. In
particular, the rise of social media and its ability to engage
people across geographies in unique and multifaceted customer
networks is reducing the distinct international differences, at
least between nationalities and regions.
WOM Goes Viral
Both WOM and opinion leadership theories were anchored to
local and rural communities in which the local neighbors pro-
vided advice, recommendation, and information. Today, WOM
anchored to personal experiences has generated a large and
almost unlimited number of influencers whose opinions,
advice, and recommendations travel globally. Influencer mar-
keting is one of the fastest-growing areas of advertising and
sponsorship. According to Business Insider Intelligence, it has
ballooned from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $8 billion in 2019 and is
estimated to cross $15 billion mark by 2022. As e-commerce
and social media converge, the influencers are becoming vital
connects between the brands and the consumers. In fact, there
6 Journal of International Marketing XX(X)
are some new emerging influencer types with considerable
impact, such as “kidfluencers,” gaming influencers, and virtual
influencers (Schomer 2019).
Think Local, Act Global
The next frontier of research and practice will be “think local,
act global.” It will replace the axiom “think global, act local”
(the glocal perspective). Many of the ancient grains and heri-
tage street foods embedded in local cultures are today available
on global e-commerce and market exchanges. For example, the
most popular convenient food in the United Kingdom today is
Indian tikka masala curry, which has displaced traditional fish
and chips. This is not limited to foods and fashion; Eastern
spiritual traditions such as yoga and meditation have experi-
enced similar globalization. Finally, today there is reverse
innovation (Immelt, Govindrajan, and Trimble 2009) from
emerging markets to advanced markets, especially in the con-
text of medicine and medical devices invented to overcome the
affordability and the accessibility barriers in emerging markets.
As consumption cultures expand beyond borders and local
becomes more global, international marketing will need a sub-
stantive rethink in its orientation.
Online First
Social media, even more than the internet and smartphones, has
prompted consumers and customers to think online first. What
was peripheral in marketing is becoming the core, and what is
core today (physical stores and shopping centers) is becoming
peripheral due to lack of access in rural areas or due to the
hassle of physical shopping in metro areas.
Online first, by definition, blurs the jurisdictional bound-
aries of nations and markets. Online first is becoming the new
normal, with respect to searching for information (Google
search), conversations (social media), commerce (Amazon
and Alibaba), and consumption (user reviews and ratings).
It is estimated that in most markets, more than 75% of con-
sumers do research and comparisons of products and prices
online first before they visit an automobile dealer. The
“webrooming” process of checking online first before visiting
a store is now a prevalent consumer practice around the world.
Its opposite practice, “showrooming,” in which a customer
first visits the store to determine their product choice and then
buys online for the cheaper price and convenience, is also
becoming a norm in many countries (Business Today 2019;
Kang 2018). Both are due to increasing omnichannel presence
by brands as well as the high propensity of digital natives to
easily switch between channels and apps; thus, webrooming
and showrooming are happening simultaneously across mar-
kets and even national borders.
Growth of Global Virtual Communities
A major impact of social media platforms is the spectacular
growth of transnational virtual communities (Sheth and
Solomon, 2014). A virtual community is a social network
of individuals who interact through a specific social medium
on topics of mutual interest crossing geographic boundaries.
As society shifts from “kinship” (tribal/family bonding) to
“friendship” relationships, virtual communities are increas-
ingly shifting from the local to the global areas for sensory
interaction and participation.
In China, wang hun, or online marriage, is a good example
of a phenomenon in which people become online friends, then
online lovers, and, finally, have an online wedding—all with-
out meeting in person (Sheth 2018). There are also several
thriving virtual global communities, such as Second Life and
Farmville, which enable users to access a virtual life and satisfy
real human emotions and desires in the process. Professional
executives have been known to rush home to milk their virtual
cows in time on Farmville.
Finally, in a classic article, Belk (1988) articulates how
possessions (e.g., art objects, stamp collections, home
decor) reflect the extended self on the physical world. Now,
it is increasingly popular to extend the self in the digital
world through avatars and digital objects as collections.
