Who is able to complete this discussion today?

1-1 Use the product/market growth matrix to explain the ­various ways a company can expand globally.

As the preceding examples illustrate, the global marketplace finds expression in many ways. Some are quite subtle; others are not. While shopping, you may have noticed more multilanguage labeling on your favorite products and brands. Chances are you were one of the millions of people around the world who tuned in to television coverage of the World Cup Soccer championship in 2018. On the highway, you may have seen a semitrailer truck from FedEx’s Global Supply Chain Services fleet. Or perhaps you are one of the hundreds of millions of Apple iTunes customers who got a free download of U2’s 2014 album Songs of Innocence—whether you wanted it or not! When you pick up a pound of Central American coffee at your favorite café, you will find that some beans are labeled Fair Trade Certified.

The growing importance of global marketing is one aspect of a sweeping transformation that has profoundly affected the people and industries of many nations during the past 160 years. International trade has existed for centuries. Beginning in 200 B.C., for example, the legendary Silk Road was a land route connecting China with Mediterranean Europe. From the mid-1800s to the early 1920s, with Great Britain the dominant economic power in the world, international trade flourished. However, a series of global upheavals, including World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Great Depression, brought that era to an end. Then, following World War II, a new era began. Unparalleled expansion into global markets by companies that previously served only customers located in their respective home countries is one hallmark of this new global era.

Four decades ago, the phrase global marketing did not exist. Today, businesspeople use global marketing to realize their companies’ full commercial potential. That is why, no matter whether you live in Asia, Europe, North America, or South America, you may be familiar with the brands mentioned in the opening paragraphs of this chapter. However, there is another, even more critical reason why companies need to take global marketing seriously: survival. A management team that fails to understand the importance of global marketing risks losing its domestic business to competitors with lower costs, more experience, and better products.

But what is global marketing? How does it differ from “regular” marketing as it is typically practiced and taught in an introductory course? Marketing can be defined as 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.2 Marketing activities center on an organization’s efforts to satisfy customer wants and needs with products and services that offer competitive value. The marketing mix (the four Ps of product, price, place, and promotion) represents the contemporary marketer’s primary tools in achieving this goal. Marketing is a universal discipline, as applicable in Argentina as it is in Zimbabwe.

This book is about global marketing. An organization that engages in global marketing focuses its resources and competencies on global market opportunities and threats. A fundamental difference between regular marketing and global marketing is the scope of activities. A company that engages in global marketing conducts important business activities outside the home-country market. The scope issue can be conceptualized in terms of the familiar product/market matrix of growth strategies (see Table 1-1). Some companies pursue a market development strategy, which involves seeking new customers by introducing existing products or services to a new market segment or to a new geographical market. Global marketing can also take the form of a diversification strategy in which a company creates new product or service offerings targeting a new segment, a new country, or a new region.

Table 1-1 Product/Market Growth Matrix

Product Orientation

Existing Products

New Products

Market Orientation

Existing markets

Market penetration strategy

Product development strategy

New markets

Market development strategy

Diversification strategy

Starbucks provides a good case study of a global marketer that can simultaneously execute all four of the growth strategies shown in Table 1-1:

Market penetration: Starbucks is building on its loyalty card and rewards program with a smartphone app that enables customers to pay for purchases electronically. The app displays a bar code that the customer can scan.

Market development: Starbucks entered Italy in 2018, starting with a 25,000-square-foot flagship Reserve Roastery in Milan. Walking distance from the landmark Duomo, the Roastery will offer pastries by local bakery Princi as well as the aperitivo beverages that are so popular throughout Italy.3

Product development: Starbucks created a new instant-coffee brand, Via, to enable its customers to enjoy coffee at the office and other locations where brewed coffee is not available. After a successful launch in the United States, Starbucks rolled out Via in Great Britain, Japan, South Korea, and several other Asian countries. Starbucks also recently introduced its first coffee machine. The Versimo allows Starbucks’ customers to “prepare their favorite beverages at home.”

