Intercultural Knowledge in Marketing

How many articles have you seen enlistening "funny" marketing blunders not taking note of some local sensitivity or other? How COULD they possibly call the car Boobie, when everybody knows that in the local Thai dialect this has a double entendre...etc etc.

After all that tediousness here's a real corker, though:

Domino's Pizza, the British take away pizza franchise operation, opened in Germany and found.... that it wasn't popular. Not totally surprising, is it?


One profit warning later, the CEO maintains that stores had now got the hang of it and "understood the German consumer". Maybe they should have done a little more intercultural research before plunging into a market that - no doubt- they thought would be profitable purely on the size of its population. ("80 million Germans, Barry.. we goddagun for it!!")

FACT: In Germany, even a small village will have a local pizzeria. Well established, Italian family-run, producing top-quality pizzas of any size, description and flavour. And of course they will drive them round for free. In towns, there will be one of those every two blocks away from where you live. There is such a vast choice, such speedy reliable service, and most people will  oben very familar terms with their local pizza deliverer, having used their services for years.

Might it not have been an idea to look into this very obvious and well-known scenario before plunging in with the dubious promise of an English company offering such tantalising options as "Meateor" with a mouth watering description such as: "A slice (?) with pork meatballs, ground beef, sausage and bacon".

Appealing to the German consumer who the company claims it knows so well? Laugh out loud as they say in intercultural marketing.



FT article on the subject
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6f25159a-e3d0-11e2-b35b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2aQBIk0c1

Intercultural Icons -The Pizza and The Pub

Whatever country you choose to go in the world - two things are certain: You will most certainly find an Irish Pub there and you will find some pizza. Why is that? What makes them so ubiquitously popular? How do they manage to cross borders so easily - why does everybody from Japan to Chile love a slice of tomato-y dough or a good sing along and a glass of the black stuff?

And that's precisely not the point: it isn' about what you actually get. Instead, it's about what everybody associates with them. Pizza - that means Italian homecooking at its best. Simple, tasty, unfussy. And in an Irish pub you can be sure of congeniality, great vibe, craic.

So you become part of a concept you secretly adore. There is no exclusion, no snobbishness about either. Everybody can share, everybody likes what you like, and everybody is happy. So really, it's about a community you're "biting" into - the simple lost world of homeliness and comfort.

Ireland and Italy with their metoynmic offerings - have managed what other countries struggle with. They've exported their national symbols and in turn got people to associate those very values with their nations. Maybe not everything in Ireland is that congenial, maybe Italy in reality isn't that homely and comforting... But so what?

I am full of admiration that some countries manage to spread such joie de vivre, such a feeling of togetherness and shared value on an international, and poly-cultural scene - and with so little effort!

Oh and Happy up-coming St.Patrick's Day!