You will become familiar with the course, your classmates, and our learning environment. The orientation will also help you obtain the technical skills required for the course.

This module defines global marketing and identifies the key activities when attempting a global expansion. With globalization, it is increasingly difficult for companies to cope with the complex challenges discussed in Global Challenges: Cultural Frameworks. This module introduces a framework to analyze the issues involved in a global expansion. The module reviews in detail how to conduct an environmental analysis, the steps to estimate the size of a new market, and the changes in consumer behavior induced by cultural characteristics in a new market.

Once the marketer has fully analyzed the new market, assessed the size of the market, and learned the cultural insights about consumers in the new market, the next step in a global expansion is to assess the extent to which the brand is well suited to appeal to the new target market. This requires a thorough understanding of the brand, its portfolio of products and services, and the distinctive associations that contribute to its equity, and in particular to its cultural equity. This knowledge is gained by conducting a brand audit. This module focuses on brands are knowledge structures represented in consumers’ memory and introduces a framework to describe the different types of brand knowledge, as well as to identify the types of knowledge that are distinctive and relevant, and hence contribute to the equity of the brand. Special attention is paid to the brand’s cultural meanings that elicit distinctive and favorable consumer responses—or to the brand’s cultural equity.

Once a marketer has gained a deep understanding of the focal brand and the cultural nuances of consumers in the new market, the next step is to leverage these insights for developing a culturally focused marketing plan. This module highlights the importance of incorporating culture into marketing decisions by reviewing consumers’ responses to the cultural meanings in brands. The premise that consumers respond more favorably to brands imbued with cultural meanings guides the first step in preparing a culturally focused marketing plan, which is developing a cultural positioning for the brand. Once a cultural positioning has been clearly articulated, the marketer can identify cultural elements to be incorporated into the brand identity. This is typically the first step in developing the marketing tactics of product, promotion, place, and price (or the 4 P’s) to be deployed in the new market.

Companies devise marketing tactics to penetrate a new market in the context of what their current marketing strategy is. Although the processes described in past modules partially incorporate the company’s current marketing strategy (i.e., by taking into account the equity of the target brand, an outcome of the overall marketing strategy, or by considering how the brand associations fit into the new market), a company that is already operating in its home market, as well as possibly in other markets, has a portfolio of ongoing marketing tactics. This module discusses the most common approaches to integrate these ongoing tactics with those needed to culturally resonate with consumers in a new market. Specifically, this module reviews the steps that a company should take to integrate actions in different markets under a unified global marketing plan. It focuses on the two competing approaches of standardization of the marketing mix versus cultural adaptation of parts or the entire marketing mix.