Best presentation award winner APAC Conference 2015: Shedding the chastity belt.
Universal concepts like motherhood, beauty, achievement and power, which many of our clients' brands are built o, can mean very different things across cultures. As growth for global brands increasingly starts to come from culturally diverse Asian markets, it is becoming critical to develop more precise, market- specific strategies to truly unlock the opportunity here. There are significant historical and cultural differences that shape consumption and brand choices in these markets; which make them remarkably different not just from developed markets but also from each other. We contrast China and India in this paper, with examples of how the same need can mean different things, and the same global positioning strategy can translate to quite different executions in each country.
As global marketing and market research efforts increasingly become centralized, one of the fallouts has been a loss of intuitive cultural knowledge that has traditionally been built into consumer insight and marketing communication by local teams working within their own cultures. Formalizing implicit, unstructured cultural knowledge is challenging, and what we are sorely missing is a common language and framework that allows us to compare markets on the most important elements that define culture. This presentation reviews efforts to develop a universal, archetype-based framework to understand and compare cultures.
With the help of path breaking innovative research, TVS, a leading two-wheeler company in India, moved beyond the conventional path of functional, technical and design superiority to build a deeper connection with the consumer through the brand. Set in India, the presentation provides a glimpse of how markets evolve and the challenges that emerge with consumerization. The case discusses the launch of Apache, a new brand from TVS that in less than a year was clearly a success, measured by sales as well as winning consumer, auto experts and media awards.
This paper addresses the challenge of cross-cultural positioning of brands. It is based on the premise that consumer behaviour is driven by deep-seated needs and basic values that are primal in nature and part of the genetic imprint. These do not change across cultures. Positioning a brand on these basic values strikes a universal chord, making it possible to manage differences that arise out of different social and cultural influences, while keeping the core or the soul of the brand unchanged.
This paper discusses Coca-Cola's journey into the consumer's mind and life - an initiative undertaken by Coca-Cola India to increase penetration and consumption of their brands by developing the market, instead of focusing solely on competing with an equally powerful adversary. The paper also demonstrates effective use of ethnographic methods, and the advantage of a consumer rather than brand-based approach.
This paper captures the two faces of India as a traditional developing market the face lured by increased exposure to Western products and lifestyles, which coexists in complete harmony with the slow to change face rooted in centuries of tradition and heritage.