Lessons from Walmart Failure

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There are many regional and international brands that are crossing boarders and international waters to spread their wings into other countries and continents. Along with their products and services, they are also bringing with them a number of interesting market entry dilemmas. Wal-Mart is one such global brand that has created many headlines in all the countries that it has entered and it offers good lessons on ‘how not to’ enter other markets , for those companies that are contemplating new market entry. Wal-Mart’s recent problems in South Africa and their history of issues relating to entry into other countries uncovers the pitfalls that face companies when they choose to cross economic and cultural borders. Here are five common mistakes companies make when structuring a global brand strategy. 1. Interpret; don’t translate Translating your message into the local language is not enough to ensure your intent will be understood or interpreted correctly. This applies to business models and HR practices, as Wal-Mart discovered in Germany not so long ago, or your branding and marketing message, as Match.com found when they decided to go global. Their tagline “Love is complicated. Match.com is simple.” didn’t communicate their intent to customers from Portugal to Peru until they instructed their copywriters to look for the meaning behind the words. Their intent, they discovered, was that Match.com opens a door to a myriad of possibilities. Therefore, they changed their international tagline to “Millions of possibilities. Match.com” on many of their global sites. 2. Value is contextual The quality of your implementation has always been important in maintaining a certain brand image. However, when crossing cultural boundaries, the nuances of what denotes quality become less predictable and thus extremely important to decode. Value is contextual across cultures,

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