论文总字数：34282字

摘 要

随着全球化的影响，国际贸易加速发展，对于涉足一个新的国家的跨国公司，制定商品营销策略成为其能否取得成功的决定因素。然而，成功的商品营销策略的制定深受文化差异的影响。不同的国家有着不同的宗教信仰，风土人情，生活方式和态度等，了解这些文化差异是跨国公司克服文化障碍、制定成功的营销策略的关键。

本文在梳理文化和国际营销理论的基础上，通过雅诗兰黛这个跨国公司在华成功营销的案例，分析文化差异跨国公司的产品策略、价格策略、渠道策略和促销策略的影响。此外，通过雅诗兰黛成功的跨国营销的案例分析，以期给其他跨国公司营销策略的制定带来启示。

关键词：文化差异；跨国公司 ；营销策略；影响

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

2.1 Culture and cultural diversities 2

2.2 International marketing strategies 4

2.3 The relationship between cultural diversities and transnational marketing strategies 5

3. Culture Diversities Affect Transnational Marketing Strategies--Taking Estée Lauder as an Example 6

3.1 Estée Lauder company 6

3.2 Effects on transnational marketing strategies 7

3.2.1 Effects on product marketing strategies 7

3.2.2 Effects on price strategies 9

3.2.3 Effects on place strategies 10

3.2.4 Effects on promotion strategies 11

4. Suggestions on Transnational Marketing Strategies 12

5. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 15

1. Introduction

With the coming of the globalization, people from different countries and different areas communicate with each other more frequently than ever before. Under this situation, an increasing number of transnational corporations prefer to extend their company overseas and conduct their business activities all over the world. Gradually, the issue of cross-culture has attracted businessmen’s attention, especially transnational marketing managers. A famous international magazine called The world of Electricity once questioned the issue of what is the most difficult thing during the process of doing business in international marketing to global marketing managers. As a result, cultural diversities ranked NO.1.

Business experts and scholars have pointed out that obstacles always occurred in international business especially involved in joint venture or global negotiations. The biggest difficulty is the issue of cultural diversities that can make crucial effects on marketing or transnational marketing strategies except the problem of technology which can be worked out easily. Unlike the visible data from measurable issues, people can’t really grasp culture in their two hands and understand what they have got. For example, to understand the meaning of a message from someone, people need to understand the way that people look at the world and the values that weigh heavily in that person’s cultural background. People need to understand the meanings that are put into words and the importance of the words that are used, as well as the way the message is organized and transmitted. People need to know what to expect when that person engages in a particular communication behavior such as making a decision, negotiating an important sales agreement, or writing a contract. And people should be wise to know something about the structures that person works in and the way its organization affects communication. So the transnational marketing managers should pay more attention to cultural diversities when they are formulating the transnational marketing strategies.

Therefore, in order to gain great success in the global competition, no matter where the marketing principals are from, it is very important for them to know well about the local culture of the target marketing areas and customers when they are intend to achieve a great success there.

Recently, some researchers have been studying the relationship between culture diversities and transnational national marketing strategies. This thesis will analyzes the main cultural diversities and take Estée Lauder as an example to find out how cultural diversities affect transnational marketing strategies. What’s more, this case which involved in the theories of culture, marketing strategies and transnational marketing strategies are analyzed. The practical significance in this paper is to provide some effective suggestions to transnational marketing managers to make them deal with cultural barriers successfully and work out feasible transnational marketing strategies.

This paper is organized into four chapters. Chapter one and Chapter two is the introduction part and literature reviews part. Chapter three describes the transnational corporation Estée Lauder briefly and analyzes how cultural diversities affect transnational marketing strategies. The last part of this thesis is conclusion, which reviews the study and provides the effective ways to resolve the cross-culture problems. What’s more, at the end of this paper, limitations of the present study and the practical implications of this research will be discussed and topics for further research will be proposed.

2. Literature Review

Marketing activities is as same as any other activities in human society, which are expressed as communications between human beings. However, human beings are special “culture existence” which can represent cultures of their times and their society. There are great differences in different countries and different people, which deeply affect people’s communications. Therefore, learning and knowing cultural diversities is the premise of successful marketing campaigns.

