Question

What are some of our marketing concepts from week 1 through this week that could be relied on to help prevent cultural problems when expanding into new markets? Can you share examples?

Answer 1

Regardless of the size of the corporation, entering a new market can be tough. There is no 'one size fits all' approach there. When venturing into a new (geographical) market, a corporate should heed the following factors:

• Adaptation: While all arguments in favour of standardization may be made, it still remains the most preferred choice to instead adapt to the local culture while marketing its product. Numerous organizations have favoured this concept. McDonald's for example, first adopted a standardized approach for marketing where it did not employ localized advertising strategies. While it grew at first, sales began to do poorly eventually. It later on went on to adapt to regional markets and give more authority to National & regional McDonald's.
• Product design: This is another very important part to be thought of while entering new markets. The product may need to be tweaked to fit local markets better and advertising strategies employed must emphasize how the changes make the product fit the market better. To quote an example, Pringles sales in Europe suffered early on. But later on, when P&G conducted studies to decide when potato chips sold higher in Europe, their sales increased nearly five-folds.

There are several other factors, such as Religion, which must be kept in mind while shaping marketing policies for a new market.

Hope this helps!