This can also occur across national borders and boundaries.
Lamberton and Stephen (2016) observe that one of the most
prominent themes of scholarly research between 2000 and
2015 is on digital, social media, and mobile marketing
related to self-expression. The trend is likely to continue,
as digital self-expression is more satisfying than physical
expression to many because it enhances their self-image,
and social media provides a global platform to create self-
image and identity. Friends and acquaintances form opi-
nions about a person on the basis of their social media
activity. It represents the current connected global life that
can be lived from one’s own cubicle.
Cocreation of Value
Marketing is all about creating value for the customer. There
are three dimensions of a customer: a customer is a user, a
buyer, and a payer. In business-to-business markets, each role
is specialized by a department (i.e., production, procurement,
and finance). The user looks for performance value. This is
achieved by total quality management, mass customization,
service differentiations, and product innovation. The payer is
looking for price value. This is delivered by the marketer
through financing credit and price discounts (economic value).
Finally, a customer is also a buyer and the buyer seeks service
value. Service value is often offered through easy access, easy-
to-do business, and personalization. In addition, social media
can be leveraged to create augmented value by providing
information value (market or product use information); devel-
opmental value (product, market, or skill development);
social-emotional value (through recognition and rewards); and
strategic partnering value (access to potential customers or new
markets) as in the case of key account or loyalty programs.
Value creation is also shifting to value cocreation between
the marketer and the customer. Companies such as Nike
Sheth
provide online tools to their customers to design their own
sneakers. Cocreation is not limited to product design but
extends to marketing campaigns. Recently, Converse per-
suaded a large number of loyal customers to come up with their
own video advertisements for the brand. Similarly, Frito-Lay
has successfully crowdsourced advertisements for its Super
Bowl commercials. Cocreation enables brands to leverage con-
sumers to do things that are both free both to promote and free
to produce; yet, the product ownership remains intact.
In a world of social media without borders, cocreation of
value is destined to grow on a global basis. Cross-cultural
creativity on a global basis is likely to be an excellent area of
research in international marketing.
Value in Use
Marketing’s foundation has been value in exchange between
the buyer and the seller through market transactions. In the
process, marketing and selling are often perceived to be syno-
nyms, and their boundaries are blurred. Digital technology in
general, and social media in particular, shifts the focus of mar-
keting to users and their postpurchase consumption and experi-
ences. A product or service generates significant value in use.
In fact, user-generated content in social media often takes the
form of sharing experiences of ongoing consumption. User-
generated content is also manifested in user ratings.
Value in use is increasingly becoming global, thanks to the
popularity of social media. Because social media usage data are
often in the public domain, it is easier to do research on how
cross-cultural and cross-national differences affect value in
use. Social rating sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, and even
specific brand communities, such as Beauty Insider by
Sephora, have global reach and influence in helping other cus-
tomers determine their forthcoming choices based on value in
use to others.
Policy-Mandated Consumption and Deconsumption
The final area of research opportunity in international market-
ing is the impact of public policy on consumption of societally
good products and practices, and the deconsumption of socie-
tally and personally harmful products and practices. Market
failures, especially in emerging markets, have resulted in the
use of public policy to develop markets through mandatory
consumption. Examples include online payment systems such
as M-Pesa in Kenya and other African countries, or India’s
mobile phone platform Aadhaar, which is linked to an individ-
ual’s bank account. There are of course, many more illustra-
tions of mandatory deconsumption such as alcohol; cigarette
smoking; opioid use; and, more recently, vaping. In interna-
tional marketing, academic research on developing and shaping
the market through public policy is limited. Research is also
limited because public policy is treated as either a mediator or a
moderator variable, and not as the antecedent. With the rise of
the emerging markets, public policy is bound to have an
increasing role in developing and directing the markets for
7
questionable goods and services (Kotler 2019). Increasing uni-
versality of social media and digital technology will enable
policy-driven market development.
Implications for Practice
Social media without borders will have significant implications
for the future of international marketing practice. First, it will
require unlearning previous marketing practices such as gloca-
lization and local branding of products and services. Most of
the knowledge anchored to brick-and-mortar marketing across
borders may not be generalizable in the world of social media.
