Implications For International Marketing Managers Strategy

In the year of 2012, Google was recognized as the third powerful brand in the world just after Apple and IBM (Google, 2016). The estimated brand value of the company is $108 billion. The revenue of the company is $ 36.5 billion. The name of the company comes from the number googol “1 followed by 100 zeros”. It refers to the enormous amount of data accessible online that the organization helps its users to find. The mission of the company is “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”  Form the starting period, Google strives to become one of the “good guys” in the corporate world (Greenwald & MacAskill, 2013). The company always tries to develop employee friendly work environment along with strong business ethics. The company has developed a famous funding credo “Don’t be evil.”

The organization has developed a program named “AdSense” that allows any Website to shoe targeted Google ads in accordance to the content of the site (Google, 2016). It provides online “real estate” for advertisers. The company adds values by offering tools to websites so that they can aim their ads and better recognize the efficiency of their marketing.  In addition, Google supports a marketing style that can constantly monitor and optimize advertising budget and resources. This approach of Google is known “Marketing asset management.”

The company is presently the third most powerful brand in the world. In future, the company will try to take top position in this category. So far the company has taken all correct decisions. The company Google has invested a lot of money for traditional marketing.  The company has targeted consumers of Microsoft with the appeal to use the “cloud computing” of Google instead of using Windows or Microsoft office. With the help of “Go Google” a user can get access to all documents with the help of web browsers, without having any software and physical infrastructure (Greenwald & MacAskill, 2013).  The company has also invested in the mobile category and developed Android platform.   Google goes head-to-head with Apple’s iPhone. Android is a free and opened sourced and it is backed by a multi-million dollar company. It influences million users to use Android Smartphone.  The company earns billion of dollars from Android mobile ads.  In the year of 2010, the Google has launched its own Android phone Nexus (Google, 2016).

However, the company has some issues with the Chinese government. In the year of 2010, the company threatened to leave China due to censorship issues (Google, 2016). For this reason, the Google closed its internet search engine in China and then users of China have to use it uncensored search engine of Hong Kong. However, this issue has angered Chinese officials.

Microsoft is recognized as the most successful software company. It strategic marketing and aggressive growth tactics helped the company to become one of the most powerful brands in the world.  Throughout the period of 1990s the company has convinced that the software is the best choice of business. In addition, it needs to be upgraded regularly (Han et al., 2013).  It invested millions of dollars in magazine advertising. It helped the company to get endorsement form top computer magazines. The company had taken three major steps during the period of “Browser war” to increase its business. At first the company combined Internet Explorer with other Office product. It includes MS word, Excel and PowerPoint.  Secondly, the company made partnership with AOL, which increased 5 million customers for the company (Microsoft, 2016). Thirdly the company used its deep pockets to make sure that Internet Explorer was accessible for free. All these three strategies helped the organization to survive during the recession period of 2008.  The company had created a campaign named “Windows, Life without Walls” to show how cost effective their computers are (Berthon et al., 2012).      

When the company Microsoft comes out with Vista, it almost tried to company Apple’s navigation technique. According to Han et al. (2013) Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” campaign enhanced the desire of the company to become trendy like Macs. In most of the cases they often show PCs and Macs together. The company is not doing well by acknowledging Apple’s campaign in its marketing advertisement. As Person (2013) stated that, it confused most of the customers. They are not able to recognize what the ads are targeting. However, in their recent market campaign, the company has done a much better job. It illustrates a Microsoft loyalist requires a fancy new computer.  She is taken to a room full of innovation by Microsoft, where she gets her modified and updated computer. Overall it can be stated that Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” campaign is a poor decision. The company should focus more on portable technologies like tablets and smart phones.     

IDEO is one of the largest design consultancies in US (Ideo, 2016). The organization has developed some most popular design icons in the age of Technology. It includes the first laptop computer and the first mouse for the company Apple. The success story of the company IDEO can be predicted by an approach called “design thinking”. As Shani and Chalasani (2013) stated that, this technology is based “human centered approach”.  It helps the company to find out consumer’s purchasing behaviour. In addition, prototyping can help IDEO to become a highly successful company. As Person (2013) mentioned that the prototyping takes place throughout the process of designing. The company encourages its customers and even senior executive to participate in the research work.  It helps them to get a sense of customers related with products and services (Ideo, 2016).

One of the biggest challenges of research that the company is facing is related with customers as most of the research work is based on them. As Shani and Chalasani (2013) stated that the research work of the company is highly depends on interaction with customers. However, customer interaction often becomes problematic for the company. In addition the approach of “human shadowing” is ethically questioned. Many customers feel that their privacy is often infringed by this approach. Every approach taken by the company has its own challenges and opportunities.  However, the company has developed an attractive research process to overcome these challenges, so that it can provide positive result.

