What went wrong?? Niveau 4 & 5

Products don't always sell well in a new market. Think about these situations, and what went wrong. Often times, the advertisers did not consider the target audience when they created the product of the campaign.

Western companies had problems selling refrigerators in Japan until they
changed the design to make them quieter.

Japanese prefer quiet when in their homes.

In Saudi Arabia, newspaper advertisements for an airline showed an
attractive hostess serving champagne to happy passengers. A lot of passengers
cancelled their flight reservations.

Alcohol is forbidden in Saudi Arabia, and women are to be humble and covered.

An airline company called itself Emu, after the Austrailian bird. But
Austrailians didn't want to use the airline.

The emu is a large, flightless bird.

A TV commercial for a cleaning product showed a little girl cleaning up the
mess her brother made. The commercial caused problems in Canada.

Reaffirms the sexist idea females should clean up after male counterparts. There is a long history of feminism in Canada.

Several European and American firms couldn't sell their products in Dubai
when they ran their advertising campaign in Arabic.

Dubai is an international and multi-lingual city. Besides Arabic, Hindu, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Chinese, and other laguages are spoken.

A laundry detergent ad had a picture of dirty lcothes on the left, a
picture of the product in the center, and clean clothes on the right. The soap
didn't sell well in the Middle East.

In Arabic, you read from right to left, thus making the product appear as though it makes your clothes dirty.

A company had problems when it tried to introduce instant coffee to the
French market.

The French drink short, strong, espresso style coffee which is not possible to have with instant coffee. Also, coffee is drank in cafes and during "pause café" more so than at home where you would make coffee. If you drink coffee at home in France, you usually have a machine than makes good coffee.

A toothpaste manufacturer couldn't sell its product in parts of South-East
Asia.

In some cultures, people still use natual products like nuts, leaves, and twigs to clean their teeth. In some cultures, these natural items will stain or color your teeth more yellozw. This comes from an old belief that staining your teeth is a sign or welth or importance within the community, and was also used on women after they were married.

An American golf ball manufacturer launched its products in Japan packed in
boxes of four. It had to change the pack size.

Four is an unlucky number in Japan.

Make sure you consider these points when thinking about your target audience
for your presentations.