2.1 Culture and cultural diversities

Many scholars such as Edward Tylor, Edward Sapir, Geert Hofstede and Hall are delicate to giving a definition to culture, but it is hard to define “culture” exactly. Hall pointed out that culture is the total accumulations of beliefs, values, customs, behaviors and communication styles that are learned and passed down through the generations in a limited group of people. There are also Porter and Samovar who recognize culture as “the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving”. (Porter and Samovar, 2006: 35)

Although it is quite hard to give a specific definition to culture, most of the researchers agree that culture refers to a system of shared beliefs, behaviors, and values that the members of a group use to communicate with their world and with people around them, and that are transmitted from one generation to the next generation through learning. There are five basic characteristics of culture: regionalism, nationalism, intangibility, inheritedness and expansibility, so different countries have different cultures. (Zhangbingda, Chenyuan and Liutingting, 2000: 45)

However, according to xiandai Yingxiao Xue the main cultural diversities are values, folk customs, religions and languages.

Factors which can affect buyer

1. Values: values are the core of one country’s culture, which means people’s attitudes and opinions when they face different things. So different values can make people do different choices. Values can affect people’s cognitive systems and people with different values have different hopes, desires and needs, which can make influences on their motives, actions and attitudes. For example, traditional Chinese values can affect people’s consumption concepts such as keeping expenditures within the limits of income, advocating thrifty, conformity in consumption and paying more attention to brand and so on.
2. Folk customs: folk customs are passed down from one generation to the next generation and gradually evolved as a fixed behavior after repeated ceaselessly, which make great effects on people’s consumption of their hobby, models, and actions.
3. Religions: religions are not only a belief but also a lifestyle, which can reflect people’s ideas, wishes and pursuits.
4. Languages: languages can be divided into verbal and nonverbal languages, which both are tools for communications. For verbal languages, it constitutes usage of habits and taboos are quite important in making transnational strategies. Also non-verbal language which means body languages that is beneficial to communications.

2.2 International marketing strategies

The theory of marketing came out as a new field in America at the very beginning of 20^th century. Marketing are direct communications between the transnational companies and their customers. It also studies the marketing management problems that the marketing practitioners may confront with the variable marketing environment which is filled with fierce challenges. Besides, these managers try to work out how to identify, analyze, choose and make use of these opportunities existed in the market, how to make the customers feel satisfied in the target markets with the high-quality products and how to perfect the administrations which can benefit enterprises. The main theory about the marketing is 4P theories, and then some other theories about marketing appeared, such as the 6Ps, 4Vs and 4Cs.

McCarthy provides us a 4Ps framework (McCarthy E.Jerome, 1994:32) of marketing, and the 4Ps in his theory are product, price, place and promotion. “Product” refers to both goods and services. “Price” may be influenced by exchange rate system, so it is necessary to take its significance into consideration. “Place” and “Promotion” are also important parts of the delivery system. The first one is to deliver the product, and the other is to deliver the products’ message. On the basis of 4Ps, one famous American marketing expert Philip Kotler, proposed the marketing theory of 6Ps, which adding the power and public relation. (Philip Kotler, 1999:78)Then Robert Lauteerborn put forward a new study about marketing, which is the 4Cs. It refers to Customer, Cost, Convenience and Communication. Professor Wang Jianguo published a book named “1P Theory” in 2007, (Wang Jianguo, 2007:89) in which he proposed a new marketing research. In his book, he says that “1P Theory” is a very feasible theory for the modern market in the information era. However, the theory of 4Ps is considered the most traditional marketing theory.

In general, transnational marketing is one part of marketing, which has been formed since 1960s and can be affected by the factors of the economic, cultural, and political environment. And in this thesis, cultural factors are the most important one and most of the transnational marketing strategies are also set up according to the 4Ps theory.

