Abstract:

Multi-cultural Marketing has existed in Asia since colonization. While a number of multi- national companies have been very successful in this region, their success was not, necessarily, due to their understanding of the markets in which they operated. Success was mainly achieved by, as a senior executive of Coca-Cola (Taiwan) expressed on one occasion, 'filling holes'. Colonization resulted in that those companies, who came first, held, and still hold to this day, the largest marketshares, in spite of continuous attacks from other, sophisticated, multi-national marketers.In order to enter new markets, marketers need to generate a whole new set of Consumer Benefits and Needs, totally ignoring those Need/States established by the pioneers. Since most of the early brands are based on Generic/Intrinsic Positionings and have thus become the CATEGORY, success of new entries is only possible by going beyond and finding Synthetic/Transcendent Positionings. While the paper will concentrate on Asia/Pacific, I believe that its recommendations are universal and can be applied anywhere in the world when entering new market