According to research from Dentsu, understanding what represents a permanent shift in behaviour versus a temporary change is the top challenge facing marketers right now. Our latest research study sought to answer this question and separate the long-term trends from the short-term fads. In this blog post, we’ll summarize the key trends from the full report: Which behaviours will stick and which will subside in a world without restrictions?

The report identified 4 key behaviours that will stick in a world without restrictions, as well outlining areas that represent opportunity for innovation and those behaviours that are less likely to become lasting changes.

The 4 key behaviours from the report are:

Cooking from scratch
Creating special occasions at home with food and drink
Learning new skills online
Online shopping.

Read the summary below or download the full report to learn where behaviours across a range of categories placed. The report also explores how the key behaviours and areas of innovation explored in this blog post will develop in future, pinpointing trends for brands to capitalize on.

Our approach to understanding sticking power

The research was carried out with 3,400 consumers across 10 markets (US, UK, Singapore, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam). The approach combined consumer views about the future, with metrics to assess long-term sticking power, namely how well different activities deliver against a range of attributes that are important to consumers when adopting and sustaining new behaviours.

Key behaviours for the future

1) Cooking from scratch

In the food and drink space, the existing trend towards cooking from scratch has been further accelerated and should be considered a key behaviour for the future. When asked what activities they planned to continue doing as a result of doing them more during the pandemic, 85% of consumers said cooking from scratch.

2) Creating special occasions at home with food and drink

Interestingly, the research also found that creating special occasions at home with food is another behaviour that is set to last, suggesting an opportunity for indulgent supermarket dine-in deals and DIY restaurant meal kits well beyond the pandemic. These behaviours have clear implications for hospitality. 57% of consumers say that in a world without restrictions, they expect to be going out for drinks less than before the pandemic and we see a similar picture when it comes to eating out (53%).

3) Learning new skills online

Lockdowns saw consumers learning new skills online as a way to keep themselves entertained. Interestingly, this is key behaviour for the future, although this is a trend that has most potential in Asia. In APAC and South East Asia, online behaviours such as learning new skills digitally and gaming increased to a greater extent than in the US and the UK, despite living under restrictions for a shorter period of time.

Chart showing how the pandemic has impacted digital behaviours

4) Online shopping

Unsurprisingly, online shopping for products other than groceries is another key behaviour for the future. The impact of this on bricks and mortar stores will be significant, with over half of consumers (51%) telling us that in a world without restrictions, they expect to be physically browsing stores less frequently than before the pandemic. There are other challenges for retailers to navigate. With 22% of consumers across the 10 markets we surveyed having moved further away from work since the start of the pandemic (with the exception of Singapore) and 52% saying they intend to use public transport less than before COVID, companies will have to reconsider their retail footprint.

Statistics: Expected frequency of behaviour in the future (after the COVID-19 pandemic)

Opportunities for innovation

The research also revealed opportunities for innovation. These include better supporting consumers with:

Their mental health
Eating healthily
Online video streaming.

These are areas where there is a strong desire amongst consumers to continue the activity, but it doesn’t deliver as strongly against the key attributes that matter to consumers when adopting and sustaining new behaviours. As such, improvement with the existing products and services is needed to see sustained behavioural change, representing an opportunity for brands.

Free report

Which behaviours will stick and which will subside in a world without restrictions?

Download the full report to see where behaviours across a range of categories placed and to learn more about how key behaviours will develop in future.

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Short-term solutions for Covid-only

Activities such as domestic holidays and working from home are likely to be short-term solutions for Covid-only. In some cases, working from home was an enforced behavior and is not feasible in the long term. Only 62% of consumers say that they are likely to continue working from home in future. Whilst working from home is perceived to be time saving and convenient, some consumers don’t find it very rewarding or enjoyable, reflecting much of the current discourse in the media about workers being zoomed out and missing social interaction. As such, flexible, rather than fully remote working is likely to have a more lasting impact.

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Low potential for lasting behavioural change

There’s also low potential for lasting behavioral change in the areas of socializing online, drinking alcohol at home and ordering takeout, which consumers are less likely to want to continue versus other behaviours in the study, and don’t deliver as strongly against the key attributes for adopting and sustaining behaviours.

Download the full report

To read the full findings, download the full report.

Concept testing and test marketing are two very important concepts when it comes to developing new products for the market.

It’s common to confuse the two ideas – indeed there are indeed several significant similarities between the two. Both concept testing and test marketing play a similar role: ostensibly, to make sure a product is ready to launch and to iron out any issues that might have gone undetected during the design and planning phase.

However, concept testing and test marketing are different processes and are used for different reasons. In this article, we’ll take a look at each, exploring both their similarities and their differences. Let’s start with concept testing.

