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Archive for the ‘USA’ Category
Friday, February 5th, 2010
In this week’s Thursday Night Insight, Julia Cupman explores the importance of language in marketing communications, highlighting that market research is a small price to pay to avoid costly linguistic blunders.
I moved to America a couple of years ago and my legal title here is a “resident alien”. No I don’t look like ET, but I have descended from a little island 3,000 miles away where we eat Branston Pickle, Yorkshire puddings and cream teas – otherwise known as Great Britain.
As a foreigner in this huge country, my ears have been attuned to the American vernacular. Indeed when one of my friends called me and asked, “How’s it hanging, sister?”, I wondered (a) whether we had metamorphosed into siblings over night, and (b) what exactly she was alluding to as “hanging”? Despite my confusion, I did think, what a friendly country I’m living in!
At one point, I was, however, grateful at being considered just a “sister” given that I heard the same friend call another woman her “girlfriend”, only to then discover that ALL my female friends had “girlfriends”. Good grief, I thought, this place is full of love! (If any American readers are confused here, the term “girlfriend” in the UK tends to be more than just a platonic relationship…)
Although language can create that sense of community, it has also created a linguistic barrier for me on a number of occasions. For example, I was disgusted and outraged at being offered a “fanny pack” in a store selling outdoor gear. I asked myself whether this was some kind of incontinence bag – until the sales person showed me what us Brits would otherwise call a “bum bag”. (Dude, I know what you’re thinking – this term is no better!)
In this country, you want to pay for your meal but you ask for the “check”; you park your car on your “driveway” but drive to work on a “parkway”; you frequent “bathrooms” in which there’s not always a bath; and you “ship” packages across land even though there’s no water transportation involved. But in spite of these absurdities, I’ve conditioned myself to speak the local lingo under the firm belief that when in Rome, you do as the Romans do.
These are just a few examples of the linguistic challenges and confusions I have encountered in my time here as an “alien”. In fact, of around the 200,000 English words in common use in Britain, it is estimated that 4,000 have a different meaning or are used differently in the US. So in summary, we speak the same language, but with a myriad of exceptions, foreignisms and alienisms. We are two nations divided by a common language, as Winston Churchill once said, as well as George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, apparently.
So what have language discrepancies got to do with marketing? My point is this: for marketers to meet the needs of the market profitably, they have to be able to speak the language of their customers. This might sound simple, but consider the following illustration of how a supplier has clearly failed to talk the talk of its customers. After reading the sign in the photograph below, have a guess at the type of establishment in which this sign is placed, before you read any further.
Believe it or not, the sign is by the swimming pool in the most exclusive hotel here in Westchester, New York. This hotel costs several hundred a night and caters for mainly businessmen and government officials. In displaying a sign forbidding activity from all human orifices, is the hotel not therefore suggesting that these well-to-do people would actually urinate, defecate or release any other bodily substance in the swimming pool had this sign not existed?! What’s more, apart from providing a totally inappropriate message with unsuitable language for its guests, the hotel embarrasses itself further with the non-existent term “expectorting”, which should actually read “expectorating” – otherwise known as coughing or spitting.
It cannot be presumed that the language suppliers speak is the language that buyers understand or relate to, especially where international branding or marketing communications are concerned. Indeed Honda only realized the importance of cultural, linguistic nuances after having introduced its new car “Fitta” into Nordic countries in 2001. Had the major car manufacturer invested in cross-cultural market research, it would have discovered that “fitta” was a vulgar, old fashioned word used to refer to a woman’s genitals in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. This, by the way, through a rather circuitous and very expensive route, led to the birth of the Honda “Jazz”.
Ikea made a similar mistake in launching a children’s desk called “FARTFULL”. Although this apparently means “speedy” in Swedish, it was an embarrassing blunder given its connotation in English–speaking geographies. Once again, why was research not carried out to test the language and its meaning?
The UK food manufacturer Sharwoods suffered equally costly embarrassment. The company spent £6
million on a campaign to launch its new ‘Bundh’ sauces, only to later discover that this term sounded like the Punjabi slang word for a person’s bottom, thus dispelling a sizeable segment of the market.
We seldom stop to consider the language we use and how countless words and expressions in our branding and communications campaigns can be misinterpreted. This can lead to discrepancies in understanding, sometimes embarrassment such as in the examples above, and a cloud of uncertainty surrounding the message being conveyed. Given the considerable financial resource required for new product development, branding or marketing campaigns, the relatively low cost of market research is a small price to pay to eliminate risk and maximize marketing potential.
Posted in
Culture, Julia Cupman, Thursday Night Insight, UK, USA |
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Sunday, August 30th, 2009
In recounting a recent – and somewhat memorable – taxi journey, Matthew Harrison is reminded of how a product or service can really differentiate itself from the rest of the pack by becoming an ‘experience’.
