ISAAC ASABOR
It can be tempting in these days of online markets to believe that any brand with a website is automatically international.
In reality, building a brand beyond a national border is more complex than many realise.
The first question brands are always asked whenever there is the need for expansion to international market, according to Mr. Ken Aigbedion, a Public Relations expert, is“What are you looking to gain there?” He explained that before anything else, it iscritical that a clear strategy for building a brand beyond local market exists and that there is clear goals that quantify what the brand stands to gain, when, where and how.
He explained that the answers to these questions will help in deciding what should be prepared to be invested and over what period of time.
This is because too many brands are tempted to grow because they consider that to be a symbol of success, and added, “Perhaps it is, but if it costs you profitability and distracts owners and resources away from the local market, it can be a high price to pay for an ego-boost”.
As gathered by Daily Independent from Aigbedion, if the groundwork is done, and expansion still beckons, there are basic principles that would help in staying true as any given brand is taken to the world beyond the terrain of its conceptualisation or production.
The first principle is to know what you areselling, if you are looking to shift from a local market to an international presence, it is critical to evaluate how your brand will translate, literally and culturally.
Too often brands are simply looking to transpose what they have to somewhere else, particularly if they have been very successful in their country of origin.
In reality, a brand is often a spirit expressed in a product. So, in addition to all the obvious viability factors (like demand, level of competition, access, regulation, distribution and organic growth), it isimportant to know what changes, if any ofyou should make to your core line-up. Naming is a classic example of how a word or idea can have very different implications when used elsewhere.
In a similar vein, there must be a single philosophy tailored into a powerful story, this is because sometimes the story that you tell inside your local market is not the same as the one you can use beyond your borders. That is because people in other countries may see your country differently,even as the market itself may have different expectations of participants (for example, a luxury market at home may be a more price-sensitive market elsewhere), customers may exhibit quite different behaviors based on different habits or attitudes, or there may just be aspects of how you came to be that requires too much explanation to those not familiar with your original context.
Unarguably adding his voice to the foregoing view, Mr. Gabriel Ndimele, also a Public Relations practitioner, said, “My advice in such circumstances is to adjust your story to the local market. It comes back to the previous point about understanding what you are selling. In some markets, you may want to highlight some your brand’s Unique Selling Points (USP) more than others. It is a question I often ask brands when they are looking to reposition, where are you looking to go with this brand of yours, and what will people in other markets most want to hear in order to be convinced? Do not get me wrong. This is not about lying or having a different story. You absolutely need to have a consistent philosophy, it is more about emphasis. It isabout making sure that the narrative that underpins your brand has enough substance to enable you to highlight different things in different places”.
In fact, Ndimele added that there must be a progression plan as most brands landing on foreign shores will need to think about how they use their new presence and their historic legacy to the best advantage over time. Citing example from New Zealand, he said brands from New Zealand entering Europe or parts of America often lack the volumes to fulfill sizeable demand.
He added that it is expedient for a producer to pace himself so that he align his brand with his ability to fulfill the brand’s promise as it is critical.
He explained, “You might start out as a market outlier and look to become more mainstream over time and/or you might initially undercut the competition before looking to introduce more premium products and pricing over time”. For the sake of clarity in this context, “Market intelligence will denote some results as market outliers if they have characteristics that fall outside of the market norms. The most common reason a result is marked as an outlier is that it has sales that are either much higher or much lower than that of the average”.
He continued, “Chances are that if you are a smaller brand, you also need to use the fact that people don’t know you to your best advantage, portray yourselves as a secret in order to create intrigue, market yourselves in non-traditional places in order to reframe what you offer or present yourselves as a challenger determined to bring a new spirit to a staid sector.
He added, “The moment you take your local brand out of your own market and into another, the dynamics around your competitiveness change. Now the very things that enabled you to succeed against international brands in your home market are the very advantages that others have as you enter theirs”.
Against the backdrop of the foregoing, Daily Independent has gathered that research by BrandZ shows that as brands compete in more countries, they attract less and lessloyalty among shoppers. That is not a reason to automatically dismiss expansion but rather a reminder that as you do so, you need to plan to counter the home-field advantages that across understanding and meeting local needs and tastes; nostalgia; operational and logistical advantages for locals; strong community ties; and of course cultural identity. Therefore, factoring counter-measures to these advantages into each of the factors described above will help a producer or manufacturer find footing and successfully build his brand in new places.
Throwing insight to the issue in this context, Sridhar Seshadri, a Serial Entrepreneur, Technologist, and Startup Mentor, there are six most effective ways to introduce a new product to a foreign market.
According to Seshadri in one of his presentations, the six ways cut across knowing your target market, choosing your entry mode, adapting your product, developing your marketing mix, testing and refining the product and building relationship.
In a similar vein, brand experts in Nigeria have recommended six ways Nigerian businesses can stimulate their brands beyond Nigerian market.
The professional insights which werethrown at a recent Brand Finance Nigerian Forum specifically revolve aroundunderstanding the target market, developing a global brand identity, localisingbrand assets, ensuring brand consistency across languages, ensuring digital presence and multilingual SEO, as well as strategic partnerships and alliances.
The virtual event organised by Brand Finance, a London-based brand valuation consultancy, was themed “Developing Nigerian Brands Beyond Local Presence: Building a Global Brand amidst Economic Uncertainty”.
Omotola Elatuyi, Chair of the Brand Advisory Board of Meristem said, “It is important to understand how our country of operation affects the footprints of a brand and how foreign investors can invest in our local brands”.
“According to the country-of-origin effect (COE), a nation’s brand image is a subjective mental picture shared by a group of people about the country. Recognising the multi-faceted nature of the nation’s brand such as governance, investment, exports, tourism, culture, and people is very important.”
She added that consumers, tourists, immigrants, and investors tend to depend more on the country’s reputation than its actual attributes in making buying, traveling, and investment decisions.
According to her, “Nation branding is the process of building and managing a country’s identity and image distinctly to attract and satisfy the needs of internal and external stakeholders, visitors, and investors. Hence, many nations have understood the significance of country branding.”
Elatuyi enthused that Nigerians need to offer products with good quality and value to ensure that we have a winning strategy. “They must also have a unique landscape in Nigeria, credibility, and established partnerships within their location.”
Ifeanyi Okonkwo, deputy head of sector and manager at Nigerian IP portfolio of Jackson, Etti, and Edu said one of the most important tools for understanding and protecting a brand is called trademarks, saying that “Trademark is a mark that is used in relation to goods and services, to distinguish that mark from other competitors which can be a logo, wordmark, or signature. It is the legal vehicle upon which brands stand and it is very critical for brands.”
He explained that as a brand, one thing that must be considered is how to protect the trademarks by understanding the class of protection or registration depending on the sector of the brand, the strategy or business model of the brand, and the geographical location of the brand.
“Most banking sectors protect their brands based on the class they fall into and online research is done based on the class of technology protection they are in, either financial sectors of class 36 or 42,” he added.
He noted that the importance of the classification is that if one protects a brand based on a particular class and fails to protect it in other relevant classes, some other person can use the brand in another class or name it represents.
According to the latest ranking of the top 25 Nigerian brands, banking brands emerged as the most valuable, strongest, and fastest-growing brands in 2024 based on their evergreen branded trademarks and global impacts.
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