2.3 The relationship between cultural diversities and transnational marketing strategies

Many scholars and researchers have studied the relationship between culture and marketing strategies, such as The Effects of Culture on Transnational Marketing Strategies, (Jishuping, 2009: 98) and The Research on International Marketing Strategies from the Perspective of Cross-culture. (Wang jianhui, 2008:106) In addition, The Comparative Study of Cultural Difference on the International Marketing Strategies of Multinational Corporation-Hofstede’s Framework (Wuxianfeng, 2012:20) also showed that cultural diversities have effects on strategies of target market selection, strategies of transnational marketing places, strategies of marketing products, strategies of marketing promotion and strategies of marketing price. The Analysis of Cultural Diversities Affect Transnational Marketing analyzed that cultural diversities can make both good and bad effects on transnational marketing strategies. This thesis will take Estée Lander as an example to analyze that the effects on culture diversities of transnational marketing strategies more specially.

3. Culture Diversities Affect Transnational Marketing Strategies--Taking Estée Lauder as an Example

3.1 Estée Lauder company

After three decades of reform and opening up, cosmetic industries in China have developed rapidly than ever. Cosmetic sales rising is at an annual rate of more than 23.8% on average and the highest rate is up to 41%, which is higher than the average growth rate of national economy. So the industry of cosmetic has become a new consumption hot spots and economic growth point. Also international enterprises in the field of cosmetics speed up the process of developing China market and their share of market is close to 80% due to Chinese government reducing the restrictions of the imported cosmetics products since reform and opening up. (Zhouxu, 2009:10）Estée Lauder companies inc. is one of the most successful international cosmetics companies and also it is the world’s largest high-end cosmetics company.

Estée Lauder company was founded by Estée·Lauder and Joseph·Lauder in 1946. Nowadays, this company is in the front-runner status in the field of cosmetics, which produces and sells high-quality skincare products, make-up products, perfumes and haircare products throughout the world of more than 130 countries and regions. All brands of Estée Lauder company are well-known top brand of high channels that each has its own unique global stature and influence, such as LAMER, Clinique and so on. Estée Lauder cosmetics entered the Chinese market since 1993 and has made fast development though this company has confronted with many competitive cosmetics companies home and abroad. Estée Lauder’s Asia-Pacific President Fabrice Weber revealed that the rises of rate of China’s cosmetics marketing are from 28% to 35% in last two years. However, the rate of Estée Lauder’ growth is 20% more than average marketing.(Wangqin, 2008:8) Estée Lauder make a big success in this fierce industry because it has made many useful transnational marketing strategies which takes cultural diversities into consideration in China’s market. How do these cultural diversities affect Estée Lauder’s transnational marketing strategies?

3.2 Effects on transnational marketing strategies

To some degree, transnational marketing strategies are more complex than domestic marketing strategies because of cultural diversities among different countries, so it is wise for transnational companies to make right and attractive transnational marketing strategies. What effects will be made on these transnational marketing strategies? In this section, the “4Ps Theory” which includes product, price, place and promotion is introduced. In addition, each aspect is explained by relevant theories and the chosen cases which takes Estée Lauder’s transnational marketing strategies as an example are discussed through the introduction of these four aspects one by one to show how cultural diversities affect transnational corporations’ decisions.

3.2.1 Effects on product marketing strategies

It is well known that sales volume is the most important task for every corporation and there is no exception for the transnational corporations. Whether the products and services can satisfy the overseas clients or not, directly relate to the transnational marketing activities. Therefore, it is quite necessary to make the study of the product strategy in transnational marketing activities. For most of the transnational enterprises, they usually like putting nine product development strategies into use. The book International Marketing Theory and Practice, Wan Chenglin and Tong Jiadong generalize the commonly used five new product development strategies. The details of these strategies are introduced in the following table:

According to the above information, specialty is recognized as the first one because this strategy is of a great importance to invent a new product also the modality of the products. On the basis of this strategy, a transnational company needs to find out the special hobbies or consumption preferences of the local consumers and try to satisfy them. Taking Estée Lauder company as an example:

