Are Domestic and International Marketing Dissimilar - Article Example

Are Domestic and International Marketing Dissimilar? This essay discusses and demonstrates the core contributions to the discussions of marketing throughout the semester. The discussion was presented by four presenters: Reem Al. Najid on national culture, Haya Al. Jaber on consumer affinity, Fahad Al. Saad on international global marketing and Jenam Al. Habib on global marketing. These represent the four arguments in this reflective essay paper. The essay covers short description of what the presenter covered and my contributions and arguments to the discussion topics as discussed below: 1. National Culture. This topic was presented by Reem Al. Najdi as the first presentation in the in the class. In her presentation, she discussed the culture of Kuwait and as a country which is located in the gulf region. She presented an argument on how oil resources impact the culture of Kuwait, how the surrounding culture impact the Kuwait society as a country with small mixed population with different cultures. These drew her to the main discussion point about the values that distinguish the Kuwait culture from other countries According to Hofstede (2010), culture refers to the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from others. The culture of one country is distinguished from the other countries using the values of dimensions of the national cultures. She illustrated that power distance is a situation where there are differences in power holding in the society. Power distance is the extent to which less powerful members of organizations and institutions accept the unequal distributed power. This power distance may be experienced in Kuwait, and she gave an example of marriage and relationship and divorce in family structures. In every family in Kuwait, every member of the family knows the extent of power that one holds in that family. In the contribution, I suggested that the society’s level of power inequality is endorsed by the followers and leaders in the Kuwait society. She also talked about the individualism and collectivism as a value that distinguish Kuwait from other countries. She illustrated that the wealth effect has produced some form of individualism and it is evident in the new generation. I concur with her because individualism is the degree to which individuals are not integrated into groups and their ties within the society are loose while collectivism is situation where the society is integrated into strong, cohesive groups. I contributed by saying that in Kuwait everyone is expected to caref for themselves including immediate family which is mostly experienced in the new generation while in the old generation people were expected to protect each other in the society. She gave an example of collectivism using the old generations like parents and grandparents who are close to each other thus in the long time ago the extended families lived together. Masculinity and femininity are also a value which was discussed. She said that Kuwait is somewhat conservative society which its culture is influenced by Muslim. She said that males have more control than female. In my contribution, this is because men are seen as people have more energy and reasoning power hence they dominate in the society. She also discussed the uncertainty avoidance in Kuwait. Being that Kuwait is part of the Middle East countries. These countries are politically unstable. The instability creates uncertainty which affect the Kuwait Society. She gave an example of the conflict between Israel and issues with Iran and Iraq. Her last discussion on the values of the Kuwait society was the long term/short term orientation. She said that Kuwait is a conservative society and the wealth in Kuwait made people consume and save more at the same time because of the wealth effect. 2. Consumer affinity. This second topic was presented by Haya Al. Jaber. The presenter discussed the consumer affinity, globalization of business, attraction repulsion model, two types of groups of consumers in Kuwait with consumer affinity (CAF), reasons behind consumer affinity and impact of consumer affinity on foreign business. Her main argument was consumer affinity which she explained as the buyer attitude or liking towards the product made in a foreign country. She indicated that it is based on the customers’ previous experience and memories with a foreign product. Therefore in my contribution, to create these experience and memories to the customer, then we must understand their needs in order to provide quality products. On the part of globalization of business, she illustrated that it is the process through, which the international transaction of goods, services capital and technology becomes increasingly connected. Thus it increases the economic growth and generates a wider range of products and services. In the attraction repulsion model, she represented a diagram which indicated the attraction and repulsion in domestic and foreign country. In the domestic country, the attraction of the consumers is ethnocentrism while the repulsion is dis-identification. On the other hand, attraction of consumers is due to consumer affinity and the repulsion is due to the consumer animosity. Haya illustrated that the reasons behind consumer affinity are the influence of the individualist and collectivist culture. She indicated how to raise the consumer affinity through; changing customer perception, providing them what they need, clarifying the misunderstandings, psychological marketing, developing appositive relationship and using strong marketing and promotional tools. Lastly she said that there is the impact of consumer affinity such as broader customer base, reaping the fruit of globalization, higher profitability and sound grounds for further investments. I contributed in this presentation by clarifying that a better understanding of the two customer affinity groups enhance performance of the business. 