MRKT 4504 Week 7 Product Adaptation Brief Example

What Must Travel Untouched and What Must Change: An Adaptation Brief for a Barbecue Sauce Entering a Composite Southeast Asian Market, Setting Levitt's Case for Standardization Against the Term's Evidence

Student Name

Walden University

MRKT 4504: Global Marketing

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

What Must Travel Untouched and What Must Change: An Adaptation Brief for a Barbecue Sauce Entering a Composite Southeast Asian Market, Setting Levitt's Case for Standardization Against the Term's Evidence

The Question

Ember County Smokehouse is preparing Original Hickory barbecue sauce for Market A. Some parts of the offer must travel untouched, or the sauce stops being Ember County's. Others must change, or shoppers will not buy it. Levitt (1983) argued that technology and communication were making the world's markets more alike and that firms should sell standardized products globally, competing on price and quality rather than adapting to local preferences. The earlier work this term, the cultural analysis and the regulatory note in particular, gives evidence against full standardization for this product. This brief draws the line element by element and prices each change.

The Split

Table 1

Elements of the Offer: What Stays and What Changes

Composite company and market. Costs are illustrative estimates.

Why the Core Stays

Levitt's argument has force for Ember County's core. The flavor is the product; the importer ordered because his customers liked it. Changing the recipe before testing would throw away the one thing the market has already shown it wants. Theodosiou and Leonidou (2003) pulled together the research on how much firms adapt abroad and found that how far to adapt turns on the product, the market and the firm together, and that core product attributes tend to be standardized more often than promotional elements. That pattern fits here: the sauce stays, and much of what surrounds it changes.

The brand name and the logo stay for a similar reason. In Market A, an American origin is part of the appeal for specialty foods, and the importer reports that customers ask for "the American sauce." A local-language brand name would discard that cue.

Why the Wrapping Changes

The cultural analysis found that shoppers in Market A use bottled sauce as a table condiment rather than for grilling. The current label's grill image and its basting instructions point to the wrong use, so the front image and serving suggestion change to show the sauce at a table of shared dishes. The bottle size changes because a large squeeze bottle suits grilling for a crowd, while a smaller glass bottle suits a condiment that sits on the table and is priced near local and imported table sauces.

The regulatory note found that the label language, nutrition panel, date format and importer's details must change, and that the preservative level may need to. These are not marketing choices; they are conditions of entry.

Total Cost and Sequence

The changes cost about $13,300 in total, less than the value of a single container of finished sauce at shelf prices. The label changes and the preservative check must come before the first commercial shipment. The bottle size change can follow in the second order if the first sells, since it requires new tooling. The recipe's sweetness and heat stay unchanged until the tasting sessions proposed in the research memo show whether they need adjusting.

Where Levitt Is Right and Where He Is Not

Levitt was right that a strong product can travel, and the early sell-out in the importer's delicatessens suggests this one can, and that over-adapting wastes money and dilutes a brand. He was less right for a product whose use differs between markets. A sauce is not only a flavor; it is a flavor used in a particular way. Cateora et al. (2020) note that the cost of adaptation must be weighed against the sales it makes possible; in this case, the changes that make the sauce usable at a Market A table cost little compared with the cost of a bottle that never leaves the shelf.

References

Cateora, P. R., Money, R. B., Gilly, M. C., & Graham, J. L. (2020). International marketing (18th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

Levitt, T. (1983). The globalization of markets. Harvard Business Review, 61(3), 92-102.

Theodosiou, M., & Leonidou, L. C. (2003). Factors influencing the degree of international marketing strategy standardization/adaptation: An integrative assessment of the empirical research. International Business Review, 12(2), 141-171. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0969-5931(02)00094-X