Diversification: In 2011, Starbucks dropped the word “Coffee” from its logo. It recently acquired a juice maker, Evolution Fresh; the Bay Bread bakery, and tea retailer Teavana Holdings. Next up: Revamping select stores so they can serve as wine bars and attract new customers in the evening.4

To get some practice applying the matrix shown in Table 1-1, create a product/market growth matrix for another global company. IKEA, LEGO, and Walt Disney are all good candidates for this type of exercise.

Companies that engage in global marketing frequently encounter unique or unfamiliar features in specific countries or regions of the world. In China, for example, product counterfeiting and piracy are rampant. Companies doing business there must take extra care to protect their intellectual property and deal with “knockoffs.” In some regions of the world, bribery and corruption are deeply entrenched. A successful global marketer understands specific concepts and has a broad and deep understanding of the world’s varied business environments.

The global marketer also must understand the strategies that, when skillfully implemented in conjunction with universal marketing fundamentals, increase the likelihood of market success. And, as John Quelch and Katherine Jocz assert, “The best global brands are also the best local brands.” That is, managers at global companies understand the importance of local excellence.5 This book concentrates on the major dimensions of global marketing. A brief overview of marketing is presented next, although the authors assume that the reader has completed an introductory marketing course or has equivalent experience.

As defined in the previous section, marketing is one of the functional areas of a business, distinct from finance and operations. Marketing can also be thought of as a set of activities and processes that, along with product design, manufacturing, and transportation logistics, compose a firm’s value chain. Decisions at every stage, from idea conception to support after the sale, should be assessed in terms of their ability to create value for customers.

For any organization operating anywhere in the world, the essence of marketing is to surpass the competition at the task of creating perceived value—that is, to provide a superior value proposition—for customers. The value equation is a guide to this task:

Value=Benefits/Price(money,time,effort,etc.)

The marketing mix is integral to the value equation because benefits are a combination of the product, the promotion, and the distribution. As a general rule, value, as the customer perceives it, can be increased in these ways. Markets can offer customers an improved bundle of benefits or lower prices (or both!). Marketers may strive to improve the product itself, to design new channels of distribution, to create better communications strategies, or a combination of all three.

Marketers may also seek to increase value by finding ways to cut costs and prices. Nonmonetary costs are also a factor, and marketers may be able to decrease the time and effort that customers must expend to learn about or seek out the product.6 Companies that use price as a competitive weapon may scour the globe to ensure an ample supply of low-wage labor or access to cheap raw materials. Companies can also reduce prices if costs are low because of process efficiencies in manufacturing or because of economies of scale associated with high production volumes.

Recall the definition of a market: people or organizations that are both able and willing to buy. To achieve market success, a product or brand must measure up to a threshold of acceptable quality and be consistent with buyer behavior, expectations, and preferences. If a company is able to offer a combination of superior product, distribution, or promotion benefits and lower prices than the competition does, it should enjoy an extremely advantageous position. Toyota, Nissan, and other Japanese automakers made significant gains in the American market in the 1980s by creating a superior value proposition: They offered cars with higher quality, better mileage, and lower prices than those made by General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler.

Today, the auto industry is shifting its attention to emerging markets such as India and Africa. Renault and its rivals are racing to offer middle-class consumers a new value proposition: high-quality vehicles that sell for the equivalent of $10,000 or less. On the heels of Renault’s success with the Dacia Logan have come the $2,500 Nano from India’s Tata Motors and a $3,000 Datsun from Nissan (see Case 11-1).