3. International Marketing This topic was presented by Fahad Al. Saad as our third presentation. He gave the explanation of what think global act local mean, how it worked and gave examples of successful companies. In his illustration, the global act local is an international marketing principle; a strategy of selling internationally (a global strategy) while adapting their tactical approach to the local market. In my contribution, this means Global localization which is also known as glocalizatiion (Keegan and Green, 2013). The main purpose of international marketing is to find out as to why a product or company may succeed or fail in foreign states. Various countries just as individuals are different. Therefore, marketing strategies planned for another country may differ accordingly and similarities could be expected only to the extent customs, values and attitudes (Robert Bartels, 2010). This is the ability of the company to be an insider or a local company in a foreign country and still get the benefits of local operations. He continued to illustrate that to make this successful accompany, then the company needs to do customer research, visit the market to experience the culture and do pestle analysis, local translation and develop brand guideline. In my research, I came to notify that; For example, the success of Coca- Cola in most countries (Fletcher, 2005) is because the company spent huge amount of time and money to become an insider in these countries. Therefore, to be successful in international marketing, companies need to think globally and act locally. He used Mac-Donald as an example to illustrate how it has gained competitive advantage by using different names of products in different countries e.g. in India it uses Mc veggie-Maharaja Mac and Middle East it uses Mac Arabia. 4. Global Marketing This is the last topic of the class discussion. It is presented by Jean Al. Habib. In his discussion, he has talked about the objective of global marketing, how to create value in global marketing and standardization vs. adaption in global marketing. He argued that the main objective of global marketing is to drive business that is to create more revenue for the company. He further illustrated that marketing discourses include how to pick the best advertising plans, use and coordinate those strategies to drive those deals. In his presentation, he says that advertising blend is vital to this comparison in light of the fact that profits are consolidation of the item, advancement and appropriation parts of the mix. He discussed the four marketing mix; prices, promotion, place and product. In my contribution, Global marketing involves the understanding that all people in the world have different needs. The products that these companies produce and sell are targeted to the global customers using a consistent market mix. Jenam presented that worth to the client may be expanded through an enhanced heap of profit or an easier cost or both. Advertisers may look approaches to cut expenses or bring down the cost and ways to increase sales. Assuming than an organization has the ability to offer a fusion of unrivalled item, dispersion and advancement of the profit. He illustrated that for accompany to create value, it has to find new distribution channels, create better communication and cut monetary and non-monetary cost and prices. Standardization refers to the development of standardized product market worldwide with the marketing mix. For example, Coca-Cola, uses the adaption method to sell its products worldwide and doesn’t use the standardization as it is ineffective in global marketing (Keegan, 2013). In conclusion, culture of a nation affects the performance of the business, the customers’ affinity can spur business growth, international marketing increases the competitiveness of the company in the local economies and global marketing increases the competitive edge in of the company in the global market. These discussion helped a lot has they have broadened my understanding and increased my research level in the academic world. References De Mooij, M, 2011, Consumer Behavior and Culture: Consequences for Global Marketing and Advertising, Second Edition, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA. Fletcher, R, & Brown, L, 2005, International Marketing: An Asia-Pacific Perspective. 3rd Edition, Pearson Education Australia, Sydney. Hofstede, G, Gert, J, H, & Michael, M, 2010, Culture and organization: Software of the mind, New York: McGraw-Hill. IMS 2013, Think global act local, Lakeview Point, viewed 24 April 2014, . Keegan, W. J. and Green, M. C. 2013, Global Marketing, 7th Edition, Prentice Hall International, New Jersey. Robert Bartels, 2010, Are Domestic and International Marketing Dissimilar? Journal of Marketing, Vol, 32, No 3, pp. 56-61, American Marketing Association. Read More