Professional English
Cambridge English for
Marketing
UNIT 4
TEACHER’S NOTES International customer communications
Before you begin … Write two columns on the board with the headings ‘successful’ and ‘unsuccessful’. In small groups, students brainstorm examples of successful and unsuccessful international launch campaigns in their own countries and discuss the reasons for the success or failure of these campaigns. If any students in your group have a background in international marketing this will be a good opportunity for them to share their own experiences. If students don’t know of any examples, ask them to suggest a product from their country and discuss what factors they think would make an international launch successful or unsuccessful. Groups then feed back their examples and ideas to the rest of the class.
Part 1 The challenges of international communication
Students work in pairs to answer the questions. Answers 1 They all failed due to a lack of linguistic and local cultural understanding (i.e. the sociological or socio-cultural ‘S’ in a PESTEL analysis). 2 a Gerber baby food packaging b Electrolux; Parker pen; American T-shirt maker; Pepsi; Coca cola in China 3 Through thorough research starting with an environmental audit (i.e. PESTEL analysis of export market – see Student’s Book Unit 2 pages 16–18), and brand name / advertising trials in local markets. 4 competitor activity and political, economic, technological, environmental and legal factors.
Extension activities 1 Some other examples of marketing blunders students can discuss are given
below. Please note that these three items may not be appropriate for use with students from some cultures. 1 Clairol introduced the ‘Mist Stick’, a curling iron, into German only to find out that ‘mist’ is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the ‘manure stick.’ 2 Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called ‘Cue’, the name of a notorious naughty magazine. 3 Coors put its slogan, ‘Turn It Loose,’ into Spanish where its translation was read as ‘Suffer From Diarrhoea.’
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Cambridge English for Marketing Cambridge University Press 2011 www.cambridge.org/elt/englishformarketing
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