To get us started on this workshop I propose to ask six basic questions to which I also propose some answers. I do not expect that all of you will necessarily agree with the suggestions and proposals I will be making, but that should certainly ensure a lot of good discussions. I would like to acknowledge that some of the material that I am going to be sharing with you is from a paper given by Mr. Tom Neumann, Manager Media and Programming Development, Europe, P&G GmbH, called "What Advertisers Expect from TV Audience Research and What They Actually Get." I cannot claim to have the same level of expertise or the depth of knowledge on the subject that Mr. Neumann would have provided had he been here, but I do know something about the region and the research measurements being used here and I expect that if I go wrong many of you will pitch in with the correct answer. Inciddntally, even through my questions are on TV, they apply equally well to the other media.
The central tenet of this paper is to go beyond standard demographics and look in detail at one specific demographic group: Young people aged 13-25 in Saudi Arabia. 3845 young people were interviewed across the Kingdom. The overall objective was to increase our understanding of this groups values, beliefs and lifestyle today using psychographic segmentation techniques. This paper details the findings of this research and appraises the value of psychographic segmentation as a marketing tool in this instance
The topic of this paper was given as The Value of Continuous Research. For any of you who may have doubts as to the value of continuous research, let me say that continuous research is the only type of research appropriate in brand development measurement. I could finish this talk within the next 60 seconds by suggesting to you that: "Since the marketplace is dynamic so should it's measuring device". Or, in other words, Manufacturer and Consumer Behaviour are continuous and as such its observation should be continuous. So, finished my paper and we can all go home! Not so. While Dynamics are a major justification for continuous research, the most important reason for continuity of brand measurement is that it gives us the ability to, finally, start building integrated marketing plans and to stop testing brand success or failure as a function of single determinants. All marketing and, therefore, market research revolved around the measuring of isolated variables with ever-increasing complexity in order to obtain the ultimate accuracy. Or so the analysts claimed. The more complex the technique, the more accurate the result. In this paper, I will attempt to show you that this is not necessarily so. I will further attempt to show that the assessment of a brand's performance cannot be restricted to measuring, however accurately, the performance of isolated variables. I will suggest to you that there are not absolute but only relative values. Marketshare on its own is no indication of brand success or failure. That a growing market share could mean a weaker brand and that a declining market share could mean a stronger brand. This might sound like heresy, particularly to those of you who represent marketing companies.
The paper gives an overview of the relationships between two key pieces of retail audit information, sales share and distribution. It shows how, if used correctly, retail audit data can give management a means of focussing their resources to increase share by optimising distribution of their brands. In order to establish the correct framework, a brief description is firstly given of the relative values attached to sales share and distribution figures. A more thorough explanation is then given on the terminology used and the subtle differences between key variables under the heading of distribution. A pre-requisite for the use of the retail audit data, is confidence in the data itself. The paper therefore, highlights the main areas of concern frequently voiced by retail audit data users and how they can be best addressed. Some hints are given and examples are then shown of how optimising distribution can be anticipated to effect share increase and how the net percentage increase can be estimated in advance. Although the learnings for this paper have been derived from our experience across all the retail audit panels run by AMER, in the Middle East, Europe and the Far East, the examples used and thus the overall emphasis pertain specifically to the retail audits run in the Middle East and to a lesser extend North Africa.
For many years Head and Shoulders was Procter and Gamble's only entry in the shampoo market in the Middle East. H&S was by far the leading anti-dandruff shampoo enjoying very high market shares throughout the Arabian Peninsula. The problem, however, was that the anti-dandruff segment was relatively small and not growing, even contracting in share terms. Clearly the bulk of the shampoo market was likely to stay in the highly fragmented cosmetic segment. And, while P&G was very strong in the small anti-dandruff segment, the Company hardly had a presence in the large cosmetic segment. This paper overviews a step-by-step, building block research program that led to the successful introduction of Pert Plus cosmetic shampoo in the Arabian Peninsula. Pert Plus is a case history of a brand that was conceived to address a consumer need with all of its elements being researched to ensure that the final product mix provided the consumer a highly distinctive and good value-for-money product.
The pharmaceutical market of the Middle East today is characterized by its complexity and inability to offer trends towards global thinking. The Gulf crisis has certainly helped to exacerbate differences, market by market, throughout the region. This is particularly TRUE in the area of product registration, pricing and competitive attitudes. In view of such disturbances, a number of pharmaceutical companies have shown their limits in rapidly adapting to changing needs, changing health concerns, and, more broadly, their inability to "accompany" a move dictated by war, financial constraints and overall conservatism. Meanwhile, other firms have definitely capitalized on these very disturbances and have certainly proven that ad-hocracy can also be translated into sales performance and profits. Today, the Middle Eastern pharmaceutical markets have, to a very large extent, restored their structure and have resumed their business links. If one conclusion should be pulled out from these events, it is the compulsory need for a local approach, where the core questions should be: What kind of a market is it ? (private, tender, sophisticated ?) How much do I want to commit myself ? (long-term, short-term, pay back period ?) What do I need in this market ? This sort of approach will certainly help in clearly defining the opportunities by market and will help performance.