I must confess to being one of B2B International’s less tolerant air travelers. The 6 hours I spent imprisoned in a 747 on a Shanghai runway…the 7 course ‘meal’ served up by the good staff of Aeroflot (6 of the courses were salmon)…my interrogation by a wild-eyed immigration goon at Newark Airport…the dimwit who confiscated my cases at Rochester because I allowed said cases to complete two laps of the carousel without collecting….these and other events have been crow-barred into company folklore by my incessant moaning. As a result, it is a relief both to me and to anyone unfortunate enough to be my travel companion when my flight touches down, and all that remains is to catch a cab to my final destination.
A couple of weeks back, my colleague and I returned from Pittsburgh to New York in good spirits. The journey had gone ahead without a hitch, our meeting had concluded successfully, and both of us looked forward to the weekend. We drank a couple of beers and took the opportunity to examine the front page of the Wall Street Journal, which was reporting on Bill Clinton’s liberation of two journalists from the clutches of Kim Jong Il. Oddly, the official photograph to mark the event (see below) featured a rather kitsch 1980s wall frieze, which had been dropped onto a Tellytubbies set and gate-crashed by the cast of Madame Tussauds.
To return to the matter in hand, my colleague and I had forgotten that the efforts of the airline industry to make the general public’s life a misery extend far beyond aircraft cabins and indeed airport walls. Whatever medicine the world’s aviators take to ensure unrivalled levels of inhospitality and indolence, it would appear that the New York taxi industry has been raiding the cabinet.
The warning signs that B2B International was to experience a nadir in land travel were there from the beginning. The passenger window of the cab was jammed open and the back seat about as comfortable on the posterior as a broken Rubik’s Cube. My colleague and I had naively taken the driver’s rather blank grin upon being asked to drive to White Plains as proof of his willingness to take us there, rather than his inability to find his own backside in the bath with both hands and a personal assistant. Within 2 minutes of leaving the taxi rank, and well inside the airport perimeter, we drew despondently to a stop underneath a graffiti-speckled flyover.
- “Where you go?”
– “We were rather hoping to go to White Plains, New York.”
– “Norway?”
– “We’ll give Western Scandinavia a miss for tonight, thanks. The wife’s got the dinner in the oven. White Plains please.”
– “No Norway. You know way?”
– “Oh I see. No we don’t know the way. Isn’t that your job? If you don’t know, put the address in your GPS.”
– “No GPS.”
– “What do you mean no GPS? This is an American taxi in 2009. How can you not have a GPS? Do you have a map?”
– “No problem, I find White Plains.”
Our driver lurched into gear, trying but failing to convince us that he had the slightest idea of where he was going.
Three laps of the airport’s inner perimeter and 25 minutes later, we finally find our way onto the open road and were heading north. Disconcertingly, the driver had been steering with one finger, most of his other 9 digits clasping a telephone, through which he received nonsensical directions from someone who also had no idea where we were or where White Plains was. Over the ensuing 2 hours we stopped and asked, we shouted at passers-by, we waved, weaved and guessed our way through the streets and back yards of Southern New York, before finally, mercifully, we arrived in White Plains city center.
I dragged my weary body out of the cab and headed for home. And as I trooped through the streets I was hit, not by a Friday night drinker but by a kind of Eureka moment. I was happy! In fact I was exhilarated. I HAD ENJOYED THAT TAXI RIDE. The speed. The bumps. The danger. The nausea. The sense of the unknown. The laughs. The memories. I had experienced an adventure that evening – an adventure I am recounting to you now. An adventure I will recount to my children, and my children’s children. That useless man, that anti-navigator with whom I had shared two hours of my life had (unwittingly) met a need that few suppliers can meet. Rather than sell me a tangible product or service, this disorientated scatterbrain had given me a holistic experience that will live with me until my dying day.
The savvy marketer recognizes that providing a simple product or service puts the organization on a route towards low prices and commoditization. In order to add value, and therefore raise prices and profit, it is critical to look beyond the tangible. In other words, sell a concept and provide an experience. Our taxi driver, of course, made two mistakes: firstly the basics of product and service were so intolerable that most customers would be uninterested in any ‘experience’ related to these. Secondly, he sold us a basic service (to drive us home) meaning that the thrill-packed tourism experience we endured was unexpected and therefore not paid for.
So, I will not pretend that our driver’s marketing strategy was flawless. However, I thank you, Mr Clueless of LaGuardia Airport Taxis, for the memories. Your product is substandard, your service despicable, and your attentiveness to my needs non-existent. But, for a mere $90 (plus tip and tolls), you gave me an experience that was both thrilling and addictive. You, Sir, in one (and only one) respect, are an inspiration to all marketers.