Achieving success in global marketing often requires persistence and patience. Following World War II, some of Japan’s initial auto exports were market failures. In the late 1960s, for example, Subaru of America began importing the Subaru 360 automobile and selling it for $1,297. After Consumer Reports judged the 360 to be unacceptable, sales ground to a halt. Similarly, the Yugo automobile achieved a modest level of U.S. sales in the 1980s (despite a “don’t buy” rating from a consumer magazine) because its sticker price of $3,999 made it the cheapest new car available. Low quality was the primary reason for the market failure of both the Subaru 360 and the Yugo.7 The Subaru story does have a happy ending, however, due in no small measure to the company’s decades-long efforts to improve its vehicles. In fact, each year, Consumer Reports puts Subaru near the top of its quality rankings, in the same league with Lexus, Mazda, Toyota, and Audi.8 History has not been so kind to the Yugo: It ended up on Time magazine’s list of the “50 Worst Cars of All Time.”

Even some of the world’s biggest, most successful companies stumble while pursuing global opportunities. Walmart’s exit from the German market was due, in part, to the fact that German shoppers could find lower prices at “hard discounters” such as Aldi and Lidl. In addition, many German consumers prefer to go to several small shops rather than seek out the convenience of a single, “all-in-one” store located outside a town center. Likewise, U.K.-based Tesco’s attempts to enter the U.S. market with its Fresh & Easy stores failed, in part, because U.S. consumers were unfamiliar with the private-label goods that made up much of the merchandise stock. And, in 2015, American “cheap chic” retailer Target terminated its operations in ­Canada, a victim of missteps in terms of store locations and pricing. The cost for closing 133 stores: more than $5 billion.

Competitive Advantage, Globalization, and Global Industries

When a company succeeds in creating more value for customers than its competitors do, that company is said to enjoy competitive advantage in an industry.9 Competitive advantage is measured relative to rivals in specific industry sectors. For example, your local laundromat is in a local industry; its competitors are local. In a national industry, competitors are national. In a global industry—consumer electronics, apparel, automobiles, steel, pharmaceuticals, furniture, and dozens of other sectors—the competition is, likewise, global (and, in many industries, local as well). Global marketing is essential if a company competes in a global industry or one that is globalizing.

The transformation of formerly local or national industries into global ones is part of a broader economic process of globalization, which Jagdish Bhagwati defines as follows:

Economic globalization constitutes integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, direct foreign investment (by corporations and multinationals), short-term capital flows, international flows of workers and humanity generally, and flows of technology.10

From a marketing point of view, globalization presents companies with tantalizing opportunities—and challenges—as executives decide whether to offer their products and services everywhere. At the same time, globalization presents companies with unprecedented opportunities to reconfigure themselves. As John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge put it, the same global bazaar that allows consumers to buy the best that the world can offer also enables producers to find the best partners.11

For example, globalization is presenting significant marketing opportunities for professional sports organizations such as the National Basketball Association, the National Football League, and Major League Soccer (see Exhibit 1-2). As Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber noted, “In the global culture the universal language is soccer. That’s the sweet spot. If it weren’t for the shrinking world caused by globalization, we wouldn’t have the opportunity we have today.”12

Exhibit 1-2

The National Football League (NFL) promotes American football globally. The NFL is focusing on a handful of key markets, including Canada, China, Germany, Japan, ­Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Every fall, banners are draped over London’s Regent Street to create awareness of the International Series games played before sellout crowds at Wembley Stadium and Twickenham.

Is there more to a global industry than simply “global competition”? Definitely. As defined by management guru Michael Porter, a global industry is one in which competitive advantage can be achieved by integrating and leveraging operations on a worldwide scale. Put another way, an industry is global to the extent that a company’s industry position in one country is interdependent with its industry position in other countries. Indicators of globalization include the ratio of cross-border trade to total worldwide production, the ratio of cross-border investment to total capital investment, and the proportion of industry revenue generated by companies that compete in all key world regions.14 One way to determine the degree of globalization in an industry sector is to calculate the ratio of the annual value of global trade in the sector—including the value of components shipped to various countries during the production process—to the annual value of industry sales. In terms of these metrics, the consumer electronics, apparel, automobile, and steel industries are highly globalized.15

Achieving competitive advantage in a global industry requires executives and managers to maintain a well-defined strategic focus. Focus is simply the concentration of attention on a core business or competence. The importance of focus for a global company is evident in the following comment by Helmut Maucher, former chairman of Nestlé SA:

