Marketers Focus More On Global `Tribes'Valentin Chapero, chief executive of Swiss-based Phonak Group, knows that baby boomers around the world dread the thought of needing his company's hearing devices. Whether they live in London, Los Angeles or Lima, Peru, they tend to resist buying a product associated with aging.Yet tens of millions of people over the age of 50 already have some hearing loss. To woo them, Mr. Chapero and his managers are addressing their common qualms. Phonak's new Audeo device comes in 15 fashionable colors, looks more like a sleek ear phone than an old-fashioned hearing aid and is being marketed as a 'personal communication assistant.' Advertisements in a dozen languages feature youthful-looking customers who lead interesting lives, such as a hedge-fund manager who is also an amateur boxer.'We'll only get close to baby boomers -- who, whether they're Europeans or Americans all have a similar psychology -- if we take away the stigma and show them a product that is high-tech and hip and easily improves the quality of their lives,' says Mr. Chapero.Executives seeking to expand their companies' global reach long have focused on tailoring products to fit the local tastes of consumers in different countries. Increasingly, however, they also have a strong sense of the commonality of their global consumers. As the world shrinks, especially for young, Internet-savvy consumers, they must now also cater to particular subcultures of customers who share very similar outlooks, styles and aspirations despite their different nationalities and languages.'We're seeing global tribes forming around the world that are more and more interconnected through technology,' says Melanie Healey, president, Global Health and Feminine Care at Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati.Among these tribes: teenagers from every continent who socialize on the Internet and like the same music and fashions, working women trying to juggle careers and families, and baby boomers. 'If you focus on the similarities instead of the differences [in these tribes], key business opportunities emerge,' says Ms. Healey.Managers in P&G's feminine-care products division, for example, are using this approach to efficiently reach more global customers. After conducting extensive market research, they concluded that teenage girls on every continent have the same concerns and questions about puberty. That means 'we can write all the answers at once for the Web site -- which is available in 40 countries -- and then translate these into many languages,' says Bob Arnold, Global FemCare interactive manager and head of P&G's beinggirl.com Web site. 'It's more efficient -- and we don't need offices all over the world to do this.''Historically we used to be focused on discovering the common hopes and dreams within a country, but now we're seeing that the real commonalities are in generations across geographical borders,' adds James Haskett, brand franchise leader of P&G's Global Always/Whisper brands.This doesn't mean that P&G sells identical products everywhere, however. The company's Always Fresh brand has a light fragrance in the U.S. and Latin America, for instance, but is unscented in other parts of the world.Sujay Wason, associate marketing director for feminine care, believes in blending the two marketing strategies. 'You've got to be both local and global and understand what will work in several places, and what won't' by spending lots of time with customers. Last week, he and colleagues visited customer homes in Dallas, after working in Brazil and Mexico in prior weeks.Clinique, a unit of Estee Lauder, sells skin-care products and makeup in 130 countries, but markets products that sell to particular skin types and skin tones regardless of the consumers' nationalities. Because women all around the world buy about the same fashions and cosmetics on the Internet, beauty regimens, in general, are becoming more universal, says CEO Lynne Greene.So are household-cleaning and food-cooking practices. Alfa, the Mexican conglomerate, is finding in its market research that Mexican women increasingly want foods that are easier to prepare. 'They don't want entirely premade the way many Americans do because they still want to get credit for doing the cooking, but they want shortcuts,' says Tom Kuczmarski, president of Kuczmarski & Associates, a Chicago marketing consultant.Of course, selling food is different from selling washing machines. 'There may be more consistencies when selling nondurable consumer products globally than cars or other heavier equipment,' says Marti Barletta, who runs the TrendSight Group in Winnetka, Ill.Even so, she says, female consumers can cut across lines. Women everywhere, she says, 'respond to marketing that emphasizes people.''Going global isn't a big mystery,' adds P&G's Ms. Healey. 'There is so much common ground, so much universality among people.'
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