Marketers know how vital it is to understand the target market and its nuances for successfully positioning and marketing products and services. This becomes increasingly important in international markets, where cultural differences accentuate the significance of understanding consumer behaviour and markets. You may have heard stories about marketers and brands facing problems because of not respecting cultural differences and expected norms.
The following joke candidly depicts a similar situation!
A disappointed salesman of a Cola drink returns from his Middle East assignment. A friend asked, “Why weren’t you successful in this part of world?” The salesman explained, “When I got posted in the Middle East , I was very confident that I would make a good sales pitch as Cola is virtually unknown there. But, I had a problem I didn’t know Arabic. So, I planned to convey the message through three posters…
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- exhausted
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- Drinks Cola
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- Running
First poster: A man lying in the hot desert sand…totally exhausted and fainting.
Second poster: The man is drinking our Cola.
Third poster: The man is now totally refreshed. And then these posters were pasted all over the place “Then that should have worked!” said the friend.
“The hell it should had!? Said the salesman. I didn’t realize that Arabs read from right to left”