Concept testing

Concept testing is how we test a product idea before it enters the market. As the name suggests, it involves putting the concept in front of real customers and asking them to evaluate it in multiple areas. This helps us find out how real-life customers will react to the product.

Concept testing has a series of powerful benefits for marketers. It allows you to quickly notice and fix potential errors before the product launches for real, brings fresh insights to your project, and gives you data-driven feedback that you can use to get buy-in from other members of your organization.

There are a number of methods for doing concept testing, spanning quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Each has its own pros and cons and they have different applications.

(More information can be found in our comprehensive guide to concept testing).

Now we know the basics of concept testing, let’s take a look at test marketing and how it’s different.

Test Marketing

What is test marketing?

Test marketing plays a similar role to concept testing. Its goal, like concept testing, is to assess how well a product will perform in its market.

However, test marketing has a broader scope. Instead of focusing solely on the concept or product, test marketing aims to evaluate your entire marketing plan. It takes into account advertising, distribution, sales, and many other components of your overall strategy, but it does this without actually fully launching the product and taking on all the associated risks.

In product test marketing, you basically run a mini launch for your product in a selected market and see how it performs. It’s like a crash run of a product launch.

Neither the launch nor the test market is big enough that you would suffer greatly if the product were to fail. The goal is to trial run your entire strategy to get an idea of how it would fare on a bigger scale. This allows you to pinpoint any errors and make any changes in a relatively low-risk way.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of test marketing?

The pros of test marketing

You get real insights into how the product would perform in a natural marketing environment. There are many things you simply can’t predict or anticipate and the only way to highlight these issues is with a real test in a real-life environment.

You can gain an idea of how well the product will sell. This allows you to extrapolate predictions to the wider market, build more realistic budgets, gain buy-in from other members of the company, and make any changes needed.

It helps you determine the most suitable and effective channels for marketing. A small-scale test, as long as it isn’t too small, can give you a solid idea of the marketing channels your target customers respond best to, helping you allocate your resources and effort more wisely when the product launches for real.

It helps you identify the best distribution channels and build a data-driven distribution strategy for when the product launches.

Any weaknesses or flaws in your strategy will be exposed without any disastrous consequences. This way, you can make any changes and ensure your entire plan is on firmer footing when you launch for real. Failing during a test is far more preferable to failing on a grand scale.

You’ll see how customers react to your product, marketing, and other aspects of your brand in real-life scenarios. This gives you real data to work with as opposed to theoretical predictions and second-hand knowledge based on trends.

You’ll get a heads-up if your product is going to fail. Sometimes, despite best efforts, some products simply aren’t meant to be. If your product fails dramatically in your test (due to lack of interest, for example) it may be a sign to cut your losses and move on, avoiding a catastrophe.

The cons of test marketing

Although test marketing can be useful, there are also some major drawbacks. Anyone planning to carry out test marketing should make sure they are aware of these potential cons before they begin.

It’s expensive. Doing test marketing right involves a large-scale project which measures multiple factors across your business. This means that if you want reliable results from your test marketing, you need to be prepared to invest a lot of money.

It’s time-consuming. Again, test marketing is a big project with many different layers. It takes time to set up your test, and you’ll need to run it for a while before you get reliable results. This can delay your product launch, cause frustration among the members of your project team and cost money.

Test marketing can reveal your game plan to competitors. In a test-marketing project, you are revealing not just your product but also multiple crucial aspects of your marketing strategy in the real world. It’s very easy for competitors to view this and simply copy it with their own product before you even get close to launching.

The results can be misleading. With test marketing, there is a lot you need to get just right to yield useful results. If your sample size is too small and narrow, you’ll end up with a one-dimensional view of your market which doesn’t reflect reality. The channels you use to market your product and collect data might exclude certain demographics, too.

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Test marketing vs concept testing: which is best for me?

Test marketing and concept testing share many things in common, but they aren’t interchangeable. In this section, we’ll break down the similarities and differences between the two and help you work out which one is best for your situation.

The similarities

Both test marketing and concept testing are designed to learn about your product before doing a full launch.

Both can be effective ways to reduce the risk of failure, gain valuable insights about your product, and make necessary changes before a full launch.

Both require you to plan carefully in advance and make sure everything is set up right to get the most accurate and reliable results.

The differences

Despite their similarities, concept testing and test marketing are two very different processes. Let’s take a look at the things that separate them:

Concept testing is much easier to carry out. You can complete a solid concept test in a relatively short amount of time, and gain valuable insights from this.

Concept testing is more affordable. Concept tests can be done for a fraction of the cost of test marketing.

Test marketing involves launching a product in the market, even if it’s at a small-scale. As a result, it’s not suitable for early stage testing, where concept testing can play an important role.