For example, the traditional methods and measures of segmen-
tation, targeting, and positioning anchored to economic criteria
such as per capita income or standard of living may be less
useful in the future. Instead, segmenting customers on the basis
of their social media behavior may be necessary. Social media
has democratized, and will continue to democratize, access to
information, communication, and influence. It will also reduce
differences related to access, affordability, acceptance, aware-
ness, and activation between countries. Marketing managers
will have to think about pan-national markets first and segment
the market on a different set of criteria (especially noneco-
nomic) as well as invest in virtual communities. In fact, truly
multinational companies such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook,
Tata, Haier, Amazon, Alibaba, and Walmart can create their
own virtual communities and develop large followers of loyal
customers across the world. WeChat and Amazon Prime are
early indicators of this trend.
Second, just as television, including cable television, has
replaced print media, social media will replace television as
we know it today. Consequently, the prophetic prediction by
Marshall McLuhan (1964, 1967) that “medium is the message”
is becoming increasingly relevant as media channels are becom-
ing limitless in the YouTube age. Today, anybody can have their
own YouTube channel or Twitter presence. In other words, just
as print media shaped society to be more individualistic, social
media will amplify it with a vengeance. Indeed, many consumers
are also becoming brand ambassadors through their social media
channels and marketing activities. As McLuhan predicted, the
world will become a “global village” where social groups
(tribes) will become more prevalent and displace the nation-
states. International marketing managers will have to target their
communication and campaigns to these global villages in the
new world of social media tribes.
Fortunately, it is more feasible and measurable to analyze
and segment the market today than through the traditional
methods of country-by-country analysis. This is because mea-
sures and definitions are standardized by technology, and all
the demographic and psychographic indicators allow for a bet-
ter count (census) of each tribal group. This is especially true if
one is looking for transnational tribes or social groups.
Finally, international marketing managers can learn to use
public policy for developing markets, especially in countries
where market forces are likely to fail. As mentioned previ-
ously, it is possible to mandate good consumption (e.g., school
8 Journal of International Marketing XX(X)
meal programs, sex education, meditation) and ban bad con-
sumption (e.g., vaping, drinking and driving, drug abuse). In
India, there is a mandatory requirement for each company to
spend at least 2% of its net profits on corporate social respon-
sibility activities. In 2018, India was estimated to have gener-
ated more than $5 billion dollars allocated to well-defined
categories of corporate social responsibility programs ranging
from employee training and preventative health to environmen-
tal protection and community development.
Implications for Research
Social media will also have dramatic impact on scholarly work.
Whereas previous research has been based on large surveys,
which are usually ad hoc and cross-sectional, social media will
encourage researchers in international markets to learn data
mining, natural language processing, block chain, and analysis
of artificial intelligence (AI) applications in different contexts
and countries.
One such area of future research is exploring how WOM
goes viral. There are no accepted theories or constructs about
international WOM, whether it is social media driven or in
person. Today, we have access to longitudinal data on Twitter,
Facebook, and WeChat that are mostly in the public domain
and therefore accessible for research.
Second, value in use will, by definition, vary from country
to country because local infrastructure and policy mandates
will influence consumption. In some countries, the value in
use may be anchored to the family; in other countries, it may
be anchored to the community. This may be especially true of
postconsumption waste disposal and conservation efforts
through recycling, reuse, and reducing consumption. The role
and effect of social media on fostering more mindful con-
sumption and postconsumption behavior would be of great
research interest.
A third area of research opportunity is the impact of AI
on marketing of products and services. This includes robots
as personal assistants in stores (Lowe’s has experimented
with greeting robots) and at home. Will consumers consider
robots with AI to be great companions? Will branded robots
bond better with consumers? No one knows for sure. How-
ever, it is not difficult to conduct a large-scale experimental
study internationally and discover the differences. Social
media would be a good platform to gather both research
data and market intelligence on consumer feelings, senti-
ments, and intentions.
