Launches of pharmaceuticals are tricky. Companies often have to face the fact that after a decade or more of expensive development, an initially promising new drug falls short of expectations in terms of sales. Bain & company estimated that about 50% of all pharmaceutical launches underperform and that more than 25% of all launches do […]
In 1997, Nike was going through a public relations nightmare. The Council on American Islamic Relations had spotted a suspicious logo, stitched on to the heel of Nike’s new sneaker, the Air Bakin’. When read from right to left, as is the practice in Arabic, the logo that was intended to look like flames bore a […]
Once again, this is not the most recent case, but it still is a good one. It serves as a perfect illustration for the fact that phenomenal success in one country doesn’t necessarily guarantee success in another. Quite to the contrary, success can be blinding and make companies ignorant of subtle – and sometimes even […]
Fast food is tricky business in China. China loves to eat, but there already is an abundance of excellent affordable street food, and competition between foreign fast food brands is intense. Yum Brands-owned Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) stands out among many others in that it has been immensely successful in the Chinese market. With more […]
In August 2017, German supermarket Edeka made a bold statement. For one day, the supermarket chain took all non-German products off the shelves. Instead of their favorite Italian pasta, Spanish tomatoes, Israeli oranges, Greek olives, Portuguese sardines, French cheeses, Japanese soy sauce, or Turkish grapes, Edeka’s customers found signs with statements such as “Things are […]
Last month, Bloomberg published a “Vulnerability Ranking” for 18 emerging markets ranging from Turkey to Taiwan. The ranking assesses these markets along four criteria – Current Account Balance, External Debt, Government Effectiveness, and Inflation. To no one’s surprise, Turkey and Argentina lead the pack in their vulnerability, while countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, Thailand, […]
Almost unnoticed to the global media, Swedish furniture giant IKEA opened its first store in India this month. With the 400,000 sq ft store, the global multinational is hoping to open the path to expansion in a market of 1.3 billion consumers that includes a growing and affluent middle class. More stores are planned for […]
When San Francisco-based US fashion retailer The Gap launched its “City T-shirt” series, it probably had high hopes that the China edition would please a vast consumer base across China. Attention did indeed come quickly, but not necessarily the kind that The Gap was hoping for. Within hours, Chinese social media users had posted photos […]
Scandinavians are definitely not prude, and they do have a sense of humor. Nonetheless, Norway – the country that’s ranked among the happiest nations globally – may not have appreciated 7-Eleven’s most recent attempt at being funny and socially responsible. In an ad campaign across Norway, 7-Eleven proclaimed “Welcome to Norway” and “Welcome to the Land […]
The 2018 Soccer World Cup will still be going on for a few weeks, and yet there’s already a big loser – Burger King. The global fast food giant just had to withdraw a recent campaign on the Russian VK social media network. In the campaign, Burger King had offered a cash prize of 3 […]
In his latest book, Pankaj Ghemawat, celebrity professor at NYU and at IESE, describes – among many other things – how Coca Cola’s early international expansion followed a completely decentralized approach. As long as no major damage was done, everything was allowed and according to Professor Ghemawat, only two rules existed, “You can’t change the formula, […]
This will be short: I haven’t posted a “Transnational Take-Over Alert” in a long time, but given Walmart’s history of failures in international markets, it seemed important to write one now. As various news outlets recently reported, Wal-Mart has doubled down on the Indian market by acquiring Flipkart, India’s largest commerce platform – an Indian […]