The primary business of IDEO is conducting the research, analysis and drawing a conclusion to in order to advise the client companies. In this context, IDEO does not have the immediate necessity to create more awareness regarding its brand. As the business is operated on the principle of suggesting others business setting for paving a successful business path, it restrict to promote their project to the other business due to confidentiality clause with the client companies. The brand image of IDEO is currently growing within the business world without any apparent hurdles (Chudasr, Walker & Evans, 2013).

According to the professional opinion, the current impression of the company’s brand awareness is highly impressive and does not need any touch regarding the development of brand awareness of IDEO. As IDEO does not deal with general populace directly, the brand awareness development will be futile effort for enhancing their business. In this aspect, the company must focus on stating their accomplishment as well as working with various successful projects. It will enhance their appeal to the business world, which will evidently benefit them with an elevated business. Considering these facts, the company should continue their fantastic journey and developing strong loyalty base with the existing client business organizations Ideo, 2016).

In order to extend the product line of Jim Thompson Thai Silk (JTTS), the company focused on the use of customized fabrics. The company made collaboration with the American designer company Turtles with the focus of customizing as well as delivering fabrics to the market. The collaborated companies worked on the project of various hospitality settings. These settings are mostly Park Hyatt Hotels as well as Aman Resorts. The supplied products are mostly based on furnishing materials of various premium settings of hospitality, tourism and leisure industry (Graham, 2013). For example, JTTS supplied the furnishing materials of 9000 square meters to The Park Hyatt Paris. In addition to that, The Regent, Sukhothai, The Oriental as well as Conrad are the most effective client of JTTS.

I do not think that JTTS has extended too much concerning their business objectives. The company was founded based on the Thai silk culture, which offers an exclusive unification of western design as well as Thai heritage and tradition. The company still promotes the Thai silk tradition to the customers. In this context, it has been identified that JTTS still focuses on promoting the various implementation of Thai silk. As inconsistent knots of grains characterize Thai silk, it only can be packetized as furnishing materials. Therefore, it is evident that JTTS did not extend too much (Jimthompson.com, 2016).

I think that JTTS has a very strong impression between the tourist as well as generic population in the context of providing experience of Thai culture. The major strong point of the company is that it is robustly linked with the culture of Thailand where the Thai silk culture and heritage is concerned. The customers are mostly focused on obtaining the unique Thai silk garments as well as lifestyle products as a gift or for their personal use. It is identified that JTTS holds a strong customer base, which are majorly populated by the Japanese tourists (Volz, 2012). The current statistics shows that 40 percent of the sales in Thailand are performed depending on the Japanese tourists. This record also indicates that 80 percent sales in Malaysia as well as Singapore are supported by the Japanese tourist. In this context, it is observed that Japanese tourist as well as others customers are highly attracted towards the most impressive implementation of Thai silk. This sole business approach has enhanced the success opportunity of JTTS and distinguished its business approach with the other lifestyle companies (Jimthompson.com, 2016).

Since the beginning of Fulla doll, the company has focused on the Syrian market targeting the Muslim communities using selective target marketing. The significant advantages of selective target marketing are that the company will be able to grasp the entire base of the target customers. It will provide the feature with its product that will appeal a selective portion of the general population (Sohail, Naz & Malik, 2014). This way the company can earn complete loyalty from that community. Fulla doll effectively took advantage of this strategy and became the role model of the girls from Muslim community. Almost entire female childhood generation of Syria sustained the complete business of Fulla doll for a long time.

However, the company also faces a severe difficulty to expand its business with the selective target marketing. In order to attract more customers, the company needs to include various other features into their products. This approach can hinder the appeal of Fulla doll among the Muslim community, which can reduce the brand image of Fulla doll. The exclusive attention on the Muslim communities has restricted the company to expand its business in other region (Fulla.com, 2016).

It has been identified that Fulla doll cannot successfully expand to outer region where the presence Muslim community is not very strong. In the current context, Fulla doll may expand their business to neighbor countries where the majority of the population is enriched with the Muslim communities (Dunn & Dunn, 2016). The company can gain a supreme customer base where Fulla doll will be welcomed in a generous fashion. Moreover, Fulla doll needs to make a vigorous online presence with their product. In the era of globalization, Muslim people are leveling in entire world. The online market will help them to reach those customers in an easy way.

While Fulla doll had been operating their business in domestic market of Syria, they did not feel any necessity to consider other marketing strategy than selective target marketing techniques. As the entire population of Syria, belong from Muslim communities, the company segmentation was not too selective (Saleh, 2014). However, the international expansion approach compelled them to consider other communities. As the current era of globalization has blended all of the communities throughout the globe, the current segmentation that is focusing on solely Muslim communities, is excessively selective. Therefore, the company needs to find out a way to transform its business approach without any hindrance (Fulla.com, 2016).

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Sohail, R., Naz, R., & Malik, N. A. (2014). A Postcolonial Study of Barbie Phenomena and its Implication in Pakistani Urban Context. European Academic Research, 11(5), 6949-6980.

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