Finally, cross-cultural research on the impact of policy deci-
sions on marketing is limited. We need a theory of market
development through public–private partnerships. Indeed, a
trilateral partnership between academic universities, govern-
ments, and industry is increasingly becoming a reality in health
and education. In a world of environmental concerns due to
climate change, the study of partnerships between business,
community, and local governments is elevated. The recent
Paris Agreement is one such example. In addition, the Millen-
nium Development Goals established by the United Nations
(profit, planet, and people) constitute another area of signifi-
cant research opportunity.
It is interesting to note that while marketing is perceived
negatively in for-profit companies, it is considered a positive
force in the nonprofit sector. There are some good experiments
going on at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and at nongovernmen-
tal organizations focused on market development. The latter
includes Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, Habitat for Humanity
all over the world, and several initiatives funded by the World
Bank and several United Nations agencies. Marketing tools and
techniques seem to be extremely valuable if utilized in the
nonbusiness settings. These and other nonprofit organizations
and government institutions are increasingly utilizing social
media marketing tools to promote their projects and ideas.
Final Thoughts
The tsunami of social media is real. It will affect international
marketing more dramatically and far sooner than we all antici-
pated. The sheer numbers are staggering: Facebook, YouTube,
WhatsApp, and Instagram each have a billion or more users. As
mentioned previously, the largest nations in population are no
longer China and India; they are Facebook and YouTube. Users
today transcend not only geographic and jurisdictional bound-
aries but also social, cultural, and economic boundaries among
consumers and customers. The connected consumers have their
own customer networks, which in turn have their own market
power. Consumers can give or block access to these networks
and may amplify the marketing messages for a brand within
their own networks through information sharing. With a high
degree of richness and reach, the network effect of social media
can be an effective branding tool (Gao et al. 2018).
Therefore, although the five dimensions of value creation
(access, affordability, acceptance, awareness, and activation)
are anchored to local cultures and regulations, consumer
aspirations are now converging globally. This will result in
blurring of domestic versus international markets and market-
ing practices.
Surprisingly, international marketing, which studies differ-
ences between countries, will be more useful in domestic mar-
kets, which are becoming more heterogeneous with respect to
income, wealth, and lifestyles. Similarly, WOM, which was
historically local (neighbors talking to neighbors), will go glo-
bal and viral. Therefore, it will be important to study influen-
cers who have global reach on social media instead of the
traditional local opinion leaders.
In addition, what was peripheral (online search and com-
merce) will become core as society transforms itself into digital
natives. What is core (physical shopping) today will become
peripheral. Showrooming may give way to webrooming.
Finally, we need to study the growth of global virtual com-
munities such as Second Life and Farmville. They are some-
times more emotionally satisfying to people than the real
world. This phenomenon of people “living” more in virtual
communities than in local communities will have significant
Sheth
impact on marketing in general (branding, communications,
and service), and not just international marketing. The
research opportunities in international marketing, and espe-
cially in international media and communication, are price-
less. Fortunately, access to large-scale data and highly
automated analytics will make this research less challenging
and more productive.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks the reviewers for their constructive comments and
suggestions. He is particularly grateful to Atul Parvatiyar (Texas
Tech) for revising the article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
References
Apte, Suhas and Jagdish N. Sheth (2016), The Sustainability Edge:
How to Drive Top-Line Growth with Triple-Bottom-Line Thinking.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Belk, Russell W. (1988), “Possessions and the Extended Self,” Jour-
nal of Consumer Research, 15 (2), 139–68.
Berthon, Pierre R., Leyland F. Pitt, Kirk Plangger, and Daniel Shapiro
(2012), “Marketing Meets Web 2.0, Social Media, and Creative
Consumers: Implications for International Marketing Strategy,”
Business Horizons, 55 (3), 261–71.
Bhagat, Smriti, Moira Burke, Carlos Diuk, Ismail Onur Filiz, and
Sergey Edunov (2016), “Three and a Half Degrees of Separation,”
Facebook Research (February 4), https://research.fb.com/three-
and-a-half-degrees-of-separation/.