Posted in
Aviation, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Satisfaction Research, Customer Value Proposition, Marketing, Matt Harrison, Thursday Night Insight, USA |
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Thursday, June 11th, 2009
It was with interest that we recently read a case study about a small, local, new business doing well in these difficult times.
Based just down the road from our own office in White Plains, New York, and launched little more than a year ago, Carrillo’s Fire-Roasted Salsa is now looking to build on its initial success and become a more recognized household name.
One of the key factors in the success of this brand so far has been that it meets the growing market trend for healthier products. With all-natural ingredients, low in sodium, and made with no sugar, artificial preservatives or concentrates, it is being snapped up by Greater New York’s growing army of health-conscious consumers.
Another string to the brand’s bow is that it is promoted not just as a ‘dipping’ salsa for chips, but also as a useful cooking ingredient, thanks to its flavourful and thick consistency.
Channels of distribution is next on the agenda, with the brand looking to increase its reach from mainly local tri-state (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut) areas to a much larger national presence. Thanks to deals struck with a number of nationwide specialist gourmet stores, the product should soon be flying off shelves in selected markets in the Northeast, northern California, Miami, Chicago, Denver and New Orleans.
As a relatively new start-up with limited budgets, there has been minimal advertising of this brand, but a concentrated focus on in-store sampling, encouraging consumers to try out the new salsa. The product is also marketed and sold through the company website, where individual jars or "CarrilloCases" of any six, eight or 12 jar combination can be ordered.
Already looking to change and improve its logo, Carrillo is not neglecting its branding either.
All of these points serve to remind us that although all companies start small, all the different elements of the marketing mix can be used in different ways to grow a business and help it thrive, even in a tough economy. This certainly is food for thought…
Posted in
Branding, Food, Product Development, Routes To Market, USA |
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Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
A recent article in BtoB Marketing – Thinking global may help U.S. marketers – argues that many emerging international markets still offer rich opportunities for domestic marketers, even in spite of the global economic downturn.
China in particular, is suggested as a market still offering excellent opportunities for U.S. companies. It is useful to note that the country’s premier, Wen Jiabao, last month predicted an 8% growth in China’s GDP this year, which, while not as large as last year’s growth, is still better than that of many countries.
One potential opening highlighted is for U.S. companies that put an emphasis on customer service. They may be able to take advantage of overseas opportunities, as it is suggested that companies in a number of other countries are much less tolerant of poor customer service.
In China, for example, 55% of companies have switched vendors in the past year because of perceived unfulfilled customer service expectations. Sweden (46%), India (44%), Italy (44%), Finland (43%) and companies in Asian countries other than China (36%) all have a tendency to switch vendors more than their US counterparts (22%).
With emerging markets such as China and India having increasing service expectations, there is the assumption that they may not be loyal to particular brands, suppliers, etc. Resultantly, they may be willing to make the potentially lucrative move from their existing domestic partners to foreign counterparts, as long as these new companies can offer them what they are looking for.
To find out how we can help you to grasp the opportunities presented by China and other Asian markets, visit www.b2binternational.com/China
Posted in
China, Global Research, International Market Research, Market Assesment, Market Entry, Market Research China, Market Research USA, USA |
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Monday, March 16th, 2009
Bucking the current environment of economic doom and gloom, leading business-to-business market research agency B2B International (with offices in the UK, US and China) recorded its twelfth consecutive year of growth between 2007 and 2008, to an annual turnover of £3.3m ($4.7m).
Business Development and Finance Director Matthew Harrison puts this continued success down to a number of factors:
Key to this growth has been our expansion into the huge US and Chinese markets over the past three years. This has brought us nearer both to our customers and to our research respondents, increasing our client service and product quality alike.
We have also placed increasing emphasis on specific growth sectors. For example, renewable energy and environmental research now make up around 20% of our revenue and we expect growth in this area to continue.
A further growth factor is the emphasis B2B International places on collecting information in ways that suit its target audiences. Telephone interviewing continues to be the most common data collection methodology employed, but the range of online techniques continues to expand, as do the regions across which online research is conducted. This year B2B conducted online surveys across Europe, North America, and 12 Asian countries; it added Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese and Italian to its suite of online focus group languages; and most notably, online recruitment and in-depth interviewing was introduced in China, profiting from websites such as QQ and their increasing take-up amongst young people and professionals.
So will B2B continue its impressive growth record in 2009’s increasingly challenging economic environment? Managing Director Nick Hague remains cautiously optimistic:
It would be unrealistic to think that we would remain completely unaffected by this economic downturn, which is impacting upon many of our competitors and target industries. However, we remain extremely optimistic that, by continuing to listen to the needs of our clients and respondents alike, we will come through the recession and be well placed for impressive growth in the future.
Posted in
B2B News, China, Market Research, Matt Harrison, Nick Hague, Online Focus Groups, Online Research, USA |
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