In early March 2022, Matthias Helbig, the head of sales and marketing for a small German cosmetics company, was wondering what actions he should take with respect to the marketing of his company's most successful product: a moisturizing cream including birch sap. In particular, the company planned to sell the birch cream in two new foreign markets, Switzerland and Croatia, and would need an appropriate marketing strategy. He knew from his previous professional experiences that a country's culture affects consumer behavior. Helbig's thoughts now wandered to what he knew about the cultures of Switzerland and Croatia, and how their respective cultures would affect the marketing of his company's best-selling product.

 

The company's bestselling product—the birch cream—became an unexpected hit three years ago after it was recommended in a popular 'model casting show' on German TV. The show "Germany's Supermodel" had traditionally recruited young women as candidates to be on the show and compete in the super-model contest. In recent years, the show had attempted to promote more diversity by including young women with different heights and sizes, with different cultural and racial backgrounds, and with disabilities. In 2019, the show took an additional step to promote diversity by casting older women as candidates; specifically, the show casted five super-model candidates that were older than 50.

 One of these older candidates was a 65year old, retired physical-education teacher who impressed the audience with her sportive and youthful appearance. She was asked on one particular episode what made her skin look so youthful, and she mentioned the company's birch-sap based cream. Indeed, birch sap has scientifically proven anti-aging properties that make this facial and body cream quite unique. Not only does the birch sap moisturize the skin, but it also smooths skin wrinkles, limits cellulite, heals small injuries, and calms skin irritations. The fact that the birch cream doesn't include alcohol or other preservatives - which might dry out the skin - further distinguishes the cream from other high-end moisturizing products.

 Orders for this cream skyrocketed after the show aired in March of 2019, and lead to substantial domestic growth for the company in 2019, 2020, and 2021. After this unprecedented domestic growth for the company, they now consider entering foreign markets beyond Germany. Since this will be their first foreign business experience, the company has decided to internationalize incrementally by entering two nearby countries: Switzerland and Croatia. They made this decision to introduce their birch cream product to the Swiss and the Croatian cosmetics market in early 2022. They plan to enter Switzerland first, as this would provide the company with sufficient time and experience to learn about what might - and might not - work for the sale of this product outside of Germany. Furthermore, Switzerland is culturally similar to Germany. However, they will still need to explore the appropriate marketing strategy, as their German experience involved some good fortune where no additional marketing for the birch cream was required. The Croatian market represents the second foreign market they wish to enter. Croatia was chosen due to an existing personal connection, as the brother of the German founder of the cosmetics company is married to the CEO of a popular chain of beauty stores in Croatia. The Croatian CEO has agreed to sell the birch cream in her chain of stores throughout Croatia.

 Marketing studies based on the German experience indicate that the main segment for purchases came from women between the ages of 35 and 45. Furthermore, these women were generally health conscious, and also highly valued the anti-aging and preservative-free properties of the birch cream. The birch cream was generally sold at a medium-price point of 12 USD for a two-ounce glass container of the product.

 Helbig studied the Hofstede-Insights website and the scores of Switzerland and Croatia for power distance, individualism, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance. He then asked himself: "What do the scores tell us about the Swiss and Croatian culture? How can we use these insights about the Swiss and Croatian cultures to effectively market the birch cream in these new markets?"

 Helbig gained the following insights about the Swiss and the Croatian cultures based on the scores in Hofstede's culture dimensions.

 Switzerland has a low power-distance (with a score of 34) and Croatia has a high power-distance (with a score of 73). Low power distance means that the Swiss culture is egalitarian. High power distance means that status and hierarchy are important in the Croatian culture. That is, Croatians generally attempt to emphasize their position in society.

 Switzerland has a high individualism (with a score of 68) and Croatia a low individualism (with a score of 33). High individualism means that Switzerland has an individualistic culture; people strive for independence and attempt to emphasize their uniqueness. Swiss people like to look unique and different from others. Low individualism means that Croatia has a collectivistic culture; people have strong ties to their extended families and depend on the opinions of friends and family when making decisions. In collectivism, age is also regarded as sign of wisdom. Older family members in Croatia, and the elderly in general, are respected for their life achievements.

 Switzerland has a high masculinity (with a score of 70) and Croatia has a low masculinity (with a score of 40). High masculinity means that Switzerland has a masculine culture; in a masculine, gender roles are pronounced, and Swiss men are generally unwilling to accept lower income to have the time to participate in childcare tasks. Low masculinity means that Croatia has a feminine culture; people care about work-life balance and gender differences are less pronounced.

 Switzerland and Croatia have both high uncertainty avoidance. Switzerland has an uncertainty-avoidance score of 58 and Croatia of 80. High uncertainty avoidance means that people in both cultures find ambiguity and uncertainty threatening, people in both cultures need lots of information about product properties to trust the product's quality, people in both cultures are health conscious and care about natural beauty products. Croatian uncertainty avoidance is much higher than the Swiss uncertainty avoidance; hence, these cultural preferences are more pronounced in Croatia than in Switzerland.

 The insights derived from the scores in the four Hofstede dimensions can be used to effectively market the birch cream. The scores can also be used to make inferences about the dominant cultural orientation, using Triandis' framework, in Swiss and Croatian cultures. That is, how these cultures can be mainly categorized as horizontal individualistic, vertical individualistic, horizontal collectivistic, or vertical collectivistic.

 

Questions

 Please select two of the insights described in the case (e.g., "Croatians need lots of information about product properties to trust the product's quality") and describe how these two insights could help effectively market the birch cream. Please link each insight to an idea for a marketing approach; for example, to an idea about effective marketing channels for the target audience, to an idea about the themes in persuasive advertising approaches, to an idea regarding the type of character used in advertisements and commercials. 

 Please characterize Swiss and Croatian cultures according to the inferred dominant cultural orientation according to Triandis' framework and describe how these characterizations could help effectively market the birch cream. Please link each cultural orientation to an idea for a marketing approach; for example, to an idea about effective marketing channels for the target audience, to an idea about the themes in persuasive advertising approaches, to an idea regarding the type of character used in advertisings and commercials