Bonner, Tomica (2013), “Network Effects of Social Media,” Business
2 Community (May 24), https://www.business2community.com/
social-media/network-effects-of-social-media-0504384.
Burgess, Steven M. and Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp (2006),
“Marketing Renaissance: How Research in Emerging Markets
Advances Marketing Science and Practice,” International Journal
of Research in Marketing, 23 (4), 337–56.
Business Today (2019), “Online Shopping Trend: Showrooming,
Webrooming Becoming Norm in Asia,” (March 25), https://
www.businesstoday.com.my/2019/03/25/online-shopping-trend-
showrooming-webrooming-becoming-norm-in-asia/.
Chevalier, Judith A. and Dina Mayzlin (2006), “The Effect of Word of
Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews,” Journal of Marketing
Research, 43 (2), 345–54.
Christley, Scott (2017), “The World Is Shrinking: 6 Degrees of
Separation Is Now 2!” Digital Doughnut (August 9), https://
www.digitaldoughnut.com/articles/2017/august/6-degrees-of-
separation-is-now-2.
Dalgic, Tefik and Rudd Heijblom (1986), “Educator Insights: Inter-
national Marketing Blunders Revisited—Some Lessons Learned
9
from Managers,” Journal of International Marketing, 4 (1),
81–91.
Gao, Hongzhi, Mary Tate, Hongxia Zhang, Shijiao Chen, and Brian
Lang (2018), “Social Media Ties Strategy in International Brand-
ing: An Application of Resource-Based Theory,” Journal of Inter-
national Marketing, 26 (3), 45–69.
Ghemawat, Pankaj (2001), “Distance Still Matters: The Hard Reality
of Global Expansion,” Harvard Business Review, 79 (8), 137–47.
Grimes, Marissa (2012), “Global Consumers’ Trust in ‘Earned’
Advertising Grows in Importance,” Nielsen (April 10), https://
www.nielsen.com/us/en/press-releases/2012/nielsen-global-consu
mers-trust-in-earned-advertising-grows/.
Immelt, Jeffrey R., Vijay Govindrajan, and Chris Trimble (2009),
“How GE Is Disrupting Itself,” Harvard Business Review, 87
(10), 56–65.
Jain, Subhash C. (1989), “Standardization of International Marketing
Strategy: Some Research Hypotheses,” Journal of Marketing, 53
(1), 70–79.
Kang, Ju-Young M. (2018), “Showrooming, Webrooming, and User-
Generated Content Creation in the Omnichannel Era,” Journal of
Internet Commerce, 17 (2), 145–69.
Kashani, Kamran (1989), “Beware of the Pitfalls of Global Market-
ing,” Harvard Business Review (September/October), https://hbr.
org/1989/09/beware-the-pitfalls-of-global-marketing.
Katona, Zsolt, Peter Pal Zubcsek, and Miklos Sarvary (2011),
“Network Effects and Personal Influences: The Diffusion of an
Online Social Network,” Journal of Marketing Research, 48 (3),
425–43.
Katsikeas, Constantine S., Saeed Samiee, and Marios Theodosiou
(2006), “Strategy Fit and Performance Consequences of Interna-
tional Marketing Standardization,” Strategic Management
Journal, 27 (9), 867–90.
Kernan, Jerome B. and Montrose S. Sommers (1967), “Meaning,
Value, and the Theory of Promotion”, Journal of Communication,
17 (2), 109–35.
Kotler, Philip (2019), “Should Governments Regulate Questionable
Goods and Services?” in Handbook of Marketing Advances in an
Era of Disruptions: Essays in Honour of Jagdish N. Sheth, Atul
Parvatiyar and Rajendra Sisodia, eds. New Delhi: SAGE Publica-
tions, 51–63.
Lamberton, Cait and Andrew T. Stephen (2016), “A Thematic Explo-
ration of Digital, Social Media, and Mobile Marketing: Research
Evolution from 2000 to 2015 and an Agenda for Future Inquiey,”
Journal of Marketing, 80 (6), 146–72.
