Building Brand Awareness: Marketing Strategies

This assignment delves into various marketing strategies for enhancing brand awareness. It examines techniques such as improving search engine optimization (SEO), collaborating with local businesses, leveraging influencer marketing, and crafting compelling brand narratives through videos on social media platforms. The assignment draws upon academic sources and online resources to provide a comprehensive understanding of effective brand-building practices.

INTERNATIONAL
MARKETING
COMMUNICATION

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK...............................................................................................................................................1
Difference between Spain and UK countries...........................................................................1
Marketing objectives and strategies for UK and Spain...........................................................4
Marketing communication tactics for Spain...........................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
International marketing communication is the process of providing information to
stakeholders in different countries (International Marketing Communication, 2019). Cross
cultural issues create big trouble for companies in communicating in international market.
Present study is based on Nike, it is the leading brand which offers high quality sporty and trendy
products to wide range of consumers. Current assignment will describe difference between
countries Spain and UK. Furthermore, it will explain marketing objective and communication
strategies in both these nations by Nike for its sport shoe product.
TASK
Difference between Spain and UK countries
Hofstede culture model is the framework which explains differences in opinion and values
of culture of different countries. Nike is the big brand and operates its business across the world.
It is planning to market its sport shoe product in UK and Spain. For that it is essential for
business to understand difference between both these nations (Reader and et.al., 2015).
Figure 1Hofstede culture model
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(Source: COUNTRY COMPARISON, 2019)
Power distance Index
This dimension describes the societal inequality, country where inequality is high there
people have adopted the adjustment approach, they turn their behaviour as per circumstance.
People with high power take advantage of situation and people with low power make
adjustments. Inequality is handled by people in different manner, it highly depends upon the
power which they held (Fang and et.al., 2016). Spain score 57 and UK score 35 in PID. As Spain
score high that shows that society of Spain is hierarchical. People are arranged hierarchically and
they accept instruction of higher authorities which shows inherent inequality and centralisation.
Whereas in UK there is less score of PID that means all people are equal and they do not accept
inequalities.
Individualism vs collectivism (IDV)
This dimension explains the level of interdependence among members of society. If there
is individualism index that means people think more about themselves only whereas if there is
collectivism index that shows that people think for society members and other people as well.
Such kind of people like to be in group and care to everyone. Spain score 51 that means it has
collectivist approach (Ivanov and Ivanova, 2016). That is why Spaniards can make easy
connection with other cultural people hence if Nike market its sport shoes in Spain then it would
not have to make major changes in its marketing message because Spanish people can
understand such message. Whereas UK score 89 here individualism approach is present. In UK
Nike will have to change its marketing message and will have to communicate with European
people according to them believes.
Masculinity vs Femininity
This is the dimension which explains the how society will be driven. If there is high score
that shows masculine index that means people remember people on the bases of their
achievements, success and competition. It starts from school life to their entire career duration.
On other hand if low score is present that means it is feminine is nature. It means dominant
values are given more importance in society than achievements. Quality of life matters a lot as
compare to success in individual life (Dąbrowska and Fiegenbaum, 2017). Spain is the country
which score 42 that means femininity dimension is present here. Spanish people like to be in
competition and always want to prove themselves better than other. Management in Spanish
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companies coordinate with subordinates and know their opinion on particular matters. This
country believes in winning the task. On other hand masculinity dimension present in UK here
score is 66 that means country believes more on quality of life (Reader and et.al., 2015).
Uncertainty avoidance (UAI)
This dimension states the level of acceptance of people about future uncertainties and
how they deal with such sudden changes. Some like to control over uncertain event whereas
some think let it be happened as they believe that they cannot control over such uncertain events.
Spain is the country which score high 86 that shows that Spain has uncertainty avoidance
attitude. Spain is known as second noisiest nation, people of Spain like to follow fixed rules and
if any changes occur then it increases stress among them. They avoid confrontation because it
might enhance their stress level (Ivanov and Ivanova, 2016). A recent survey shows that Spanish
do not think much about future they live in current situations. Whereas UK score 35 that means
low score. This reflects that people have casual attitude and they always implement relaxed
attitude, as they do not think much about future complexities.
