 Country of origin blurred- It is sometimes vague which product belongs

to which country. It is blurred. For example, 65% of Ford Mustang

belongs to America and Canada, but 35% belongs to any other countries,
which makes us consider this product neither an American nor Canadian
product. The country/origin of product purchased by customers to might
change their perceptions. Sometimes we buy German made car just
because we respect German engineering. So we don’t have clarity on
what product belongs to what country today.
 The main difference between marketing and global marketing is related
to the scope (the volume of work you’re doing and approaches).
Marketing is marketing but the scope is different; instead of dealing with
marketing in a single market, you will be doing marketing in several other
markets. So you have higher volume of work when you do global
marketing.
 Core competency is something that we want it not to be easy for others
to replicate. If it is very easy for others to replicate or copy, then it is not
going to be considered a core competency. If you did something only in
Azerbaijan and then take it to Russia and it is not applicable, then it is not
necessarily core competency. Your core competency should give you a
competitive advantage.
 Why do we need global marketing? We know that people are different,
countries are different, cultures are different, regulations, rules, political
environment all are different from each other. So we need global
marketing to understand those differences and try to take actions and
measures for those differences.
 Advantages of global marketing: you will learn from different markets and
then adapt to local markets or sometimes standardize your operations
and marketing programs so that you don’t need additional efforts to enter
other markets as you already have experience on what to do.
 Companies use global marketing to realize their full commercial capacity.
Marketing is identifying and meeting human social need and meeting
those needs profitably. Main function of marketing is to create,
communicate and deliver value to customers and users.
 Controllable environment- internal facts about our company: our firm’s
characteristics, structure, operations, policies, culture local inside our
company; so the components that are inside our company that we have
full control over.
 Domestic uncontrollable environment- the legal environment, political
environment, competition, economic climate; these are all domestic
market elements surrounding us that we don’t have control over it.
 Whether it is local or global market, we should focus on the concept of
“value” and we are trying to make sure that we increase value and our
customers’ perception of value is at a good standing and to do that we
have to work around benefit and price.
 Why do we need global marketing? Countries are different to each other
and their people are different to each other so basically those differences
push businesses to understand those differences. And after understanding
 them, to choose to standardize their product and marketing programs and
adapt those differences to get better results.
 Glocalization- finding out a hybrid model where we have both global and
local differentiation and standardization. When we go global, it is more of
standardization. Localization (localize your product)- adaptation; you try
to adapt your product to some cultures, some regions, some people.
Glocalization- you are trying to learn from global markets, then bringing
them all together, mixing them up, making your formulas, generating new
global strategies and maybe adapting the strategies for each country, and
then countries may benefit from strategies and experiences they have in
other countries.
 There is a term: glocalization- elements of differentiation (localization)
and also have elements of standardization. For example, Apple produces
an IPhone which is a standard product for all markets but then they have
elements of adaptation and localization: you can choose your own
language to use this product, you can customize this product in a way that
it gives you certain localization features and flexibility to the user so that
they can easily accept this product in those cultures. This is the main thing
that makes global brands so successful; the are trying to think about local
cultures and local requirements and also to standardize as much as
possible to take an advantage of globalization and standardization. In this
glocalization framework we can take benefits of localization and
globalization.
 Businesses have to use the elements of standardization and also adapt to
certain markets based on the legal requirements or cultural preferences.
 There are four different types of management orientations:

- Ethnocentric orientation: a company which think that their company

or home country is superior to others; they know the best and they
are trying to export whatever they create their home country as is to
other countries. Our origin country knows the best.
- Polycentric orientation: absolutely opposite to the ethnocentric
orientation; a company which is treating every single company as an
individual market; they are trying treat every country as unique
destination and try to adapt every single one them.
- Regiocentric orientation- integrating regional countries and markets
with each other, trying to decentralize regionally. They are not looking
at a specific country but rather a region (African countries for ex).
- Geocentric orientation- combination of above three. They try to learn
from every country and every culture and then take it back to every
culture (trying to find new opportunities).

 In ethnocentric, we try to standardize everything, in polycentric we try to

adapt to every single market and treat every country as a unique target
market, in regiocentric we try to treat every region as a geographic unit
and adapt to them, and in geocentric we try to find solutions both for
standardization and adaptation.
 The concept of “global village” – the world is so small in a sense that
cultures are emerging, needs and wants are converging and they are
becoming similar, people are watching same TV series/movies, they use
the same social media, they watch the same social media videos, they use
similar brands all over the world. Cultures are converging and people are
starting to look like each other a lot. These things are making a village in a
sense that there are a lot of similarities in cultures today, there are a lot of
similarities in needs and wants, and this makes globalization and global
integration very attractive for businesses.
 Personal, social and cultural factors have a huge impact on consumer
buying behaviour. Social- the impact of people around you like your
family, friends, colleagues, doctors and etc. Cultural- general impact that
society has on you (religion, cultural values, anything related to your
region/country). Personal- your income might be an example; if your
income is high, you prefer to buying luxury goods but if it lower then you
are unwilling to spend on non-essential goods. Social- you friend may
encourage you to buy a specific type of car; or your doctor may say that
you have a specific health problem and you need to use a specific drug for
that; so you are socially influenced by your friend and doctor). Cultural-
for example in Azerbaijan most people prefer to wear white or dark but
not colourful; it is kind of cultural thing. Or it would be very hard to sell
pork meat in Azerbaijan; there is no dominant market; majority of people
in Azerbaijan do not eat pork meat due to religious values.
 Low-context culture- the culture is more into the words; whatever you
say you mean that and those words that you use in communication has
the power over anything you mean. High-context culture- context has a
lot of importance like to situation you talk, background, images, visuals, or
emotions and other things will have more incorporation in the situation
to take the meaning from.
 When we make a decision on what product we should buy or what brand
we should use, there are certain phases that we go through:
- Awareness- we become aware of our problem/issue; we recognize
our need; we accept that we need a product
- Interest- you have let’s say five options (five different brands of
phone) but you show interest only to two of them
- Evaluation- then you take those two and start comparing and
evaluating them
- Trial- you try the product in the store (phone in this case)
- Adoption- you get the product