From a Gulf standpoint, no doubt, the successful conclusion of the second Gulf war between the GSied and UM-authorised Multinational Coalition - in which the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) played a central role - and Iraq to force the Saddam Hussain regime to abandon its annexation of Kuwait is the event which has ushered in profound social and political change in the region. After ail. Iraq has been humbled, even if the Saddam Hussain regime has not been destroyed, and a major threat to Gulf security has apparently been removed. At the same time, links between the Gulf region, particularly the Arab oil-producing states of the Gulf, and the West, have been significantly strengthened.
This paper wants to stress that there are real opportunities for business in the 1990s in the Gulf markets. Cease those opportunities. But for success you need quality products, professional and effective marketing, preservarance, patience and some luck. Nothing comes easy. There is a wealth of information in the papers that will be presented to you over the next three days. I wish you a very successful and above all an enjoyable conference.
No market can remain easy and unchallenging for ever. A market's qualitative and quantitative dimensions are altered with movements in environmental factors. Changes in business opportunities and challenges are a never ending process. Markets in the Gulf are no exception to these rules. They have transformed significantly over the period, and the direction and trends will continue to alter their course in future. The implications and challenges of these aspects of the market are clear. Continued alertness and responsiveness to the market's new realities will make marketing effective in its central function of creating satisfied customers. This paper will discuss the Gulf consumers market in the context of the above theme. The presentation will attempt to portray the trends and challenges in the Gulf markets envisioned against the backdrop of the movements in economic environment towards the end of this decade. The presentation will be in two parts: The first section will discuss the broad characteristics and few quantitative and qualitative dimensions that stand behind the present scene of the Gulf markets. The second part will deal with a few major trends in the environment that are likely to impact on the future of these markets, and the related challenges that are visualised towards the end of this decade. The trends and challenges will be explored in relation to selected major environmental factors namely the economic, demographic, market competition and marketing practices in the Gulf countries
In this paper I intend to focus upon the growing significance of new product development and brand strategy within the GCC markets - and indeed, the Middle East as a whole. In order to do so, I will examine first the growth of NPD in Western Europe over the past 20 years and the changes in approach which have both accompanied that growth and in turn resulted from it. I will then go on to describe how we have become involved in the application of new product development techniques in the Middle East markets, the lessons we have learned from this, and our views regarding the significance of new product and brand development in the 1990s.
The high purchasing power of many of the countries in the Arab World has encouraged the increasing presence of a wide variety of multi-national corporations (MNCs) in this region. In the quest for a unified corporate identity and aided by the fact that Arab countries are already unified by one language and one basic culture, MNCs are usually encouraged to utilize one advertising message to address all the peoples of this region. This paper examines why this approach may or may not be appropriate in a market which may not be as homogeneous as some might believe. The paper presents three main approaches to global advertising. The least expensive approach-and the one most often fraught with problems is straight standardization. With straight standardization, a message developed in the Western World is run in other regions with dubbing into the local language. The second approach is regional advertising, which involves the development of one message to be used in one apparently "homogeneous" market consisting of several neighboring countries. The third approach is to use a localized message which is developed and executed in each nation. While this is the most costly option, it provides the least opportunity for costly cross-cultural mistakes. Advances in broadcast technology have compounded the problems of global advertising in the Middle East. Messages aired on television in one country can be seen in other countries. This requires that advertising messages be standardized in countries which broadcast to other Arabic-speaking countries. Such cases present a dilemma for MNCs, which had hoped that the Middle East was one homogeneous region that could be addressed by one main message. This paper presents several case studies which indicate that the Arab market may not be as homogeneous as believed, and which show how the pre-testing of advertising messages can prevent cross cultural problems inherent in global advertising. This paper also presents an example of how "localized" advertising fared well in one Middle Eastern country and tested poorly in a sister country due to the history of each product and its position in each market.
Finding a mnemonic element or proposition is an important and mighty task for developing strategic and effective advertising campaigns. The task becomes ever-increasingly more critical and difficult when the construction of the mnemonics has to firmly relate to the product, the market and the consumers in the Middle East. Mnemonics for the Middle East have to conform to the cultural norms and values, operate within strict religious laws, correspond to perceived product attributes or a unique selling point, address the idiosyncrasies of the market, and plug into the demographic and psychographic segmentation of the market.