Country of origin

Pastel de Belém

Today we started our class with a case about the Portuguese delicatessen Pastel de Belém. We talked about its competitive advantage, history/heritage, and how/what cultural factors have an affect on its sales. The cultural factors we came up were:

• the cafe culture that exists in Portugal (there is no such thing in Finland)
• rhythm of life, the consumption of the pastries was almost doubled during weekends
• stay and eat at the beautiful traditional cafe or take the pastries with you.

We then talked about adaptation and/or standardization of this pastry when going international. We thought that the packaging and the name should be adapted to be able to sell the product. Branding was the next thing discussed and we thought that since this product has a great history, it should be used to branding of the product. This is called heritage branding. This tasty tart was selected as 15th  on The Guardians list of the most delicious food and where to eat it. On the same list the best place for Nordic food was number 19 with the restaurant Olo in Helsinki, Finland.

MADE IN...

We also got into groups and created mind maps of what the country of origin means for sales and marketing. The reputation of the country is very important when thinking about labeling your product with Made in... sign. How other people perceive products from a certain country can differ a lot based on the image that country has created over the years. There is also a change between generations. We noticed that the brand in our group has a grater effect on the quality image of the product than where the product itself is made. Then there is the effect of perceiving you´r country's products as superior to others. In Finland Finnish products are mostly perceived as great quality and we are proud of them, but in China the Made in China label doesn't have the same patriotic effect. The origin of a product can also falsely effect the image of a product. When you hear that a chocolate is from Belgium, you immediately think that it is of high quality. Well, you don't know anything about the product, but are you ready to say that it is great before tasting it? When it comes to Belgian chocolate - most people are, according to my brief review in out international marketing class.

Many countries have also branded themselves and Finland has had a tough time in this as we are here in the north away from everyone else, or is this our advantage?

CNN listed Rovaniemi, Finland for the second time in row, as the best place to be for Christmas holiday on their list of the 9 best Christmas destinations. This season has for several years been the most profitable for north of Finland, but I don't see  reason why the summers should be any less profitable. The target customers for summer holiday's season may be different, but I would bet that there is a great deal of potential to grow in the summer holiday markets even for the same customers as during the winter/Christmas. The difference in Finnish weather and landscape from winter to summer is so different. It is like coming from darkness to light, without either of these being a bad thing. The summer with light and festivals and the winter with snow in all its glory both have something different and great to give. I hope that Finland realizes this and starts promoting itself as a year around destination for great holidays.

I found this article of Scotland promoting itself with Shetland ponies who wear cardigans. This campaign is from the Scottish Tourism Board promoting the year 2013 as the "Year of Natural Scotland". This is adorable and will definitely make an impact on the people who love horses and nature. This branding of a natural Scotland will definitely make a great impact on people who want to see natural landscapes and unpolluted areas. This is something I think Finland could also promote itself as.

Color forecasting

The Color Marketing Group is a business that dictates the colors we'll be wearing and seeing each year. They publish annual color palettes which companies and designers follow like sheep (Erich Soos, 2004). This is interesting to me and they also have several different palettes for different industries. The current industrial palettes are not available for everybody, but it would be great to see how well do these forecasts come alive.

Cultural environment

Culture and its affects on marketing

We have now been discussing different cultures and the affect these differences have on marketing.

Oreo's packages on the Chinese market

I found a neat article on global brands going to China and the ways they have had to change their marketing, but also the whole product to appear more desirable in those markets. This article is by Jeff Beer "Oreo's Chinese Twist" and it focuses mostly on Oreo cookies and its challenges to make it to the Chinese markets. They had to change the flavors to accommodate Chinese taste buds with flavors like orange-mango and blueberry-raspberry because during the summer months the sales of normal Oreo's went down.  This was because in China you eat "heaty" foods during the colder months and cooling foods during the warmer months. Fruits in general are considered cooling, and this is why they have been a huge success. Oreo also created a filling that when licked would create a cooling sensation with vanilla and green-tea flavoring. This particulas article is found in Canadian Business; 12/10/2012, Vol. 85 Issue 20, p66-67, 2p.

This article shows just how important the knowledge of your host country is. Oreo lost sales for years, because they didn't know that during the warmer months the Chinese wouldn't eat the kind of cookies they were making for the western markets.