Long or short term orientation
This dimension explains how members of society maintain links with past or deal with
challenges. Low score countries prefer to follow traditional values whereas high score counties
pay more attention on modern approaches to deal with such kind of challenges. Spain score 48,
people of this country always want to live their present life happily, they have less concern for
their future challenges. Spanish people want quick results without looking at past accidents or
norms. On other hand UK score 51 which is pragmatic (Dąbrowska and Fiegenbaum, 2017).
Indulgence vs restraint (IND)
This is last dimension of Hofstede cultural model; it explains that weather people in
country has freedom to take their own decision or not. Furthermore, it states extent to which
people are socialised or have humanity. Spain score 44 as there is indulgent society, low score
shows that it is restraint, Spanish people control over their desires in order to follow social
norms. Whereas UK score high which is 69 that reflects that People of UK do not control over
their desires, they live their life happily on their own norms (Reader and et.al., 2015).
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Marketing objectives and strategies for UK and Spain
Marketing communication objective
The main purpose of marketing communication objective of Nike in Spain is to make people
aware with its sport shoes products. This will help in increasing sales of business in that country.
Furthermore, objective of communication in UK is to inform its stakeholders about progress of
Nike in the market so that their confidence can be built up.
Marketing communication strategies
Spain is the country where consumers like to be in group, they adopt collective approach
rather than individualism. They give importance to femininity, as people like to get quality of
life. They always prefer to buy high quality products which can meet with their needs
effectively. Spanish customers use social networking sites in order to make connection with
others. They emphases on advertisement published on such media sites in order to know more
about products and services so that they can make right decision of buying particular products.
Nike is going to offer sport shows in Spain market and for that it is essential to understand needs
of their people so that enterprise can offer them goods as per their requirements. The topic
currently discussed by people of Spain is to get trendy sport wears in limited budget.
UK is the nation where people adopt individualism approach, they want freedom and
make their decisions by own. UK has UAI low score which reflects that people have casual
attitude and they always implement relaxed attitude. Hence they prefer best quality products for
themselves. They use social networking sites, TV advertisements in order to know more about
new products, offers etc. The hot topic discussed by these people is to get high quality trendy
sports wears in limited budget.
Nike wants to become market leader and want to expand its business across the world. It
provides amazing sportswear to consumers globally. Direct competitor of Nike is Adidas and
Puma. Indirect competitor of Nike is Timberland, Sketchers etc. New entrants in this sector are
Xtreme Zone, Protégé Sports.
Nike has to take support of sales promotion tactics for communicating in Spain. This
strategy will give positive feedback to Nike. By this way it will be able to make direct contact
with Spanish people and will be able to make them understand with the actual attractive features
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of its sport shoes. This is the best way through which enterprise would be able to develop
confidence of people of that country (International Marketing Communication, 2019). As
Spanish people focuses more on quality of life and they live in present more than looking for
future complexities. Hence if Nike communicate with Spanish people through sales promotions
then entity will be able to make them aware with quality of its products and uniqueness as
compare to other brand. This will be beneficial in enhancing interest of buyers and making them
loyal towards the brand.
On other hand to communicate in UK country, Nike has to take support of direct
marketing such as social networking sites etc. By using this strategy firm will be able to raise
interest of UK people and will be able to convenience stakeholders in United Kingdom. By using
social sites, it will be able to fulfil needs of stakeholders significantly.
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Marketing communication tactics for Spain
Marketing communication tactics are those conceptual actions taken by company for the
purpose of achieving its specific objectives. The objective of Nike, a sport shoe manufacturing
giant in United Kingdom was to create the brand awareness of its sport shoes range among the
people of Spain. The motive was to enlarge its market share at the global level and to increase its
sales.
Consumers which can be targeted by the company is young adults. Nike is going target adults
between age of 20-45. This can be done by firm through doing various marketing campaigns.
