International Marketing: Strategies, Culture, and Global Trends

Posted on Jan 26, 2025 in Business Administration and Management (BAM)

Chapter 1: What is International Marketing?

International marketing is the process of planning and executing strategies to promote and sell products or services across multiple countries, considering cultural, economic, and legal differences.

The International Marketing Task – Uncontrollable Uncertainty

  • Uncontrollable uncertainty is created by uncontrollable elements in business environments.
  • Each international market has its own set of factors.

A marketing program is designed for optimal adjustment to uncertainty:

  • Blend all elements (controllable, uncontrollable; domestic, international) to capitalize on anticipated demand.
  • Elements can be altered if needed, e.g., changing market conditions, consumer tastes, and corporate objectives.

Cultural Adjustment

  • Cultural adjustment is the most challenging and important task of international marketing.
  • Duties of international marketers:
    • Interpret the influence of each uncontrollable element on the market.
    • Adjust marketing efforts to cultures in which they are not attuned.
    • Be aware of your own frame of reference when evaluating markets.

Self-Reference Criterion (SRC)

Self-Reference Criterion (SRC) is the unconscious reference to one’s own cultural values, experiences, and knowledge. It is problematic when used as a basis for decisions.

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own culture or ethnic group is superior to others, leading to the evaluation of other cultures based on the standards and values of one’s own.

One’s own country or culture is best. It is most problematic when affluent countries work with less affluent ones.

Cultural Relativity

Cultural relativity is the principle that a person’s beliefs and activities should be understood based on that individual’s own culture, rather than judged against the criteria of another culture.

Chapter 4: Culture

Culture is the sum of values, rituals, symbols, beliefs, and thought processes that are learned and shared by a group of people, then transmitted from generation to generation.

  • Resides in the individual’s mind.
  • A large collective of people can be like-minded.
  • Behaviors and values, the seen and unseen, are learned, shared, and transmitted by a group of people.
  • Relevant to the study of international marketing.
  • The human-made part of the human environment.
  • Knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, laws, customs, and any other capabilities and habits.

Cultural Impacts

Family

The impact of birth control, putting off marriage, single parenthood. What constitutes a family is changing.

  • Same-sex marriage, divorce
  • Changing ratios of males to females

Religion

Religion is often the first social institution infants are exposed to outside the home.

  • Affects value systems, habits, outlook on life, and products bought

Social Institutions

Social institutions include family, religion, school, the media, government, and corporations.

  • Cultural interpretations are impacted by:
    • The positions of men and women in society
    • The role of the family
    • Social classes
    • Group behavior
    • Age groups
    • Societal definitions of decency and civility

Education

Education affects all aspects of culture.

  • Literacy rates
  • Literacy profoundly affects marketing.
  • The performance of educational systems is a leading indicator of economic competitiveness.
  • Schools are seen as leading to positive cultural changes and progress.

Media

  • Media time has replaced family time.
  • It is difficult to gauge the long-term effects of increased media consumption by children.
  • Socio-income levels and race may affect perceptions of children’s media use.

Government

  • The government can be thought to be less influential. Thoughts?
  • Governments try to influence the thinking and behavior of adults.
  • Use of propaganda and laws to influence.

The Five Elements of Culture

Values, rituals, symbols, beliefs, thought processes

Hofstede’s Four Dimensions

Individualism/Collectivism: focuses on self-orientation.

Power Distance: focuses on authority orientation.

Uncertainty Avoidance Index: focuses on risk orientation.

Masculinity/Femininity: focuses on assertiveness and achievement.

Chapter 5: Americanism

In marketing, Americanism promotes American cultural values and can globally appeal and enhance brand recognition. However, it can potentially scare away residents if it isn’t adjusted to fit other types of cultures.

Chapter 6: Political Climate

The ideal climate for multinational firms is a stable and friendly government.

