Marketing Week 2009
Issue No. 48 - August/September 2009
Culture shocks in Asia
Catherine Eddy, Executive Director, Consumer Research Services for Nielsen Indonesia, notes cultural quirks outweigh economics for any marketers developing business in Indonesia and Vietnam. Catherine says despite delays in major construction, slowing textile demand (major industries) and much of the population literally living hand to mouth, Indonesia is still growing strongly and in upbeat mood.
Consumer confidence is at historic highs in an election year. Inflation is low, a good thing for an economy driven by domestic consumption, but not all is rosy from an exporters point of view.
“If you are trying to send product into Indonesia it’s quite a difficult time and it’s been noticeable in recent months that the Indonesian Government is becoming very keen to protect Indonesian interests,” Catherine says. “Regulations restrict the import of foreign goods into Indonesia and licensing and paperwork required to facilitate movement into Indonesia is becoming more complex and restrictive.
“In terms of the products themselves and depending on the category and the target market there may be some need to tweak your offering. If it’s a mass product, reducing pack sizes to give consumers a price break can be useful. In Australia we might look at introducing bulk sizes to reduce per-use cost; that doesn’t work in Indonesia. The great majority of consumers live on a day-to-day basis so they just don’t think ahead in those terms. They’re more likely to react positively to a small pack size that costs them less; this is especially so for personal care items.
“When pressured on commodity type purchases people tend to trade down on brands. It becomes very clear, very quickly during crisis times in countries like Indonesia that you must have a strong and clear positioning; to be at either end (up or downscale). The
brands and businesses that really tend to suffer are those at mid-level. We’ve even noticed this in the retail se...
