Cross-cultural branding and leadership

These days it’s inevitable not to have felt the impact of globalization. When many countries all over the world opened their economies to the rest of the world, many opportunities followed (a broader reach for brands, more potential customers); but it wasn’t all a bed of roses…
Henceforth global business will also be determined by cultural issues. It’s regularly known that culture is a baseline for individuals and institutions to function and therefore also affects their consumption patterns. The open market economy has created an extremely challenging business area, where global brands have to find a way to fit their basic strategy with local cultures in order to have a little chance at success. They have to find a balance between standardization and the prevailing culture’s philosophy.
A brand that achieved to combine those extremely well is Nokia, who saw its share in the Indian mobile telephone market increase from 300,000 subscriber in 1996 to 55million in 2004, only by taking into account the local needs of the many rural customers. Their offer of mobile phones with an dust-resistant keypad and antislip grip, was a major success.
The launch of Euro Disney, otherwise, sets a perfect counterexample. They kept holding on to the authentic brand policy and forgot to be sensitive to the European’s preferences, which resulted in great failure.

By now it’s obvious that brands have to understand the locals’ consumption patterns an go along with the cultural fiber if they want to gain the advantages of globalization. The growing popularity of Internet makes this a whole lot easier.

Sien De Neve

http://www.venturerepublic.com/resources/Cross-cultural_branding_leadership.asp