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The Macro Environment – Six Forces in the Environment of...
The New Product Development Process (NPD) – Obtain new Products
4 Types of Consumer Products and Marketing Considerations – Convenience,...
Three Levels of Product – Core Value, Actual Product, Augmented...
Characteristics of Services: What is a Service – And what...
Branding Decisions – 4 Brand Strategy Decisions to Build strong...
Product Mix decisions – Width, length, depth and consistency
Product Life Cycle Stages (PLC) – Managing the Product Life...
Characteristics of the Product Life Cycle Stages and their Marketing...
Cost-based Pricing – Pricing based on Costs
Categories of New Products – What is a New Product?
Market Segmentation Criteria – How to segment markets
Marketing-Insider
  • Home
  • Updates
  • Marketing Explained
    • I: Marketing and the marketing process
      • Definition: What is Marketing?
      • The Marketing Process
      • The 5 Marketing Concepts
      • The Marketing Strategy
        • Market Segmentation
        • Market Targeting
        • Differentiation and Positioning
          • Differentiation
          • Positioning
      • The Marketing Mix – The 4 Ps
      • Marketing Instruments
      • Portfolio Analysis: Boston Matrix
      • Portfolio Planning: Growth and Downsizing
      • SWOT Analysis
      • Definition of Product and Service
    • II: Understanding the marketplace
      • The Macro Environment
      • The Buyer Black Box – Buyer’s Characteristics
      • The Buyer Decision Process
      • B2B Market Characteristics
      • Customer Lifetime Value
      • Customer Relationship Groups
    • III: Designing a marketing strategy
      • How to create a Marketing Plan – 8 Steps
      • The Consumer Product
        • Three Levels of Product
        • 4 Types of Consumer Products
        • Different Types of Consumer Products
      • Product Line and Product Mix Decisions
        • Individual Product Decisions
        • Product Line Decisions
        • Product Mix Decisions
      • New Product Development (NPD)
        • The New Product Development Process
        • New Product Development Strategies
      • Pricing Strategies
        • What is a Price?
        • 3 Major Pricing Strategies
          • Customer Value-based Pricing
          • Cost-based Pricing
        • Additional Pricing Considerations
          • New Product Pricing
          • Product Mix Pricing Strategies
          • Price Adjustment Strategies
          • Initiating price changes
      • Product Life Cycle (PLC)
        • Product Life Cycle Stages (PLC)
        • Product Life Cycle Strategies
      • Branding Decisions
      • Characteristics of Services
    • Interesting
      • New View on Marketing
      • Next-Gen Marketing Tool: Virtual Reality
      • Advertising Evolution
      • The 5 Don’ts of Presentations
      • Successful Mobile Marketing
      • Why Most Marketing Strategies Fail
      • How to create a Marketing Plan – 8 Steps
      • How to write a good Marketing Plan
      • 5 Don’ts of LinkedIn
      • Using Social Media in Marketing
    • SEO
      • What is SEO?
      • How Search Engines work
      • How to do SEO?
      • SEO Rules for 2016
  • About Marketing-Insider
Monthly Archives

October 2020

    Cultural Blunders in Marketing - Learn from previous Mistakes
    Marketing Explained

    Cultural Blunders in Marketing – Learn from previous Mistakes

    by Maximilian Claessens 18th October 2020
    written by Maximilian Claessens

    Mistakes are sometimes made in cross cultural marketing. What works great in one country can be disastrous in another. You have to consider how something will be translated and interpreted in different countries. It’s critical to research the culture of a country before marketing products there.

    Even large companies sometimes make cultural blunders in marketing. This might be because of short-sightedness, hurrying to get a product to market before enough research is done, or simply not thinking enough about the sensibilities of a different country.

    Examples of cultural blunders in marketing

    Mistakes can happen with translations. Schweppes Tonic Water became Schweppes Toilet Water in Italy.

    Ikea, the Swedish furniture giant, almost named a desk “Fartfull” before someone realized that probably wasn’t a good name for it.

    It turned out that the Italian mineral water named Traficante translated to mean “drug dealer.”

    Another cultural blunder in marketing came when UK sports manufacturer Umbro named their new trainers the Zyklon. That was revealed to be the name of a gas the Nazis used in their death camps.

    Honda was forced to rename one of its cars after it came to light that the original name when translated referred to a woman’s genitals in some Nordic countries.

    Tesco had cartons of bacon flavored Pringles displayed near a major Muslim mosque in London’s Whitechapel area. Since Muslims do not eat bacon, some called this insensitive. Others called it a cultural blunder in marketing.

    Hitler ice cream cones? People asked why anyone would give them this name. It turned out that the owner of the company apparently named the product after a quick-tempered relative.

    The Food Basics grocery store initiated a promotion of Halal chicken, a Muslim product, to celebrate a Sikh religious holiday. The problem with that was that Halal meat is forbidden for practicing Sikhs. The marketing team must have confused Sikhs with Muslims.

    In Africa pictures of what is contained in a food product are often printed on the labels. This is done because most people there are illiterate. So, there was widespread confusion when Gerber put pictures of babies on their baby food jars.

    Solutions

    These examples show that many times companies don’t consider how their products will be received by the local and/or regional cultures internationally. Do they just assume their country’s products will be accepted unconditionally? Sometimes that seems to be the case. Unfortunately, though, there are many examples that show this often doesn’t work.

    Poor cultural awareness is often the reason behind cultural blunders in marketing. It’s important to think beyond your own country’s religions, mores, styles, and preferences when developing marketing content and products for other countries. Not taking the time to do this can be disastrous.

    What happens when something goes wrong and cultural blunders in marketing occur? Feelings might be hurt. Anger may even be aroused. It can negatively affect the product involved. The company might be embarrassed. Needless to say, all of these were not the desired outcomes.

    It’s surprising that huge corporations are among those who have made cultural blunders in marketing. After all, they probably have teams of marketing professionals and budgets running into the millions of dollars.

    There are a number of things that go into a marketing strategy. Something that should be basic is making sure not to make any cultural blunders in marketing.

    18th October 2020
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  • Marketing Explained

    How to Use UTM to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Marketing Strategy

    by Maximilian Claessens 18th October 2020
    by Maximilian Claessens 18th October 2020

    UTM – or Urchin Tracking Modules – are parameters that you can add at the end of a URL in order to track the performance of any marketing campaigns. When…

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  • Marketing Explained

    What are the Most Efficient Online Marketing Techniques for Financial Services?

    by Maximilian Claessens 11th October 2020
    by Maximilian Claessens 11th October 2020

    Financial products are some of the most heavily marketed products in the world. This means that financial services must work hard to stay ahead of the competition and stand out…

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Popular

  • 1

    The Macro Environment – Six Forces in the Environment of a Business

  • 2

    The New Product Development Process (NPD) – Obtain new Products

  • 3

    4 Types of Consumer Products and Marketing Considerations – Convenience, Shopping, Speciality and Unsought Products

  • Three Levels of Product – Core Value, Actual Product, Augmented Product

  • Characteristics of Services: What is a Service – And what makes it so special?

  • Branding Decisions – 4 Brand Strategy Decisions to Build strong Brands

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