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Global Online Marketing Article 1

Some studies indicate that marketers make too much of cultural differences and their effect on marketing, usually to the exclusion of more important issues such as "What does the customer want and need from my company and my product? What possible reason would they have to choose us over our competition?" (Flikkema, 1998). In Flikkema's study consumer and business surveys were conducted in five countries around the world: the United States, Britain, France, Australia, and Japan. It was found that cultural differences had essentially no effect on the attitudes, motivators, and needs involved in purchasing technology. A first-time PC buyer in Japan was more similar to a first-time buyer in France than to a repeat buyer in Japan. An "enthusiast" buyer was an enthusiast buyer around the world. Although regional differences were found, they didn't make any appreciable difference to the purchase process.

The main argument to explain this homogeneity is that technology is new and has given us not only common reference points, but common status and aspiration points as well. To be upscale anywhere in the industrialized world, you need a house, a car, a mobile phone, a plasma TV with DVD player, a sound system, and a sophisticated home computer. People have an innate need to believe they and their cultures are unique, and, in spiritual terms, they argue. In marketing terms, however, the world is becoming increasingly homogenous. And the use of the Internet is just making it all the more global and culturally insensitive.

On the other hand there are other research findings that conclude the opposite. They cite the US-centric approach as one of the main reasons why the Internet has not boosted overall sales worldwide, given that 65 percent of total Internet sales come from outside the US (Jastrow, 1999). Once upon a time, it was just one great, glorious space - borderless, unfettered by rules, a great virtual community. The Americans were so awestruck when developing the Web that they overlooked the fact that this was really a worldwide media platform and not just a US network. Little things - such as requiring visitors to identify themselves as "Mr," "Mrs," or "Miss" - may seem innocent, but could be perceived as insults in certain countries, as well as by certain groups of (potential) customers.

We may be seeing the end of the Web's freewheeling ways as more governments take increasingly aggressive positions on the legality (and possible taxation) of the bytes that flow across their borders. That means you could get a friendly (or not so friendly) email message from some government official telling you that you can't say or do or sell something on your website because it's being viewed in a particular country. Even buying a Dell PC online is preceded by various questions such as whether the PC will be exported to other countries and whether it is to be used for weapons of mass-destruction ...In same vein, the UK Inland Revenue - the tax-collecting arm of the Treasury - is looking at ways of monitoring transactions as a means of cross-referencing declarations of income and expenditure in tax returns, and of identifying money laundering.

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