Have you any idea who you're aiming for?
Have you any idea who you're aiming for?
3G is useless in a country where people cannot afford the handsets and where almost no 3G network exists.
The reuse and recycle principle is important here, there is more money to be made from diversifying and expanding upon very popular existing GSM and SMS markets than trying to invent new ones. Companies should be looking at ways of better exploiting what already exists than jumping on the newest technology and trying to force feed it to an unwilling market.
If you are a company involved in such activity maybe its time you reviewed where your resources are going a little more carefully. Are you making the most of what you already have and have you explored all the avenues available through it?
Marketing technology correctly is incredibly important.
Marketing of new 3G handsets in Poland for example has been undertaken using entirely western strategies, based on the notion of high consumer spend capability and the consumer's ongoing wish to keep up with the latest technology. Much of this however simply does not apply in the same way in Eastern Europe as it does in Western Europe, particularly as a result of consumer inability to afford to continually upgrade handsets.
Once allocated, advertising budgets have to be spent somewhere on something, lest they should have to be returned to a company's finance department with a note attached saying 'We just didn't know what to do with it'.
If I was a company making a large advertising out-lay I'd want to know that my money was going into useful advertising. I wouldn't just assume that you can re-use the same ideas across multiple territories, particularly when you consider the political or post political situation in many countries (e.g. the strength of the consumerist market in post communist society).
Images of sleek technology accompanied by sleek slogans won't necessarily sell across the board, but at the same time the people handling your marketing may not want to tell you this, partly because they don't know how else to approach new and diverse markets and partly because its easier to just roll-out a single global campaign on your behalf.
Unlike in most western countries, the marketing media in Poland is a million miles away from the reality of what people can actually afford or even seriously want and aspire to.
Most marketing makes the assumption that people will be aspirational enough in their wish to join and consume western style culture that they will somehow manage to bridge the gap between he products being offered to them and what they can actually afford. As a long term strategy this is perhaps (although certainly not always) correct. But trying to force this idea upon people over a very short time period will inevitably result in a large amount of poorly directed marketing which costs a lot of money and has very little effect on product sales. By working to develop what people already have and know, markets can slowly be evolved and matured toward new technologies. By nurturing a market rather than trying to force feed it people will progress at their natural speed toward new technological ideas and capabilities, and in the process will greater appreciate the technology they use. In doing so their understanding of that technology, and the incorporation of it into most people's day to day lives will also progress,leading eventually not only to a larger market, but also greater technological capability and education of the people in that country and therefore a stronger local technological workforce and home-grown tech
businesses and economy. All of which is to the benefit of all concerned.
In the end I suppose the most important thing to remember is this: If you as an international company do not attend to the needs of a local market properly, someone local to that market will.