MARKETING ACROSS BORDERS
Professor Dr Demetris Vrontis
Dean, School of Business
President, EuroMed Research Business Institute
Editor, EuroMed Journal of Business
Chartered Marketer and Chartered Business Consultant
Email: vrontis.d@unic.ac.cy
Professor Dr Ivana First
Assistant Professor
University of Rijeka
Email: ifirst@efri.hr
INTERNATIONAL
MARKETING
…when marketing activities take place in more than one country.
The foundation for a successful international marketing program
is a sound understanding of the marketing discipline.
SO, WHAT IS
MARKETING?
Marketing = Promotion?
Marketing = Advertising?
Promotion = Advertising?
Marketing = Communications?
Marketing = Selling?
Marketing = ??? what ???
WHAT IS MARKETING?
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for
creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings
that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at
large.
(The American Marketing Association)
MARKETING PROCESS
Identify needs and
wants
Know the market and the product
Know your competitors
Communicate realistically, authentically,
be yourself
Build an excellent
relationship with
distributors, retailers and
(business) buyers
Develop products to satisfy
consumer requirements
Provide value and quality to
guarantee satisfaction
MORE SIMPLY:
MARKETING IS ALL ABOUT SATISFYING NEEDS
AND WANTS
Needs - states of felt deprivation including physical needs for food,
social needs for belonging and individual needs for self-expression.
Wants - form that a human need takes as shaped by culture and
individual personality.
I am thirsty!
I want a Coca-Cola!
Do customers have the same wants?
Do they perceive things the same way?
Is that culturally determined?
WHICH WOMAN DO YOU
WANT TO GET TO KNOW?
Bjerke and Polegato (2006):
different cultures do not interpret
beauty and health symbols equally
Maslow
Mittelstaedt, and Hopkins (2003) discovered that social needs are the strongest
motivator, followed by esteem needs, physiological needs (although somewhat modified
to the working environment conditions), safety needs and self-actualisation needs.
THEREFORE
Although marketing is universal, marketing practice varies from
country to country.
Each country is unique/different.
This is true for customer
needs and wants, competitive structure, channels of distribution,
available media, technological advancement, political system,
cultural and economical factors.
MARKETING MIX
economical factors
needs and wants
technological advancement
channels of distribution
political system
available media
cultural factors
competitive structure
A firm blends a set of controllable tactical marketing tools (marketing
mix = 4P+) to produce the response it wants in the target market
Product
Price
Good or Service
Assignment of Value
Place
Promotion
Availability of Product / Distribution
Activities to Inform Consumers
PRODUCT
1. Annoyed/irrittated - why
do they bother me? I paid
enough for the ticket. They
PROMOTION can do it themselves
2. No feelings – it is normal
3. Proud and responsible – I
contribute to mother earth
PRODUCT
• Why could SMART never
be a US car?
• Have you ever heard of
visual polution?
• Are wind turbins good?
• Do you think they produce some kind of polution?
• Is it a funny argument for you?
PRICE
• Price itself – how high is it? – not cultural
• Price expression (measurements USD per gallon/per liter) cultural
• Discount expressions
• original price – 10 EUR, discount 10%,
• original price – 10 EUR, discount 1 EUR
• Space for negotiation
PRICE
• What is charged?
• Aperol – experience or product?
• Best business model?
a) Fax machine is gifted but you pay provision on each copy
made (0,002 EUR/copy) – 500 000 copies expectd a year
b) Fax machine is gifted but regular maintainance is charged
(1000 EUR/year) – life expectancy 5 years
c) Fax is sold for money (5000 EUR), maintaining is free of
charge for the first 5 years
DISTRIBUTION
• Where to buy fruit and vegetable? Open market or
supermarkets?
• What about fish?
• Do people buy bread as a part of weekly shopping or daily?
• What about reverse distribution?
PROMOTION
ADAPTATION, STANDARDISATION OR
ADAPTSTANDATION?
Reasons Pulling
Towards
Adaptation
1. Market
development
2. Economic
differences
3. Culture
4. Customer
perception
5. Competition
6. Technological
7. Sociological
8. Differences in
physical conditions
9. Legal / political
environment
10. Level of
customer similarity
11.Marketing
infrastructure
Product
1. Product or
service variety,
design, features
2. Quality
3. Brand name
4. Packaging,
styling
5. Size and
colour varieties
6.
Performance
7. Image
8. Pre-sales
service
9. Delivery,
installation
10.After-sales
service,
warranties
Price
1. Price
levels, list
price, price
changes
2.
Discount
allowance,
payment
period,
credit
terms
Place
1.
Distribution
channels,
distributors
value,
place of
shops,
logistics
Promotion
1.
Advertising
2. Sales
promotion
3. Personal
selling
4. Direct
marketing
5. Public
relations
People
Physical
evidence
Process
management
Factors Affecting the Importance of Reasons and Elements
1. Industrial sector
2. Business to business, business to consumer
3. Product/Service category
4. Places and continents
5. Entry method
6. Delegated authority to foreign subsidiaries
7. Relationship with different foreign subsidiaries
8. World-wide turnover
9. World-wide number of employees.
Reasons Pulling
Towards
Standardisation
1. Economies of
scale in production,
research and
development and
promotion
2. Global
uniformity and
image
3. Consistency
with the mobile
consumer
4. Easier planning
and control
5. Stock costs
reduction
6. Synergetic and
transferable
experience
Vrontis, 2003
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Questionnaire survey on marketing directors of
500 companies across all industrial sectors
Comparison of means
5,25
Price
4,64
Promotion
4,39
Place
People
3,90
Physical evidence
3,88
3,85
Process management
3,13
Product
1
Tactical Behaviour
2
3
1 Standardised
4
5
4 Neutral
6
7
7 Adapted
Vrontis, D. (2003), “Integrating Adaptation and Standardisation in International Marketing, The AdaptStand Modelling
Process”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol.19, No. 3-4, pp. 283-305 (ISSN: 0267-257X-Westburn Publishers).
ADAPTATION REASONS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Reasons in order of importance
Culture
Market development
Competition
Legal environment
Economic differences
Sociological
Differences in customer perceptions
8
9
10
11
12
Technological
Political environment
Level of customer similarity
Marketing infrastructure
Differences in physical conditions
Percentage
93
87
84
82
78
74
71
60
53
49
44
39
STANDARDISATION
REASONS
Reasons in order of importance
Percentage
(%)
1
Global uniformity and image
81
2
Economies of scale in production, R.&D. and
promotion
75
3
Synergetic and transferable experience and
efficiency
74
4
Consistency with the mobile consumer
52
5
Easier planning and control
48
6
Stock costs reduction
43
ADAPTSTANDATION
Neither total adaptation nor complete standardisation
represents business responses.
It is suggested that companies make choices which relate to key
determinants in each circumstance. Multinational companies’ tactical
and strategic behaviour is integrated as a result of several reasons
‘pulling’ it towards the one or the other side of the continuum.
The AdaptStand Process is the process of integrating Adaptation and
Standardisation in international marketing tactics. This decision could
only be made after an in-depth consideration of reasons pulling and
factors affecting marketing behaviour.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION!