Three considerations of the idea of culture interact to question the inevitability of global brands. Consumer culture, marketing culture and the national cultural values that underpin decision making all have significant implications for multinational corporations. This leads to the conclusion that although all major companies will be marketing internationally and that there will be many genuinely global brands, the majority will not be. The model of the centralised transnational company is founded on a fundamental contradiction which is the need for global cost rationalisation. Local sensitivities to consumer tastes, changes in distribution, new competition and other local activities will require a much stronger local presence than the prototypical transnational corporation typically allows for. Companies need to develop structures that can identify and manage their profitable but few in number international brands, while at the same time responding quickly and sensitively to activities at the local level. The world has not become homogenised as predicted, but rather personalised and customised.
In this paper we will examine - using a recent case study - how an innovative programme can cut the brand development time significantly and yet deliver a highly successful new brand.
Market research is a relatively small part of the professional and business services sector. Commercially available revenues in 1998 were roughly $1bn (£7bn) worldwide, representing only about 0.1% of overall sales value. However, its economic and social impact is highly significant and my thesis is that this importance is growing and the scope of research is continually expanding. In making this case, it is useful to look first at how research has evolved to its present state. Research, as we know it, developed in the first half of this century but expanded most rapidly in the late 1950s and 1960s. The post-war drivers of this were companies and their brands operating in competitive environments in which consumers/customers had choices. Product development had always drawn heavily on research but the arrival of commercial television as a highly effective but very expensive means of brand communication catalysed a big leap forward in research spend. At this time (the 1960s), commercial survey research was dominated by FMCG clients. About one third of expenditure was on market and media measurement, through retail audits and household panels. Two thirds was spent on custom/ad hoc projects, both qualitative and quantitative, largely product development and communications research plus U&As. Then, as now, there was also a much smaller part of the research scene accounted for by social, political and public opinion studies.
The future evolution of marketing seems destined to expand beyond the confines of the selling of goods and services. The energies and skills used to manage the abstractions of added values will probably be extended to encompass social and ethical issues. There has been focus recently amongst politicians upon whether or not there are capitalist market mechanisms that will automatically correct some of the imbalances of the present system, particularly with regard to issues where apolitical co-operation is required. The power of the discriminating consumer may prove to be one such mechanism, working through their choice of brands.
This paper is based on research conducted in Russia during its transition to a more liberal economic and political system. The data cited are taken from VCIOM nationwide surveys and polls conducted in 1989-1997. Russia shares most common features of emerging markets, including a very narrow affluent segment; a thin layer of the would-be middle class; and a huge population which consumes cheap unbranded products. The specifics of the Russian market discussed include the situation when the bulk of purchasing capacity is concentrated in young cohorts, and the phenomenon of a state as the principal domestic client of research. There is a tendency among Russian consumers to declare preferences for locally produced products (mainly food) but this finds no correlation in the structure of the populations purchases. Consumer behaviour appears to be dependent on factors other than those of consumer ideology. Negative reactions towards advertising, considerably more pronounced in the older age groups, are being gradually transformed into more tolerant attitudes.
This paper presents a combination of two research techniques to better understand consumers (scientific database), and to help marketers create better product and service concepts. The two research techniques are conjoint measurement for stimulus development and data collection, and segmentation and/or optimisation for database development and application.
This paper presents evidence that consumer behaviour varies with cultural patterns and that this variance is stable over time and will become increasingly manifest. Consumption behaviour, decision making, media behaviour and advertising behaviour are culture-bound and are expected to remain culture bound since values of national culture are stable. Others have demonstrated the stability of values of national culture.
This paper opens with some observations on the changing world of consumers with a more detailed discussion of developments in international media and the likely effects on consumers around the world. Following a review of some of the key trends affecting consumers today, the final section offers a view on how to incorporate these changing influences in the development of strategy and the management of brands and communications across country borders.
Implicit Theory principally addresses the marketers need for diagnostic problem-solving. It explains why people behave as they do, at different times in different situations on different occasions, in order to satisfy different need states. Also, in the hands of a creative researcher, implicit theory provides some guidance in anticipating needs that consumers might not know they have. The start-out position is the belief that consumer behaviour is not random (not even impulse buying). Rather, it is driven by systematic, dynamic forces within the consumer, that are embodied in human behaviour and human society. There are implicit reasons that drive consumer behaviour. Consumers may not be consciously aware of them. These reasons may not be and, often are not rational. Or, indeed, they may be a mixture of the rational and the irrational or emotional. They result from an internal, dynamic energy that is implicit. In other words, it is inherent and continuously present in human behaviour and in consumer behaviour.
This paper presents a framework for charting the cultural future of markets, from the standpoint of developing culturally insured marketing strategy for a firm. It is drawn from our experience of having to forecast the cultural future of the Indian market, which, after over four decades of isolation and protection, is now being swamped with foreign goods of the kind that consumers have never seen before; further compounded by an invasion from the skies in the form of satellite television (from two state controlled channels to an orgy of soap operas from the west!)
The constructs of individualism-collectivism are examined as a basis for understanding Social Change and emergent Consumer Segmentations in Central Eastern Europe. These cultural values at a macro level drive the emergence of consumer segmentations, their needs, values and social behaviours at a micro, group level of influence. Differences in consumer social behaviours vary by context, emotional attachment to in-groups as role models, and the underlying meanings that are applied to them. Individualism-collectivism offers a deeper understanding of the psychology and needs of the Eastern European Consumer, which can be applied to marketing and advertising issues. Directions for further research are discussed.