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International Marketing

Notes Introduction

International marketing refers to marketing carried out by companies overseas or across national
borders. This strategy uses an extension of the techniques used in the home country of a firm.

International marketing is simply the application of marketing principles to more than one
country. However, there is a crossover between what is commonly expressed as international
marketing and global marketing, which are similar terms.
The intersection is the result of the process of internationalisation. Many American and European
authors see international marketing as a simple extension of exporting, whereby the marketing
mix 4Ps is simply adapted in some way to take into account differences in consumers and
segments. It, then, follows that global marketing takes a more standardised approach to world
markets and focuses upon sameness, in other words the similarities in consumers and segments.
According to American Marketing Association (AMA), international marketing is the
multinational process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and
distribution of ideal goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and
organisational objectives.
In this unit and subsequent units, you will learn various aspects of international marketing. You
must note that in the definition, the word multinational has been added to the definition of
marketing given by other experts. That word implies that marketing activities are undertaken
in several countries and such activities should somehow be coordinated across nations.
1.1 Concept of International Marketing

When a business crosses the borders of a nation, it becomes complex.
International marketing involves all the activities that form part of domestic marketing. An
enterprise engaged in international marketing has to correctly identify, assess and interpret the
needs of the overseas customers and carry out integrated marketing operations to satisfy those
needs. In other words, the basic functions are the same in international marketing as well as in
domestic marketing.
At the same time, there are several characteristics that are unique to international marketing.
When the business crosses the national borders of a given country, it becomes enormously more
complex. The resulting problems and management situations transcend those of marketing,
finance and production. A wide range of legal, political, cultural and sociological dimensions
enter the picture, adding a lot of complexity to the task. And, the one factor that contributes
maximum to the complexity is the environmental and cultural dynamics of the global markets.

1.1.1 Environmental and Cultural Dynamics of Global Markets

The environmental and cultural dynamics of the markets of different countries can be understood
only by studying the respective people, their patterns of life, their tradition, their social
interactions, their sensibilities, their faiths and fancies. In other words, the international marketer
has to become a native in the foreign land. He has to communicate with the people of those lands
in their lingo and idiom.
Multinational enterprise must function in a world of contrasts: old and new, primitive and
modern, pious, and agnostic, unutterably beautiful and sickeningly squalid, educated and
ignorant, progressive and stagnant, sophisticated and naive all in constant agitation. To interpret
this volatile diversity, to make sense of this apparent chaos, we must try to identify the underlying
forces the prime movers which produce the global dynamics.

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