They can bring back consumers and attract towards them by making use of various social media
channels. Customers in order to get connected with company can utilize various social media
tools. They can connect with the firm through Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and many more. It is
way too easy to get linked with company and get their queries solved. Nike is engaged in
offering variety of footwear to its consumer. The trends which are being followed by consumers
today Men purchase 18x more athletic shoes than dress shoes, almost overwhelmingly from
Amazon (74%). For women, sandals beat out boots in terms of purchases (again, likely due to
the weather). Nordstrom sells 19x more women’s sandals than women’s boots.
Nike is engaged in shoe manufacturing business. It is the world largest supplier of
athletic shoes and apparels. The keen competition which is been faced by Nike is from Adidas,
Puma, Reebok, Fila, Converse and many more.
For this purpose, the company employed some of the tactics for achieving its strategic
objective. Firstly, for building the brand awareness in the country, the marketing team was
determined to know the culture and preferences of the people. After the market research, it was
learned that people in Spain are more into the quality of the products. Again, for attracting the
people towards the Nike, the company employed the tactic of influencer marketing. It is that type
of marketing where the company makes aware of its brand through the medium of some people
who has the capacity of influencing the society at large level. Nile promoted its brand by hiring
some sports people. Since, players are ultra famous and have huge fan following on social media
they can create a impact on the target audience’s minds and could drove them towards the Nike
brand. The advantage of this tactic would be that people follow and have trust in celebrities and
big names, which would help the company in not reaching the wider section of the target
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segment but it would increase the probability of transforming the potential buyers into
company’s actual clients because of the trust factor (8 Marketing Tactics to Build Brand
Awareness, 2018).
Another tactic used by the marketing team of Nike was to increase the participation of
organization in the social causes within the Spain. Being linked with social causes provides
positive publicity to the people in the society where customers think that enterprise is socially
responsible and carry out its business in the ethical way. It has been observed from a report that
around 78% people having age18 to 24 years are ready to pay higher prices for a brand which is
socially responsible and ethical. The altogether impact of this tactic on the Nike brand would be
that it will connect with people of Spain personally and will enhance its public relations (Khang
and et.al., 2016).
Use of social media up-to its fullest is one of the tactic of marketing team of Nike for
spreading the brand awareness of its firm. Telling the stories of the Nike brand by the medium of
videos and graphics on the social sites would help the company in coming into contact with its
target customer segment in Spain. Providing specifications of product, its quality and other
advertisement through the visuals are more effective than the written content. This tactic is
useful because the customers have the tendency to recall the visuals and videos related to a brand
more than they would when it was in writing. Due to the easy availability of internet across the
world , this marketing communication tactic has become very popular and has also gained
immensely fruitful results for the organization in the form of increased brand awareness, more
actual customer than the potential ones and increase in the revenue (Hänninen and Karjaluoto,
2017).
Holding marketing events and campaigns in the local areas of the Spain also helped the
company in informing Spanish people about the quality of brand, its utility, price, attractive
features etc. Through such events, the marketing and sales executives directly comes into contact
with the potential segment of the market. This provides the useful insights of needs and
expectations of the people. It would not only help in developing more suitable integrated
marketing communication strategy but along with this, it would help in creating brand awareness
in the target region (Shen and et.al., 2016).
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The marketing team of the Nike organization focused more on modern marketing tactics
as compared to traditional ones. Improving the rankings on search engine optimization (SEO)
could largely make its marketing communication strategy really effective in the intended
market. Today is the ear of social media , online shopping where people searches for the
products and services they wants to buy. If the ranking of a company is exceptionally good then,
it has the highest possibility of coming into contact with the potential customers on the online
platforms. Nike being one of the biggest brand of sport shoe in the world enjoys extremely good
rankings on the SEO and the marketing department has decided to leverage on their this
particular strength for attracting and making people aware of the brand in the market in Spain
(Rowley, 2016).
The most important action plan in Nike’s marketing strategy of making people aware of
the brand in Spain through promotions and tactics is the alliance with the local businesses. It is
one of the most effective way of spreading the information about the products and services of a
company in a new target market. Having a local partners does the same work of collaborating
with big names and influencers. The knowledge about the local market are much better known to
local partners who could help the big brands in making their products and services available to
the intended customers (Alshaketheep and Syed, 2018). Nike could also collaborate with the
local partners in Spain. Like the company can form collaborations with shoe retailers in the local
areas so that products could be made available to larger audience. It can do so along with its
official stores in the selected areas of the country.
