Abstract:

Unilever has been actively launching new brands in the Japanese market as well as maintaining and expanding its presence in other Asia-Pacific markets. At the root of the approach has been a combination of using internal expertise in marketing techniques and experience, and a disciplined but creative approach to market research. It is a teamwork approach where the market researcher represents the consumer in the internal decision making process: by being a member of the marketing team, the researcher makes use of the findings from research studies ranging from the most simple to the most complex in such a way that the techniques are totally transparent to the rest of the team. The continuum of research is bound into a single process, taking the disciplines and philosophy of modelling, together with a common view of consumer behaviour, as the shell into which to fit various components from set of research techniques available. A series of mini case studies exemplifies the process as it occurred in a number of markets in the region.