Causes of Instability

  1. Inherent instability
  2. Political shifts during elections impact trade conditions
  3. Nationalism
  4. Animosity toward specific countries
  5. Trade disputes

Lessening Political Vulnerability

Relations between governments and multi-national enterprises are generally positive if the investment:

  • Improves the country’s balance of payments.
  • Uses locally produced resources.
  • Transfers capital, technology, and skills.
  • Creates jobs.
  • Makes tax contributions.

Strategies to Reduce Political Vulnerability and Risk

  • Joint ventures
  • Expanding the investment base
  • Licensing/franchising
  • Planned domestication
  • Political bargaining
  • Political payoffs (bribery)

Chapter 13: Product Adaptation

First step to adaptation: consider innovation. Determine the perceived newness of the product in the intended market.

Diffusion of Innovation

The goal is product acceptance by the largest number of consumers in the shortest span of time. New products are not always readily accepted by culture. They may ultimately be accepted but it takes time and effort. Diffusion research shows that the probable rate of acceptance can be predicted and accelerated if necessary.

Diffusion Theory

Diffusion theory is the process by which an innovation (a new idea, product, or practice) is communicated through specific channels over a period of time among members of a social system.

  • The concept of time is crucial in diffusion research, focusing on the time it takes for an innovation to be adopted by different segments of society.
  • The primary goal is to reduce the time lag between introducing an innovation and its widespread adoption within a market or community.

Diffusion Theory Knowledge is Beneficial

  • Predict diffusion time before making a financial commitment
  • Identify product features that provoke resistance
  • Provide an opportunity to lessen resistance and hasten acceptance
  • Extraneous variables affect the rate of diffusion
  • Degree of perceived newness
  • Perceived attributes of the innovation
  • Methods used to communicate the data

Country of Origin Effect

The Country of Origin Effect is the influence that the manufacturing country has on product perception – can be negative, ethnocentric, or positive.

  • Good marketing can overcome negative CoE

Chapter 15: The Six Cs of Channel Strategy

  1. Cost
  2. Capital requirements
  3. Control
  4. Coverage
  5. Character
  6. Continuity

Chapter 16: Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

The goal of IMC is to achieve synergies between:

  1. Advertising
  2. Sales Promotions
  3. Trade Shows
  4. Personal Selling
  5. Direct Selling
  6. Public Relations

Encoding Errors

Symbols may send unintended messages – perhaps due to unrecognized SRC.

  • Media channels can cause issues

Chapter 17: Expatriates and Local Nationals

Expatriates

Expatriates are home-country personnel moving to a foreign market.

Advantages of Expatriate Sales Personnel

  • Greater technical training
  • Better knowledge of the company and product line
  • Proven dependability
  • May add prestige to product lines for foreign customers
  • Able to communicate effectively with headquarters’ personnel

Disadvantages of Expatriate Sales Force

  • High cost
  • Cultural and legal barriers
  • Limited number of high-caliber personnel willing to live abroad

Reasons People are Reluctant to Go Abroad

  • Uprooting families
  • Dual career couples
  • Impediment to subsequent promotions
  • Companies with well-planned career development programs have the least difficulty
  • Need to fit and integrate the expatriate employee in the foreign office

Virtual Expatriates

A new breed of increasingly used expatriate.

  • Communications technology allows for a virtual sales force, especially with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions on foreign travel.

Advantages of Virtual Expatriate Personnel

  • Can manage operations and enjoy diversity-driven creativity without uprooting family and moving; cheaper

Disadvantages of Virtual Expatriate Personnel

  • Close contact with customers is tougher to maintain.

Local Nationals

Advantages

  • More knowledgeable about the country’s business structure.
  • More capable of adapting sales pitches to customers.
  • Less cost to maintain than expatriates.

Disadvantages

  • Their advice tends to be ignored by headquarters’ personnel
  • Language and cultural barriers impact their level of influence
  • Difficult to recruit high-quality salespeople
  • Some cultures view sales as the bottom rung of the social ladder