Research in the late 1970s and 80s has shown that there is considerable delay between new market penetration and the global consolidation of the infrastructure to support it. Hansen and Boddewyn (1975) and Picard, Boddewyn, and Soehl (1989) showed that between 1973 and 1989 there was a significant decrease in the degree of standardized marketing policies of American multinationals in Europe, in durable consumer goods. In non-durable consumer goods-except branding-there is an opposite trend. For a similar period, Ryan and Ratz (1987) observed a high level of standardization in the advertising world in terms of common themes across campaigns, their creative application, and the use they made of the media.
In contrast, Usunier (1997) is much more reserved about drawing the conclusion that, in the course of time, a global customer will emerge as a result of all the globalization processes. According to him global markets evolve more through globalization on the supply side. However, the demand side is much less willing to give up their own unique needs and wants. According to Clark (1987) the customer will never want to be a universal punter at the mercy of a global producer. Consumers buy a local brand and don't care if it is also offered elsewhere.
In our research at THT we have helped marketers elicit the dilemmas they face in their work and those that are faced by their organizations. Using face-to-face interviews as well as our web-based systems, we have accumulated over 6,000 basic dilemmas. Applying clustering and linguistic analysis techniques we quickly begin to see a number of fundamental dilemmas that are faced by organizations as they reach out to new markets. They are discussed in detail throughout the body of this book but can be summarized holistically, like this:
On the one hand...
On the other hand...
Should we sell what we can make (push)?
Or make what we can sell (pull)?
Do we strive for standard, global products?
Or do we try to sell unique products adapted to the needs and tastes of local markets?
Do we satisfy existing customer needs?
Or can we create new customer wants?
Do we sell to individuals?
Or do we sell to groups, thus creating fashion and trends for others to join in?
Do we sell functional benefits (it works)?
Or do we sell intangible benefits (status-look at "me")?
Is each transaction a unique, one-off sale?
Or is each sale part of a series in an ongoing relationship with a (long-term) customer?
And even more fundamentally,
On the one hand...
On the other hand...
Do we maintain a market orientation and always put the customer first?
Or do we satisfy our people and stakeholders?
In our parent book to this series, Business Across Cultures, we introduced some aspects of marketing across cultures. There is inevitably some overlap in order to make this more comprehensive and dedicated book on marketing readable without constant reference to the parent publication, and we have also drawn on some of the interviews in 21 Leaders for the 21st Century (2001), which offer helpful and relevant insights.
We also need to avoid a list of "dos and don'ts." So, firstly, we will develop and explain our overall conceptual framework for categorizing value orientations. It is the differences across these orientations in different cultures that generates dilemmas. We can then extend our framework for reconciling these dilemmas to produce win-win solutions that transcend any particular culture or set of differences. Many of these dilemmas and their solutions will be illustrated with case studies taken from our research and consulting practice at THT. Again we see our role as providing a focus on a marketing knowledge framework for cultures, rather than one simply of cultures. We trust that our framework will offer practical help to marketers and strategists as they cope with an increasingly oligopolistic global marketplace.
Marketing professionals are becoming increasingly aware of the need to take account of culture when working in diverse markets. The issues of branding for different cultures and of how to develop a marketing strategy for the global market are current fundamental questions for us all. Our methodological framework based on the recognition, respect, and reconciliation of cultural differences offers an approach to addressing these challenges.
Initially we'll uncover some fundamental issues in marketing across cultures. Then we will use our seven dimensions model of culture to explore value systems and how these can help to explain cultural differences and the challenges they generate for marketers.
In later chapters we explore how dilemmas arise across the activities of marketing, including market research, branding, franchising, ethno-marketing, e-marketing, and strategic marketing planning. We'll give many examples of products and brands that have faced fundamental dilemmas when moving from local to international markets, and then on to global and finally fully transnational brands. We'll discuss how brands integrate the variety of value orientations into an integrated system of meaning. In Chapter 10 there are some exemplar cases for you to reflect on how well you have followed the thinking that pervades the whole book; you can check out your answers by going to the website
www.cultureforbusiness.com
that supports this book and offers some further interactive content.
Chapter 1:
Marketing in a Multicultural and Changing World
OVERVIEW
Today's world is changing ever more rapidly. Four hundred years ago Nostradamus described events (Cen V, Quatrain 57) in which 9/11 can be recognized and, more specifically, the resurgence of fundamentalism (Cen IV, Quatrain 32). Whilst we are not concerned with such futurology or prediction, or with whatever views might be expressed as to whether the march of Islam is for better or worse, we are all going to have to live with it and the market changes that result. In addition, for the foreseeable future, terrorist threats are here to stay.
On the other hand, national economies have become increasingly deregulated and have opened up opportunities for international trade and competition. It has become the norm for organizations to compete for market share not only with their national competitors but also with international ones. Globalization has implications for stakeholders, workers, suppliers, customers, and local communities. Contemporary marketing is the link between this spread of production, transferability of finance, the mobility of labor, and the free flow of information across the borderless world. Technology is driving further profound changes as people on the other side of the globe can be reached in seconds, and for the cost of a local call.
In Anglo-Saxon economics, the traditional theory of consumer choice encompasses four elements about the buyer and the market:
The buyer's marginal disposable income.
The price at which the goods or services can be purchased.
The values (tastes and preferences) of the consumer.
The belief that consumers behave rationally and do the best for themselves.
No previous generations have had so many options for earning, buying, selling, and living as today. The axiomatic economic models, whereby the purchaser makes what appear to be consistent and logical buying decisions, are breaking down. They have to be replaced by models which explain how and why a new generation of buyers, with different and frequently changing value systems from changing cultures, think and act.