Most of transnational enterprises are wise to design new products for Chinese people, and Estée Lauder company is not a exception. Estée Lauder company knows that consumers are numerous and complicated with different consumerism, buying habits, income level, consumers’ surroundings and cultural environment, which can resulted in big differences in the desire and demands of the consumers to the same products, so enterprises should need to make decision of market segmentation, selection and location. Estée Lauder company’s products have satisfied a lot of debutantes as well as noblewomen’ maverick desire with its brand conceptions of tradition, high-quality, innovation, fashion, variation, wisdom, tolerance and responsibility. In addition, Estée Lauder has never intended to drop its price as it is a manufacture of luxuries, so its key customer group can be positioned around female with high incomes. Various marketing strategies are adapted by Estée Lauder according to different regions and age groups, for example, the most biggest trouble for women in their 20s is blackheads, yellow and dark shin for 30s and wrinkles for 40s. What’s more, Estée Lauder’ company has analyzed that north-east Chinese female’ skins are white-skinned but a bit unrefined and heavy dark and south-east women are fair-skinned but sensitive.what’s more, southern women are yellowish and dull skin. With all above differences, Estée Lauder has planned to make differentiated market strategies. Besides, this company marketed its new product named Osiao which is a cosmetic brand of the combination of east and west. Osiao is a new brand of skincare cosmetic which is designed for the Asian consumers, and its proprietary contains Chinese herbal element such as ginseng which is beneficial to people in Chinese’ eyes. However, the name in the bottle is in English, which means it is an imported product. Osiao is studied by Estée Lauder’corporation which is located in Shanghai, so it has a unique home-field advantages though it is made in Japan. Estée Lauder’s researcher take years to do skin test among thousands of Asian women who are from places such as Hongkong, Chinese mainland, Japan and Korea. The chief executive officer Fabrizio Freda announced that China will become its“second home market” and an internal organization called “China in 2020” was created for the purpose of attaining the same level of management, research and operation of local client’s information as in U.S. The position of Osiao is luxury brand and its name is to cater to Asian consumers because the word “Osiao” is starting from the letter of “O” and ending with the same letter, which means symmetry --the balance and harmony of skins. Also, this word consists of five letters, and five is a lucky number for Chinese people.

This example shows that the value and religion can directly affect the product strategies and people’s consumption behaviors. So it is necessary for transnational enterprises to focus these factors.

3.2.2 Effects on price strategies

In the international marketing, the price is the most significant and decisive part for transnational corporations because price relates to the enterprises’ profit. However, in global marketing, to make a price is much more complexed than the inner country price, which includes not only production cost and transportation fees, but also insurance fees, export tax and many other different kinds of fees related with relevant risks, commission and discount. As we all known, the price of a certain product is decided by two aspects which are demand and supply. For overseas consumers, the price of a product can be influenced by their purchasing habits and preferences. Taking Estée Lauder company as an example:

With the fast development of economy and the disappearance of male chauvinist in most areas of China, more and more women have entered into workforce and have become high-income group whose monthly salary more than 5000yuan, which can support themselves independently. Such women with amount of money to spend also pay more attention to their appearance, have strong self-awareness and self-esteem, so their desire and ability to buy cosmetics is very strong. Estée Lauder cosmetics’ target customers are the high-income white collar and new fashionable women who are beautiful, noble and elegant.

It was reported by the voice of economy that one product of Estée Lauder with the bottle of 30ml can be sold for 1050 yuan in China while it is sold for 314.26 yuan in the United States. Just as an old saying goes in China “ The more expensive, the better the product is”, still more and more women prefer to buy expensive cosmetics to make themselves look younger and that’s why Estée Lauder always show their products in upmarket apartment stores. In China, an ordinary lipstick of Estée Lauder costs 230yuan, and the most cheapest skincare product is more than 600yuan. The proportion of women who can spend more than 500yuan a month on cosmetics is not great, so Estée Lauder company though as a producer of luxuries has confronted challenges from the Chinese consumption’s ability. It is not hard to see that consumption habits and psychology which are cultural elements can make a difference on transnational price strategies.

3.2.3 Effects on place strategies

The “place” means what places are proper to sell products, which can be also called as channels. For the transnational marketing, the choices of the channels are crucial to its marketing strategies because these channels are related to enterprises’ arrangements which are how to move the goods and services. Generally speaking, there are four main types of the distributions:

Channel 1: Direct channel- the products are delivered to consumers directly.

Channel 2: Retail channel-companies want to expand the scale of products so they choose to corporate with retailers who distributed in many places on earth.

Channel 3: Wholesale channels-it can save both retail and storage space.

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