Levitt, Theodore (1983), “The Globalization of Markets,” Harvard
Business Review, 61 (3), 92–102.
Li, Charlene and Josh Bernoff (2011), Groundswell: Winning in a
World Transformed by Social Technologies—Expanded and
Revised Edition. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.
Liangfei Qiu, Tang Qian, and Andrew B. Whinston (2015). “Two For-
mulas for Success in Social Media: Learning and Network Effects,”
Journal of Management Information Systems, 32 (4), 78–108.
McLuhan, Marshall (1964), Understanding Media: The Extensions of
Man. New York: McGraw-Hill.
McLuhan, Marshall (1967), The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory
of Effects. New York: Random House.
10
Ortiz-Ospina, Esteban (2019), “The Rise of Social Media,” Our World
in Data (September 18), https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-
media.
Peterson, Hayley (2019), “More Than 9,300 Stores Are Closing in
2019 as the Retail Apocalypse Drags On—Here’s the Full List,”
Business Insider (November 26), https://www.businessinsider.
com/stores-closing-in-2019-list-2019-3#freds-520-stores-5.
Pew Research Center (2019), “Newspapers Fact Sheet,” (July 9),
https://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/.
Prahalad, C.K. and Allen Hammond (2002), “Serving the World’s
Poor, Profitably,” Harvard Business Review, 80 (5), 48–57.
Quelch, John A. and Edward J. Hoff (1986), “Customizing Global
Marketing,” Harvard Business Review, 64 (3), 59–68.
Ricks, David A. (2006), Blunders in International Business, 4th ed.
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Schilke, Oliver, Martin Reimann, and Jacquelyn S. Thomas (2009),
“When Does International Marketing Standardization Matter to Firm
Performance?” Journal of International Marketing, 17 (4), 24–46.
Schomer, Audrey (2019), “Influencer Marketing 2019: Why Brands
Can’t Get Enough of an $8 Billion Ecosystem Driven by Karda-
shians, Moms and Tweens,” Business Insider, (July 15), https://
www.businessinsider.com/the-2019-influencer-marketing-report-
2019-7.
Sheth, Jagdish N. (2011), “Impact of Emerging Markets on Marketing:
Rethinking Existing Prspectives and Practices,” Journal of Mar-
keting, 75 (4), 166–82.
Journal of International Marketing XX(X)
Sheth, Jagdish N. (2018), “How Social Media Will Impact Marketing
Media,” in Social Media Marketing: Emerging Concepts and
Applications, Githa Heggde and G. Shainesh, eds. Singapore: Pal-
grave Macmillan, 3–18.
Sheth, Jagdish N. and Rajendra S. Sisodia (1999), “Revisiting Market-
ing’s Lawlike Generalizations,” Journal of the Academy of Mar-
keting Sciences, 27 (1), 71–87.
Sheth, Jagdish N. and Rajendra S. Sisodia (2012), The 4A’s of Mar-
keting: Creating Value for Customers, Companies and Society.
New York: Routledge.
Sheth, Jagdish N. and Michael R. Solomon (2014), “Extending the
Extended Self in a Digital World,” Journal of Marketing Theory
and Practice, 22 (2), 123–32.
The Fashion Law (2019), “Retail Woes: A Running List of Fashion
Bankruptcies,” (September 30), https://www.thefashionlaw.com/
home/retail-woes-a-bankruptcy-timeline.
Trusov, Michael, Randolph E. Bucklin, and Koen Pauwels (2009),
“Effects of Word-of-Mouth Versus Traditional Marketing: Find-
ings from an Internet Social Networking Site,” Journal of Market-
ing, 73 (5), 90–102.
Yoder, Samantha, John K. Visich, and Ezotbek Rustambekov (1986),
“Lessons Learned from International Expansion Failures and
Successes,” Business Horizons, 59 (2), 233–43.
Zinkhan, George M. and Rudy Hirschheim (1992), “Truth in Market-
ing Theory and Research: An Alternative Perspective,” Journal of
Marketing, 56 (2), 80–88.