Nestlé is focused: We are food and beverages. We are not running bicycle shops. Even in food we are not in all fields. There are certain areas we do not touch. For the time being we have no biscuits [cookies] in Europe and the United States for competitive reasons, and no margarine. We have no soft drinks because I have said we either buy Coca-Cola or we leave it alone. This is focus.16

Sometimes, however, company management may choose to initiate a change in focus as part of an overall strategy shift. Even Coca-Cola has been forced to sharpen its focus on its core beverage brands. Following sluggish sales for that company in 2000 and 2001, former chairman and chief executive Douglas Daft formed a new alliance with Nestlé that jointly developed and marketed coffees and teas. Daft also set about the task of transforming Coca-Cola’s Minute Maid unit into a global division that markets a variety of juice brands worldwide. As Daft explained:

We’re a network of brands and businesses. You don’t just want to be a total beverage company. Each brand has a different return on investment, is sold differently, drunk for different reasons, and has different managing structures. If you mix them all together, you lose the focus.17

Examples abound of corporate executives addressing the issue of focus, often in response to changes in the global business environment. In recent years, Bertelsmann, Colgate, Danone, ­Electrolux, Fiat, Ford, Fortune Brands, General Motors, Harley-Davidson, Henkel, LEGO, McDonald’s, Royal Philips, Toshiba, Vivendi, and many other companies have stepped up their efforts to sharpen their strategic focus on core businesses and brands.

Specific actions can take a number of different forms; in addition to alliances, these can include mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and folding some businesses into other company ­divisions (see Table 1-2). At Royal Philips, CEO Frans van Houten has shed the electronics and engineering units; instead of marketing TV sets and VCRs, today’s Philips is focused on three sectors: health care, lighting, and consumer lifestyle (see Exhibit 1-3). Major changes in the ­organizational structure such as these must also be accompanied by changes in corporate culture.18

Exhibit 1-3

The Dragon Bridge in Da Nang is a major tourist attraction. The LED lighting is provided by Philips.

Value, competitive advantage, and the focus required to achieve them are universal in their relevance, and they should guide marketing efforts in any part of the world. Global marketing requires attention to these issues on a worldwide basis and utilization of a business intelligence system capable of monitoring the globe for opportunities and threats. A fundamental premise of this book can be stated as follows: Companies that understand and engage in global marketing can offer more overall value to customers than companies that do not have such understanding. Many business managers and pundits share this conviction. In the mid-1990s, for example, C. Samuel Craig and Susan P. Douglas noted:

Globalization is no longer an abstraction but a stark reality. . . . Choosing not to participate in global markets is no longer an option. All firms, regardless of their size, have to craft strategies in the broader context of world markets to anticipate, respond, and adapt to the changing configuration of these markets.19

Companies in a range of industries are “going global.” For example, three Italian furniture companies have joined together to increase sales outside of Italy and ward off increased competition from Asia. Luxury goods purveyors such as LVMH and Prada Group provided the model for the new business entity, which unites Poltrona Frau, Cassina, and Cappellini.20 Hong Kong’s Tai Ping Carpets International is also globalizing. Top managers have been dispersed to different parts of the world; while the finance and technology functions are still in Hong Kong, the marketing chief is based in New York City and the head of operations is in Singapore. As company director John Ying noted, “We’re trying to create a minimultinational.”21

Many gains can be ascribed to globalization. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted from poverty and have joined the middle class. In countries where globalization has raised wages, living standards have improved. Even so, popular sentiment has been shifting, and a note of ­caution is in order. A mounting body of evidence indicates that the gains from globalization have not been evenly distributed. A disproportionate amount of wealth has flowed to the “have lots” and “have yachts,” with not enough going to the “have nots.” U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda is just one example of the way some nations are retreating into protectionism and isolation. Some industry observers have noted that we are entering a new era of “globalization in reverse.”