Marketing Across Cultures
Katherine Schaefer
Diplomatic Academy of London
January 14, 2002
Topics
What is Cross-Cultural Marketing?
Cross-Cultural Marketing Best Practices
One Company’s International Success
One Culture’s Marketing Success
Marketing Blunders
Cross-Cultural Marketing
The strategic process of marketing among
consumers whose culture differs from that of
the marketers own culture in at least one of
the fundamental cultural aspects:
Language
Religion
Social Norms and Values
Education and the Style of Life
Best Practices
Develop cultural empathy
Avoid ethnocentrism
Never assume transferability of a
concept from one culture to another
Get cultural informants involved in the
decision-making process
The Coca-Cola Company
“Think local, act local”
Fanta
Georgia Coffee
Brand
Diet Coke with
Lemon
Döner Kebap Case Study
What is Döner Kebap?
Minced Beef or Veal inside a Pita
Lettuce, vegetables, sauce
Brief History of Döner Kebap
Introduced by Turks who were guest workers in
Germany - 1961
High unemployment led to self-employment –
1970’s
Marketed as exotic Turkish delight to German
consumers at the onset
Döner Kebap Success
Timing: Post WWII
Germany
German “taste”
More filling and
healthier than
competitors
Aesthetically
attractive
Marketing Change After 1989
Image Change
McKebap
Keb’up
Dönerburger
Mister Kebap
New Döner Varieties
Price Differentiation
Target Market Shift
Marketing Blunders
“Ke-kou-ke-la”
Clairol “Mist Stick”
“Finger lickin’ good”
“Nothing sucks like an Electrolux”
“Come alive with the Pepsi Generation”
References
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Costa, J. A. & Bamossy, G.A. (1995). Marketing in a Multicultural World:
Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Cultural Identity. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Guang Tian, R. Marketing in the 21st Century:Cross-cultural Issues.
(http://www.studyoverseas.com/america/usaed/crosscultural.htm)
Kauffman, S. (Ed.). (1997). Advertising Blunders.
Omen: Oregon Mensa.
Remarks by Doug Daft, Chairman, Board of Directors & CEO of The
Coca-Cola Company. Importance of Diversity. King and Spalding Fall
Executive Dinner (2001).
Koonan, S. (2001). Marketing Milieu: Culture in Marketing, Part 1.
(http://www.marketingmilieu.com/articlep1004.html)