The benefits of these marketing communication tactics would help Nike in achieving its
strategic objectives which are to make people of Spain aware about the offerings of the company.
Effective marketing strategies and tactics acts as a medium through which the company officially
communicates with its customers. If those marketing strategies and tactics hits the right cord of
the customers, then it serve as a competitive advantage to the organization. It is a well known
fact that most suitable and effective marketing strategies are those which are capable of
communicating what the organization is, what are its products and to what degree their
customers are important to it. Also, effective marketing strategies would help Nike in ensuring
effectiveness in its departmental coordination and would also lead the organization in optimally
utilizing its significant resources for providing a sales message to its target audience (Bianchi
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and Mathews, 2016). The primary objective of marketing communication strategy of Nike is to
promote and throw light on its legacy, attributes and USP in the targeted market that is Spain. It
has been said that a marketing strategy of a company not only attract new audience and increase
brand awareness but it plays great role in the overall growth of a business concern.
CONCLUSION
From the above project report, it can be summarized that international marketing
communication comprises of all the methods and ways of providing information to its customers
and communicate with its current stakeholders in the most effective way. In the report, Hofstede
model of cultural dimensions was applied for the purpose of assessing the difference between the
cultures of Spain and United Kingdom. One of the element of Hofstede model which is
indulgence and restraints, it was found out that people of UK does not restrict themselves in the
pursuit of social norms rather they tend to choose to their norms and live happily whereas in
Spain people tends to control desires for following the social norms. Further, it was concluded
that Nike had the objective of informing the people of Spain about its brand and in UK it desired
of communicating the good fortune and progress of company to all of its stakeholders. For the
purpose of achieving the goals in Spain, Nike employed some tactics such as improvement in
SEO, collaboration with local businesses, influencer marketing, telling stories of brand through
videos on the social sites etc.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Dąbrowska, J. and Fiegenbaum, I., 2017. Open Innovation and Culture: A System Dynamics
Model. In Open Innovation: Unveiling the Power of the Human Element (pp. 29-55).
Fang, Z. and et.al., 2016. National culture, creativity, and productivity: What’s the relationship
with student achievement?. Creativity Research Journal. 28(4). pp.395-406.
Ivanov, S. H. and Ivanova, M. G., 2016. Market penetration of hotel chains: Does culture
matter?. Annals of Tourism Research. 57. pp.259-264.
Reader, T. W. and et.al., 2015. Safety sans frontières: An international safety culture model. Risk
analysis. 35(5). pp.770-789.
Khang, H and et.al., 2016. A retrospective on the state of international advertising research in
advertising, communication, and marketing journals: 1963–2014. International Journal of
Advertising. 35(3). pp.540-568.
Rowley, J., 2016. Information marketing. Routledge.
Hänninen, N. and Karjaluoto, H., 2017. The effect of marketing communication on business
relationship loyalty. Marketing Intelligence & Planning. 35(4). pp.458-472.
Shen, G.C.C and et.al., 2016. Effective marketing communication via social networking site: The
moderating role of the social tie. Journal of Business Research. 69(6., pp.2265-2270.
Alshaketheep, K M. I. and Syed, A.A., 2018. Organizational Communication-An element in
designing International Marketing Strategy. International Journal of Research. 5(01).
pp.2371-2379.
Bianchi, C. and Mathews, S., 2016. Internet marketing and export market growth in
Chile. Journal of Business Research. 69(2). pp.426-434.
Online
COUNTRY COMPARISON. 2019. [Online]. Available through < https://www.hofstede-
insights.com/country-comparison/spain,the-uk/ >
International Marketing Communication. 2019. [Online]. Available through <
https://ebrary.net/21432/management/international_marketing_communication
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8 Marketing Tactics to Build Brand Awareness.2018.[online]. Available trough
<https://brand24.com/blog/8-marketing-tactics-to-build-brand-awareness/>
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