BUSINESS

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Running Head: Marketing Article

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When Marketing in One Country Backfires Abroad

Question One.

The theme or the topic of the article is when marketing by an organization in our country will not succeed, backfire or will fail in aboard. This means that a marketing strategy may be successful in one local country but when the same strategy is used in another country abroad, it fails significantly (Alaimo, 2017). Actually, this means that success of marketing in the local country is not mutually inclusive to the success of the same marketing in another country. Further, the theme helps us to understand the reasons that may be the source of the backfiring and what should be done to reverse the phenomena. Based on this theme, some of the reasons that marketing significantly fails are because the marketing manages fails to pay adequate attention to vital international data, meaning they need to have specialized and complex research of the market. Secondly, the managers fail to adapt their marketing and sales channels and where they take new approaches altogether (Alaimo, 2017).

This article articulates various companies that marketing abroad. We see that Apple did introduce Product-RED which is a special edition of iPhone where they were to use a marketing strategy of using an undisclosed percentage of the total sale of the iPhone with helping in fighting ‘Global Fund’ which was meant to fight HIV/AIDS menace in China. Unfortunately, the marketing strategy failed since we see that the product was strangely missing in China market (Alaimo, 2017). Notably, the reason the marketing strategy failed in China was that Apple thought that since they had used the same strategy in their country, it will be cordially welcomed in China more so by the government. The articles indicate that the China’s government may not have approved the strategy for reasons well known to them. But Christian Wu who is a professor at Hofstra University indicates that the government could have refused to approve it because it didn’t want to openly state that HIV/AIDs is a menace in China since it is associated to sexually transmitted diseases and homosexuality where the government considers a taboo (Alaimo, 2017).

article theme is The important to the management and this is because, first, they ought to first carry extensive, complex and strategic marketing research about the culture of the county they want to launch the product. This is because many cultures that are accepted in one local country may be a taboo in another country abroad. If the Apple company did carry an extensive research about the culture of China, and how they treat HIV/AID, the company could not have embedded the phenomena and marketing strategy for launching the (products)RED which is an iPhone. Notably, HIV/AIDS in the USA where apple company is located is not a taboo and this is because homosexuality is widely accepted but in China, it is a taboo (Alaimo, 2017).

Secondly, reasons learned by managers is that should try appeasement policy by using ‘local public relations strategy’ during their marketing abroad. From the article, we can see that Apple company wanted to appease China’s government and this is because the country had banned various technology companies such as Twitter and Facebook (Alaimo, 2017). They didn’t want the government to ban them. The problem with this is because of their negative consequences in beyond country.

Finally, managers need to choose products that they can be able to defend in the abroad market without using various marketing strategy to appease the people and the government. The articles indicate that in 2012, IKEA did the same mistake in marketing their product in Saud Arabia. It is worth noting that company used the marketing strategy of airbrushing images of women in their catalogs. This is very ok with the local market but was not taken well since women in a various part of the world got outraged (Alaimo, 2017).

Question 2

As a manager, I would have introduced and practically apply what I have learned in this article because they strategies used by various companies failed. Therefore, to prevent the same failure when marketing the product of my company abroad. I would ensure to a sub-team form marketing department in liaison with some research expert from the country I want to introduce our product to carry extensive and strategic marketing research about, the demand and supply scenario of the country, the consumption patterns, the GDP, the competitor who has achieved in the country, the culture of the people of the country among other.

This will help me grasps the consumer preference of the country which will help me task my production team to produce and introduced products in the abroad country. As a manager, I would avoid the appeasement policy when introducing the product since from the article the strategy failed desperately.

This would perfectly in the ‘real world’ and this is because, people of different part of the world have a different culture and what may be accepted in one culture, it can be other people venom or evil. For example, in the article, Apple was using HIV/AID to launch its product but this failed since homosexuality is part of the cause of the disease and it is taboo in China which is not the case in the USA. In the ‘Real world,’ there is need of research about the market factors such as why competitors have achieved in the market or even or even various consumption pattern in the country in question. With this, the product will do very well in the abroad market (Alaimo, 2017).

Question 3

The article ties with concept and strategies. These concepts include promotion, products development, and outbound marketing strategies. The product promotion is where marketing team uses public relations and promotion strategies, there is the use of sponsorship, catchy slogans among others. The article shows that Apple company uses promotion to allow some of the sale income for the product to fund the campaign against HIV/Aids (Alaimo, 2017). Secondly, there is products development concept where the company develops the products with unique benefit and not just a weak feature. The unique benefit in the Apple product to be introduced in China was to help in curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS (Alaimo, 2017). Also, there is IKEA didn’t use the strategy when it airbrushed images of women and hence the product failed in the whole world market. Last is the outbound marketing strategies where marketing strategies aimed at catching the attention of the consumers and the government of the country which license the product. The strategy involves giving message directly to all prospective customers. The intention is to create demand. In this article, this can be demonstrated by the fact that Apple during the introduction of (PRODUCT)RED the message was about the reduction of HIV/AIDS (Alaimo, 2017). This could be taken well be people who want to avoid the diseases since there could be a feature on how to prevent the spread or beneficial to the infected consumers since there could be ways of how to control it.