NPD Approach In Global Marketing

To apply NPD approach in global marketing, it should be mentioned that the decentralized MNCs that allow foreign subsidiaries to proceed at their own pace on launching new product could be a disadvantage in this new environment.

After unveiling the new product, the company clearly wants to gain a decent profit that covers all risk and effort that were spent to launch it. Additionally, management is also aware that each product would have a life cycle, with a typical product life cycle (PLC) have five distinct stages including product development, introduction, growth, maturity and decline. It should be emphasized that not all products follow this life cycle, as some products are introduced and declined in a short run while other venerable brands

The authors of ‘The Lure of Global Marketing’ article suggested that there are four possible parts that global brand leadership can follow, including business management team, brand champion, global brand manager and global brand team. While the business management team is most suitable when the top managers are expert in marketing or branding, brand champion approach is well suited to companies where the top executives have talent for brand strategy, who also must be familiar with local contexts and foreign subsidiaries. In a specific case, Procter & Gamble (P&G) believed that it can create more global brands by gathering authority and responsibility in the hands of advanced brand champions. In the high-tech and service industries where top management does not often specialize in branding or marketing, it is a must to recruit a global brand manager who is responsible for building a marketing strategy that delivers superior value to customers. As he (or she) cannot working alone, it is necessary to develop global brand teams that must consist of brand representative from different countries as well as different stages of brand development. From my personal view, when assigning authority and responsibility to these teams, it must be emphasized what authority resides with the country team in order to avoid abusing of authority in the

It stems from the fact that different foreign subsidiaries using their own vocabularies, strategy templates and their own strategies. Therefore, it is important to use a brand presentation that looks and sounds the same no matter where it is delivered, with well-defined vocabulary, a brand strategy model and strategic analysis inputs and outputs. To develop an effective process planning, a marketer suggested five guidelines. The first one is that it should be included an analysis of customers, competitors and the brand. Secondly, any fixation on product attributes should be avoided. A strong brand usually goes beyond functional benefits as it focuses on developing an emotional brand that appeals directly to a customer’s needs and aspirations, like the Coca-Cola Company has been doing with its emotional commercials that are always related to bliss, enjoyment and happiness. Thirdly, the process needs to communicate brand’s identity to its stakeholders. In addition, it also includes brand equity measurement and goals, namely the premium value that a company can achieve of having a well-known brand name. Last but not least, the process must include a mechanism that ties global and local brand strategies together.