Know-How Exchange : Branding

Your best bet would be to hire a marketing strategy company to help build your strategy. It won't happen on a forum.

I agree with Harry. This is too big a job to get all the answers on a forum.

But some points to take into consideration:

First, and most importantly, look at your product. What will make a customer buy your product as opposed to someone else's, in short, what's your market position? Is there some feature that is unique, fills a need, etc? That "creneau" (whole in the market) is what will give you a firm position that will resonate with potential customers.

Don't try to eat an elephant in one bite! If you haven't done so already, market the product in one area. Get a sense of whether there is actually a demand for this product. Don't rely solely on market research: what people say on a survey more than likely will not translate into actual buying behavior. Once you see there is a demand for the product, then branch out and look into other markets. Build the brand locally and then branch out.

When marketing a product internationally, be sure to know the country and culture. What works in the US in terms of advertising, for instance, may lead you to ruin in the UK.

Speaking of advertising, don't rely solely on advertising. Getting interest in your product is difficult at best and impossible at worst. Rely on the local media. Partner with local businesses, specialty stores, etc., depending on your product, to get it in front of potential buyers.

Of course Agnieszka is spot on.
Going a bit into detail I can hardly imagine starting a global branding campaign without pror getting a foothold in one large market. Hardly can imagine that without proper research being carried out to see if the product really meets some unsatisfied need as you say.Certainly it cannot be done within a month or two.

Also - if you think the produce has a big upside, then consider protecting it legally (trademark, copyright, patent, etc.) in various countries. However, you'll need big funds to and people to keep an eye out for and defend against possible infringements.

If there's a perceived need, people are willing to pay for it, and you can easily "reach" them, you do need to test the market.

> Is it best to have a customised marketing strategy for
> each country/region or is a globalisation marketing
> strategy the better?

On the whole, you will find you need to modify the strategy to at least some level for each country. People, culture, how they do business, amount of disposable income, etc. all vary. This holds true even with products that vary very little between countries (such as industrial products), and very much holds true for consumer products (even worldwide companies like McDonalds, Starbucks, and Coca Cola use different products in different markets).

You may want to read a Blog post I wrote a while back that is related to this:
https://expandabroad.blogspot.com/2005/11/targeting-customers.html

Sounds like you have some great advise here, but it also appears that you have tweaked a generic product into something you believe can be branded. If that is so, your primary challenge would be differentiation.

So, you will probably have to use your difference as the branding hook.

As everyone has said, do a test launch and then an in-depth study into what made people buy into your concept and what didn’t work.

Then, if the learnings support a global approach, maybe that’s your best answer. If they are very culture dependent you will be better off with local approaches.

More information would help to give you a more considered answer. Meanwhile I hope this is somewhat helpful. Good luck!