The case presented here is that of Glenfiddich, a single malt scotch whisky. The production of Glenfiddich dates back to 1887. The brand has been introduced to number of markets outside its home market - Scotland - in the last thirty years. Four of those countries are considered in this paper: England, France, USA and Japan. The scotch market is at different levels of development in these countries. By far the most developed market is England and this will be used to show the development of communications strategy over time. Comparison will then be made to the other three countries.
We define and measure expectations as being what people ideally would like in terms of the discriminating attributes of the choice category. For relevance in the interpretation of expectations it is necessary to view them for the individual and also to know which of them are the most driving of change in the category, ie importance. The theory and practice of disaggregated consumer choice modelling provides us with a framework to relate expectations and inferred importance for predictive purposes. It also provides examples for discussion. Expectations must be interpreted in the context of the other key attitudes of perceptions and behavioural intentions. We provide an operational definition of expectations and related attitudes such as needs and show their relation to perceptions or brand ratings. A motivational segmentation based on buyer needs is more informative than normal methods. We show how environmental expectations in the car market mean the personal environment in Germany but the external environment in the UK, with France in between. Trends in environmental/health expectations in a UK food category are shown to lag behind shifts in importance, with implications for brand competition. Rapid changes in the altitudinal structure of the isotonics' drinks market in Japan cannot be understood or responded to without knowledge of changing expectations. The effect of future likely changes in expectations and needs in the car market is examined. Our conclusion is that attribute expectations are key to understanding current and future markets, but they are only properly useful if able to be considered for individuals and in conjunction with attribute importance.
The paper presents a case history of the introduction of a premium quality brand of whiskey in four markets, the UK, France, USA, and Japan. There are three stages to introducing a premium brand to a new market. 1) In the initial stage, consumers need to be made aware of the brand as a new premium brand. 2) Once awareness has been established the brand must justify its claim to quality. This is achieved by stressing product attributes which underly the brand's authenticity. In a highly developed market, these quality claims can be made equally well by many premium brands. At this stage, then, quality is based on category attributes. 3) A final stage is therefore needed, in order to give a brand individuality. In this stage, quality is linked to brand attributes, to the sense in which the brand itself has a definable image. This is the most demanding stage, as brand development is no longer based on tangible attributes. Each step requires a different marketing communications strategy. The strategy must change over time and the changes between steps are gradual. There is, therefore, a need for a flexible system of strategy development, tracking of image gains and communications testing. This system requires: 1) A full array of competitors as different competitors or market segments may be targetted at initial and later phases. 2) A complete attribute set that covers product category and brand image dimensions, both tangible and intangible. 3) Accurate and flexible communications testing which enables results to be fed back into strategy development. The whiskey brand discussed is at a different stage of development in the four markets. This allows comparisons to be made across countries and stages of development. Advertising pre-test results are used to show brand quality imagery was developed at different stages.