International Brand Strategies: Listening to the Market

A common struggle of international companies is creating brand recognition and value in a country specific market. 

I am reminded of the struggles and possible humiliation that McDonald’s faced after they entered the Japanese market. The All-American burger restaurant was not attractive to the Japanese people as they couldn’t relate to it.  Like most big companies, McDonald’s couldn’t understand why they couldn’t connect with the market when they were so successful.  It wasn't until they were on the brink of going home with their tail between their legs that they made a last-minute strategy change and made a burger specifically for the Japanese people: the Teriyaki Burger.  Changing the company approach to adapting to the Japanese market as opposed to the Japanese market adapting to them, saved the McDonald's Japanese franchises. The result: McDonald’s is still a success today in Japan with a Japanese section to their menu not to mention this successful marketing strategy is carried out to all international markets.

It strikes me strange that so many companies refused to cater to the client and believe a in a “one size fits all” approach.  Different culture’s have different expectations and want for different things.

The issue: We were struggling to get brand recognition in Japan and our marketing ventures were very unsuccessful for the market size.

The cover of our first Japanese market specific pamphlet

The Strategy: Having lived in Japan for some time, I knew what a finicky market it was.  I changed the generic marketing materials and hired a Japanese designer to publish something in the Japanese style and more appealing to the Japanese clients.  We then acknowledged the difference in the expectations that agents and students had from our recruiters and student services. We then completely overhauled our process of doing business in Japan and how we approached our service processes for Japanese students.

A section from our fall, 2016 Japanese specific pamphlet.

The result: (After a lot of visits and promotion) our brand became one that had value and was recognized for quality from the Japanese market. Our Japanese student number increased by over 2000%.  By applying this market specific strategy in all of our major markets, we became the best Google reviewed private school in Canada.