Brand Distinction-Context

Developing brand distinction requires management to understand the market conditions in which their brand competes. Ignoring or minimizing the market’s competitive dynamics puts any brand planning activities at risk of missing important opportunities and/or insufficiently differentiated. Even when a brand is succeeding in its home market, there is no ironclad guarantee such a performance will easily transfer into a new market. Furthermore, today’s faster paced business environment often pushes management to make decisions while lacking a relevant understanding of the new environment in which they seek to grow. While serendipity can certainly play a role, learning more about the business context in which the brand is about to be exposed will boost confidence that the right factors are being considered before implementation. As Western companies move more aggressively to develop growth opportunities in Asia, the practices that facilitated success at home would not work, and might even backfire, in many Asian countries due partly to the unique cultural complexities that define and animate relationship development. Asian companies seeking to move into Western markets confront a different set of challenges: how to offer differentiated value against competitors that have spent decades honing their reputations in their home markets. In both cases, learning the nuances associated with the new market context will reduce the risk. But to extend practices and expand products to another country just because they worked well at home is likely to lead to failure.