 Characteristics of innovation:
- Relative advantage- it should be better that the predecessor
- Compatibility- it should not be surprise for people; it should be
compatible with what people are usually used to; it should not be
very hard for them to understand and use it.
- Complexity- it should be simpler and easier for people
- Divisibility- ypu should not spend too much to try this innovation;
if it is too expensive then it is a problem; it should be affordable so
that people are able to try this innovation.
 - Communicability

 In red oceans, you will face a fierce competition; there will be a lot of
substitutions to your product and you should be ready to compete with
your rivals. But in blue oceans, there won’t be heat competition; you may
be ahead of other competitors through innovation advantage.
 Any marketing insights process, any marketing intelligence or marketing
research process that is not leading to forecasting or decision-making is
useless.
 You need to do marketing research when you don’t have answers. That is
why marketing research is systematic gathering of data, not random. And
also marketing research is project specific gathering of data, it is not
random task that we do on a day to day basis.
 Research projects that don’t end up with a decision are usually waste of
time. Any research should end up with a decision or at least forecast. So
any research should start with the problem and end up with the decision.
 There are some differences between global research and domestic
research:
- New parameters of doing business- for example brand awareness
or market share; so you have to do certain adaptations to what
you’re asking or what you’re addressing in your marketing
research.
- Cultural megashock- there are usually huge differences in culture;
you have to consider those cultural differences when for example
you design a survey, when you ask questions, when you sample
your target group and the way you approach them
- Increasing network of interacting factors- networks of
stakeholders, customers, members of the chain who interact with
each other will increase; the scope and scale will be larger.
- Competitive pressures- sometimes you might need to follow what
other competitors are doing (try to benchmark yourself to them).
- Scale of research- you will have more work to do
- Research tools- observation, survey, interviews, or focus group?
Which one are you going to do?

 When you do multicultural research, it is important to think about

comparability and equivalency of results, which means that a finding
you have in one country/data you’ve found in one country might mean a
different thing in other country. People listen radio more in one country,
but watch TV more in another country, so can you really compare this
data to each other? No Those two cultures are different and you have to
take a unique approach to each culture.
 There are four bases of segmentation:
- Geographic segmentation- you can target very specific point such
as Port Baku, Times Square or Big Ben; so you can be very precise
with your geographic segmentation when it comes to modern
technologies and digital marketing tools. But in general it is about
where your customers are located.
 - Demographic segmentation- age, gender, income, life stage, or
generation
- Psychographic segmentation- psychological/personality traits,
lifestyle, values (religion and so on).
- Behavioral segmentation- trying to segment your customers based
on their behaviour and attitude towards your brand/product.

 Market segments must rate favourably on 5 key criteria:

- Measureable- we want to know the number of segments; how

many customers are there in a segment
- Substantial- we make sure that the segment we are
picking/targeting is substantial; does it have large volumes; we
don’t want to segment 10 ten people but 100,000 people
- Accessible- which means we can easily access and penetrate
segment and make some sales there; is it accessible, are there
many players targeting the same segment or is it accessible, can
you easily access and work there?
- Differentiable- segments should be different; you don’t want to
target 18 to 20 as it is very close but you target 18 to 25.
- Actionable- do you have some space to make actions, attract
customers, be creative, and work on there, do you have flexibility
to make action to attract customers.

 When we target a segment, there are 4 different levels of coverage:

- Full market coverage (mass market)- we try to penetrate as
many people as possible and as many segments as possible; so
basically we try to sell to everybody (for ex; Coca Cola). You try to
meet everybody’s needs.
- Multiple segment specialization- you are trying to cover not the
full market but multiple segments (2 and more).
- Single segment concentration- you are not targeting multiple
markets (2 and more), you are just targeting one segment (you’re
saying I am going to sell this product only to women). So you have
a better focus on whom you are selling your product.
- Individual marketing- we treat every single person as one
segment. We allow our customers to customize our products to
their personal needs. So on an individual level they can create their
own product.

 Positioning is about perception. You want to create an image of your

brand and basically create a perception of your brand in the minds of
your customers. It should be distinctive which means that if there are 10
competitors competing with you and when your brand name appears,
customers can clearly know what your product is different with or what
your brand means to them. Customers should be able to easily
differentiate your brand from other products in regards to your
attributes, your benefits or functionalities.