Whether your company is poised to take its product global or looking to build on its existing

international presence, you need to ensure the product meets local culture preferences
(tastes/wants) and the message customers hear is the one you meant to convey, taking into
account cultural differences that may affect the way your product and messages are received.
Your task is to find three (3) good examples of how culture affects the way you develop
products/services and/or the way in which you communicate them in foreign markets.
Please make sure and reference all sources of data (media stories, articles, reports, etc.,) and
provide full citations in your response.

We are posed with the question of what is culture?

Rob Fields perfectly defines what culture is for us and states “When I talk about “culture”, I
mean the world happening outside the company walls. It’s the thing Wikipedia defines as the
way of life for an entire society, including codes of manners, dress, language, religion,
rituals, norms of behavior and systems of belief. It's how we make deep and lasting
meaning.” (Forbes, 2014). According to Deborah Dougherty she scores the development of
new products as successful if they are able to identify the opportunities that are in place
within that market. (Dougherty, 1990). As technological advances become more apparent in
the global market firms it is crucial for firms to be able to promote their products successful
in markets that they have not yet touched. Three global companies excelled in touching new
markets and the development of its services/ products.

Nike

Nike is a brilliant example of how culture affects the way they communicate products with
foreign market. In Korea the role of fashion influences the placement of products that enter
into the market. Hyeonyoung Choi states that products especially in the fashion industry in
Korea are influenced by seven factors and these factors show how people in Korea attach
themselves to the band or consider themselves loyalist of the brand (Choi, 2014). Nike
performed a brilliant job when marketing to these people especially in the ‘Run it’
advertisements where they featured a Korean-rapper in their advertisement to inspire high
school graduates to express themselves in sport and in art. Korea is also identified with
several values and is a high-context culture. Nike had to identify the individualistic values
that they had and also recognised what Nike considered as a national treasure and were able
to use a dog in an advertisement to resonate with the millennials in the market. Furthermore,
we see Nike adapting to the treasures people were able to see and the values they were able to
resonate with. More importantly Nike used brand ambassadors to showcase the values that
were given and were able to use their status to reach people of all ages in South Korea.

Spotify

Spotify is another example of how a service product has influenced a market predominantly
of those who are music savvy. With the era of technological advancements coming into play,
the influence of media and social media are becoming greater and greater. People are
spending over 2 hours on social media alone (Medium, 2019). Spotify was able to use this
trend to influence and overshadow the use of radio as a method of audio consumption
through their music streaming service and music radios. Especially in Spain where their
music streaming service was highly successful due to the hybridisation of local and
international formulas that lead to them finding solutions to distribute their content
(Comunicar, 2019). Spotify decided the growing market of teenager’s consumption of sound
products through streaming services which catered to the habits of the teenagers in a digital
era where their attention was fixated through screens and not through listening. This led to
millions of teenagers adopting Spotify as a streaming service in Spain where music was
beginning to look like the main category within these streaming services. Spotify also needed
to be able to design a way that allowed fast communication of their products that was
integrated with good user design and platforms in Spain. Furthermore they catered to
people’s individualistic attitudes giving them a product which gave teenagers the opportunity
to listen passively through digital leisure.

Toyota
Toyota is another example of how culture can affect the way products are perceived in a
foreign market. This Japanese automotive company decided to enter the American market in
late 1957 but this international venture failed. America was a market that was wanting cars
that were small, compact and these cars were pretty much non-existent in the American
marketplace. Toyota marketers realised that their cars were underpowered and the American
marketplace wanted cars that were powerful. Clearly, there was a difference between the
Japanese culture and the American culture. The Japanese culture was about operational
effectiveness (Kohlbacher, 2007) whereas the American society was about was about the
power they could achieve from their cars. Seeing and learning from this failure they ventured
back to their drawing boards and successful developed what called the “Toyota Corolla” and
became one of the best-selling cars in 1997. It had everything the US market wished for; a
powerful engine, air conditioning and also included automotive transmission as well. The
decision to go back to the drawing board lead to a great success after failing to infiltrate the
market the first time. In addition, Toyota started to become a well-positioned firm within the
market and in the 1970s, they started to change its business model. Toyota had only 3% of
market share in the 1980s and kept rising beating its competitors; General Motors and Ford
(Steward & Paman, 2007). Not only did Toyota become the best automobile company in the
world it purchased other manufacturers to take on luxury brands in the American market by
launching Lexus later. Toyota failed at first but took the step to get back up and appealed to
the customers it catered for: the American desires of a small car that had power and that had a
bit of luxury as well.

Wright, R. (2020). Cross Cultural Advertising of Shoes in South Korea and Australia. [online]
Communication Generation. Available at: https://communication-generation.com/cross-cultural-
advertising-of-shoes-in-south-korea-and-australia/ [Accessed 2 Mar. 2020].

Pedrero-Esteban, L., Barrios-Rubio, A. & Medina-Ávila, V., 2019. Teenagers, smartphones and
digital audio consumption in the age of Spotify. Comunicar, 27(60), pp.103–112.

Michael T. Donaghu & Richard Barff 1990. Nike just did it: International Subcontracting and
Flexibility in Athletic Footwear Production , Regional Studies, 24(6), 537-552.

Forbes.com. (2020). Culture As Competitive Advantage For Marketers. [online] Available at:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2014/04/07/culture-as-competitive-advantage-for-
marketers/#4cd9f0b37a13 [Accessed 2 Mar. 2020].
Levins, C. (2020). Seven Companies That Paved the Way for Global Marketing. [online]
Airseacontainers.com. Available at: https://www.airseacontainers.com/blog/seven-companies-
paved-way-global-marketing/ [Accessed 2 Mar. 2020].

Hofstede Insights. (2020). Country Comparison - Hofstede Insights. [online] Available at:

https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/south-korea/ [Accessed 2 Mar. 2020].

Ennis-O'Connor, M. (2020). How Much Time Do People Spend on Social Media in 2019? [Infographic].
[online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/@JBBC/how-much-time-do-people-spend-on-
social-media-in-2019-infographic-cc02c63bede8 [Accessed 2 Mar. 2020].

Chug, A. (2020). [online] Available at: https://aerochug.com/toyotas-failed-first-us-attempt-

taught-them-a-big-lesson-in-the-american-car-market/ [Accessed 2 Mar. 2020].

Dougherty, D. (1990). Understanding New Markets for New Products. Strategic Management

Journal, 11, 59-78.