Going abroad

Internationalization of companies

Angry Bird by Rovio

Last time we were discussing the ways companies can go abroad. The born globals and how they differ from companies that take their time broadening their market to abroad. Good examples of companies born global are the game companies like the Finnish Rovio with their Angry Birds taking over the world in a heart beat. They as a company didn't settle for the best game in Finland, they wanted to have the best game in the world. This has been their mentality from the start and with the 52nd game they created, they hit the jack pot. From then on they have been growing with different versions of the game and with merchandise to mach. They asked to launch the space edition of Angry Birds in space with NASA and they agreed, making it one of the best launches of products in my opinion. It got a great press coverage and was very successful. It is stated at Rovios home page that they had "263 million monthly active users in December". I think it is a great success to this many monthly active users after the initial game was lunched in 2009.

Different products in different cultures

We had a task to sum up our knowledge and ideas of how marketing is affected by culture in the case of flowers, soap, tee and liquorice in teams. Then we shared our ideas and info to others.  Our group focused on the flowers and what their meaning is in Afghanistan, China and Finland according to our own knowledge. It was very interesting to hear the differences flowers had in these countries. As a Finn I can say that flowers and plants are part of everyday in Finland. You can always give flowers when you're visiting someone or on special occasions. We have our special flowers for Christmas, Easter and so on, and knowing these is crucial for a company to know when coming to Finland. Marketing the right flower like hellebore, hyacinth and poinsettia in Christmas boosts up your sales immensely more than marketing primrose(which is a spring flower in Finland).

Afghanistan wedding car decorations

 I was surprised to learn that in Afghanistan you wouldn't give flowers to your girlfriend or when visiting someone. They mostly use flowers for  special occasions like weddings or birthdays. In Afghanistan they decorate the car beautifully for weddings and the market in that area is huge. When there are differences like these in the consumption of a product it has huge impacts on marketing. The market there is totally different from Finland and when marketing there you would have to know these things to succeed. In China flowers are used more like in Finland, but the one thing I remember being exceptionally nice was that they buy plants for their elders to look after during the day when they are at work or at school. I think this is a great idea and something that could be a new way to market flowers in Finland too. In China if you would like to start dating a girl, one would go and buy 99 red roses, because with the number it means a promise of love forever.  We agreed that flowers have different meanings in different cultures, but in these countries the red rose was considered to represent love. I remember from my exchange in Canada, that poppies are used on remembrance day to honor the fallen soldiers. In Canada this is is a great seasonal market for poppies, but in Finland you wouldn't even think about poppies on remembrance day.

I did a bit of research about the meaning of flowers and found that the language of flowers was started in the Victorian-era in Europe. Although today it is mostly forgotten, we still consider red roses as passion and love, and pink roses represent a lesser feeling of love. In Hamlet Shakespeare has wrote in act 4, scene 5 " OPHELIA: There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts." This scene is of Ophelia going crazy, but she is still stating the correct emotions associated with these flowers.
If I was starting a flower shop in Finland I would try to market the flowers with these meanings founded in the Victorian-era, because I think it would be something interesting for the Finnish markets. I think using these creates a great potential to grow the markets.

The first lectures

Today was our first day of being back at school after Christmas. I was ready to take in new ideas and expand my knowledge. 

International marketing

This is the topic of our course and I find it extremely interesting. I have been fascinated by the differences and the similarities that countries and cultures have for many years now. I also find the mind-behavior connection fascinating and what drives people to behave in certain way towards products, brands, colors, smells, music... This is why this topic is very interesting to me.

Our teacher Ulla Puustelli started with saying that the most important difference between marketing and international marketing is the environment they occur in. The buying habits, purchasing power, competitors, markets, etc. have a huge affect on how the marketing in a certain country/culture should be addressed. This is obvious to me, but what is the thing you need to change when going into new markets? I believe that knowing the culture and the habits of the people in the area you want to market in always helps the marketing to succeed.

We had the chance to give ideas on the topics we want to make a wiki on in groups during the course. This in my opinion was great and because I'm reading a book called "The Tell-Tale Brain" by V.S. Ramachandran I wanted to make a wiki on neuromarketing or more specifically if there is a way to market to the brain-not the culture? Are there some aesthetics that everyone appreciates? I have just started reading this book and I just want to read and read, because it is that interesting! I hope/think I can somehow relate on what I learn from this book into this course/blog.

Ulla gave us an example about the Finnish brand Lumene that tried to launch itself into the Swedish markets and failed twice before making it on the third time. They didn't know the differences in the Swedish environment and got caught with their good brand image and position on the Finnish markets. 

Here we go!

This is my Blog for the course of International Marketing. I'm quite exited to start this course and this thing of using blogs as our learning diaries. I will post my learning experiences and what we have been discussing during our classes in here weekly. So just sit back and wait for my first actual blog about international marketing :D