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October 26, 2006

Niti Bhan and Manuel Toscano on cultural avatars

IKEA%20Japan.jpg

In a comprehensive post about how brands communicate their qualities across borders, design gurus Niti Bhan and Manuel Toscano provide some practical advice on how to use culturally and socially appropriate cues in order to engage local consumers effectively. As Niti and Manuel point out, each company should think in terms of "cultural avatars" as they attempt to connect with consumers in every foreign market they choose to enter. A failure to do so could result in an erosion of the value of the brand, if not worse. Consider what happened to IKEA when it attempted to enter the Japanese market in the 1980s:

"IKEA learnt the pitfalls of holding on tightly to their Swedishness when they first entered the Japanese market, quite unlike their own. They pulled out in confusion in 1986 and have only just launched a store in Tokyo, twenty years later. What did they learn this time around? That they could retain the essential Swedishness of their brand through their choice of materials, finishes and designs of their furniture, while adapting the do it yourself aspect and size of the products to the needs of the Japanese market. Perhaps they will stay for twenty years, this time around..."

As innovation becomes increasingly global, it is easy to see how these same principles from the worlds of marketing and branding can be deployed within any innovation framework. Instead of simply copying products that were designed with North America and Europe in mind, truly innovative companies should be thinking about ways to develop products that are specific to the consumers in new emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and China.

[image: IKEA Japan]

Posted by dominic at October 26, 2006 5:21 PM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig

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