When Wal-Mart started to open stores abroad in the early 1990s, it offered a little piece of America to foreign consumers—and that was the problem. The retail behemoth promoted golf clubs in soccer-mad Brazil and pushed ice skates in Mexico. It trained its German clerks to smile at customers—who thought they were flirting. Now Wal-Mart is adapting (though not in Germany—the company had to throw in the towel there). Its Chinese stores sell live turtles and snakes and lure shoppers who come on foot or bicycle with free shuttle buses and home delivery for refrigerators and other large items.
As corporations compete in many markets around the world, the debate intensifies regarding the need to develop separate marketing plans for each culture versus crafting a single plan that a firm implements everywhere. Let’s briefly consider each viewpoint.
Adopt a standardized strategy—. Proponents of a standardized marketing strategy argue that many cultures, especially those of industrialized countries, have become so homogenized that the same approach will work throughout the world. By developing one approach for multiple markets, a company can benefit from economies of scale because it does not have to incur the substantial time and expense to develop a separate strategy for each culture. For example, Starbucks is becoming a household name in Japan (where it is pronounced STAH-buks-zu). Like their American counterparts, local Japanese outlets feature comfortable sofas, and hip-hop and reggae tunes play in the background.
Adopt a localized strategy—. Disney learned the hard way about the importance of being sensitive to local cultures after it opened its Euro Disney Park in 1992. The company got slammed for creating an entertainment venue that re-created its American locations without catering to local customs (such as serving wine with meals). Visitors to Euro Disney from many countries took offense, even at what seemed to be small slights—such as the sin of serving only French sausage to Germans, Italians, and others who believed their own local version to be superior. Disney applied the lessons it learned in cultural sensitivity to its newer Hong Kong Disneyland. Executives shifted the angle of the front gate by 12 degrees after they consulted a feng shui specialist, who said the change would ensure prosperity for the park. Cash registers are close to corners or along walls to increase prosperity. The company burned incense as it finished each building, and it picked a lucky day (September 12) for the opening. One of the park’s main ballrooms measures 888 square meters because eight is a lucky number in Chinese culture.
In some cases, consumers in one place simply do not like some products that are popular elsewhere, or their different lifestyles require companies to adapt the way they make their products. IKEA finally realized that Americans use a lot of ice in their drinks, so they weren’t buying smaller European glasses. The Swedish furniture chain also figured out that, compared to Europeans, Americans sleep in bigger beds, need bigger bookshelves, and like to curl up on sofas rather than sit on them. Snapple failed in Japan because the drink’s cloudy appearance and the pulp floating in the bottles were a turnoff. Similarly, Frito-Lay stopped selling Ruffles potato chips (too salty) and Cheetos there. (The Japanese didn’t appreciate having orange fingers after they ate a handful.) The company still makes Cheetos in China, but the local version doesn’t contain cheese, which is not a staple of the Chinese diet. Instead, local flavors come in varieties such as Savory American Cream and Japanese Steak.
So, what’s the verdict—does global marketing work? Perhaps the more appropriate question is, “When does it work?” Although the argument for a homogenous world culture is appealing in principle, in practice it hasn’t worked out too well. One reason for the failure of global marketing is that consumers in different countries have varying conventions and customs, so they simply do not use products the same way. Kellogg, for example, discovered that, in Brazil, people don’t typically eat a big breakfast—they’re more likely to eat cereal as a dry snack.
Some large corporations such as Coca-Cola have been successful in crafting a single, international image. Still, even the soft drink giant must make minor modifications to the way it presents itself in each culture. Although Coke commercials are largely standardized, the company permits local agencies to edit them so that they highlight close-ups of local faces. To maximize the chances of success for these multicultural efforts, marketers must locate consumers in different countries who nonetheless share a common worldview. This is more likely to be the case among people whose frame of reference is relatively more international or cosmopolitan, or who receive much of their information about the world from sources that incorporate a worldwide perspective. The best candidates for standardization: affluent people who are “global citizens” and who come into contact with ideas from around the world through their travels, business contacts, and media experiences; and young people whose tastes in music and fashion are strongly influenced by MTV and other media that broadcast many of the same images to multiple countries.
And that’s the truth.