Standardisation vs Customisation

There is a bit of a dilemma when deciding whether or not to go with a standardisation approach when it comes to your companies marketing, or a customisation approach. This is because the two produce two different end products, which cater to specific peoples needs.

Standardisation is where a company uses the same marketing concept throughout all countries. This is because some international markets can be seen as similar, so it is an easy way to cut a cost for the business as they are able to cut down on the amount they use for marketing, which is a big benefit. Another benefit for standardisation is that the company is able to buy in bulk, and then distribute the packaging out to where it needs to go. This is also another way of cutting a cost, and also why standardisation is a great way to go. Another benefit of standardisation is that by having the one the world over, it allows the customer to know what standards they are to be expecting when purchasing the product. These are all great benefits which would help OCHO Chocolate in Chennai, as we are wanting to be seen as a brand which consumers can trust, as well as cutting costs on things where we can, to make up for our other expenses that other chocolate companies may not do such as paying a fair price for cacao beans. However, there are negatives to this which I feel as though would hurt our brand in the long run. The first is how direct it is. By having a standardised market strategy, it causes us to be not able to change our product, even though some markets may not like certain aspects of our product. This can cause a bit of disjoint between us and our consumer, because the people of India aren’t going to want exactly what a New Zealander wants, as these cultures have different principles. One example of this could be to do with colours, because in India there are different meanings for different colours, so by having colours which you would normally have on packaging in NZ, it could actually be offensive or mean something completely different in India to what we are trying to get across. This causes the brand to not be unique, which is what we are after.

Customisation is a strategy where a company believes that all countries and cultures are different, therefore the marketing in these different markets should be made specifically for that market. The huge benefit of this is that the consumer is getting exactly what they are after, because since the marketing has been customised specially for a certain market, it draws to them. This however does lead to more expenses to the company, as they would then have to be employing more people into figuring out what the culture is like in specific markets and also how it is best suited for them to go about marketing the product. However, the positives way out the negatives in our case with OCHO Chocolate. This is because our main market which we are in in New Zealand is so different on so many levels to that of Chennai in India, our product may not even get off the ground if we try and market our product to an Indian like we do to a New Zealander. We need to customise our approach, so that it can really attract to the people of Chennai.