Linked to this, concept testing can allow you to test ideas securely before launch. In contrast with test marketing your products are put into the market meaning that there is a risk of competitors getting hold of your ideas.
Test marketing is wider in scope as it takes a broader view of the entire marketing and sales process. It measures many different factors such as advertising effectiveness which can’t be evaluated in concept testing.

Which one should I use?

Whether you opt for concept testing or test marketing depends on your goals, the resources you have available, your product, where you are in the development process and your timeline, among other factors.

Concept testing is much easier and more cost effective to do than test marketing and can yield reliable results at speed. With concept testing, it’s not hard to get reliable feedback on your product and clear direction to inform actionable changes. This allows you to make meaningful improvements to your product and launch much more confidently.

Give yourself the best chance

Concept testing allows you to launch your product with the best possible chance of success. Instead of operating in the dark, guided only by guesswork and opinions, you can lean on real feedback from real customers.

At Kadence, we can help you with concept testing, ensuring your product goes to market with a strong chance of success. To find out how, request a proposal today or get in touch with your local Kadence team to discuss your options.

Market research is hugely valuable to any organisation. But understanding how consumers and decision-makers think and behave is rarely more important than when you’re trying to understand non-native markets. International business is big business – but it’s also a big investment. There are a host of issues to consider when you’re conducting international market research (for more, read our article on the topic). But getting the language right is perhaps the most obvious hurdle. So how is international market research affected by language differences?

Imagine you’re running a brand tracker to understand how your organisation is perceived across the world. You’ll need to localise the research in dozens of markets and yet still be able to draw broad, universal conclusions. For this, you’ll need to translate the survey into many different languages, whilst maintaining consistency of meaning and controlling for different emotive weights in the various dialects. Fail to do this, and the results you’ll get back could be misleading.

Why language matters

It’s not just language, of course. According to research from Columbia Business School, there are: “important cross-cultural differences in the processing, evaluation, and judgment of brand and product information. Much of this work suggests that cultural differences stem from pervasive socio-cultural … factors. For example, a good deal of research demonstrates that people have broad, culture-specific cognitive dispositions … which can guide consumer behaviour.”

But the same paper also stresses that language is a huge factor: “in recent work conducted in a consumer behaviour marketing context, we have found that structural aspects of a language can in fact critically affect one of the most basic aspects of consumer behaviour – categorisation of products. Grammar, phonology and semantics are fundamental building blocks to a linguistic system and should therefore have an impact on consumer behaviour.”

It’s not just what you say, then – but also how you say it, and to whom. All of which adds up to language, localisation, translation and interpretation as crucial building blocks of any international research project. Getting it wrong can be disastrous …

When language goes wrong

Many brands have learned the dangers of ignoring local idiom when they move into new markets. When Coca Cola first entered the Chinese market signs for ‘ko-ka-ko-la’ (the closest phonetic translation) were understood by locals as ‘bite the wax tadpole’ or ‘female horse fastened with wax’ depending on the tone.

This real life example highlights important language considerations, both in terms of asking the right questions and understanding the meaning of the answers when you’re working abroad.

Speaking their language

But hang on a second: isn’t all this slightly moot in the age of instant machine translation? Google Translate can handle dozens of languages, and even Microsoft Word now has a built-in translation function. While machine translation is improving in quality, it lacks subtlety, it struggles with idioms, and it misses the emotional salience that’s important to both qualitative and even quantitative research.

That’s even more important now that AI-type systems are being deployed to pull out topics, themes and even sentiments from research results. With systems like these, the meaning of local dialect or cultural implications could be missed. From a semiotic perspective, then, there are huge challenges with using AI for translation and analysis.

Another option could be to hire a language graduate to translate your surveys and responses. It’s true this is a step-up from the automated approach. But even if you can find a translator you trust, ensuring they understand the subtleties of local dialects and cultural nuances (see below) and the technical aspect of market research language is much harder. That’s where market research agencies like Kadence – with international offices across the globe and native speakers in house – come in handy. Having team members who instinctively understand the need to localise language and know how to do it is a major plus. After all, language and meaning evolve even over short time-spans so keeping up to date with trends and sayings is massively valuable. In Germany, for instance, 1200 new words and counting have come into being over the course of the pandemic.

The devil in the detail

The reason why all this is important is that just as culture varies widely between and within international markets, language has local subtleties. Even within English, there are layers of meaning that illustrate this point. Take the word ‘love’. He loves popping down to the shops with his mates on Saturday afternoon. She loves it when Leeds United score. They love their mum. She makes love to her sweetheart. They bask in God’s love. These are all very nuanced – and to a competent English speaker their varied meanings are obvious.

Then lots of countries have multiple languages – China, Malaysia, Belgium, Switzerland… there’s a very long list of places with minority language groups that a research project approached in the wrong way could marginalise. (Wikipedia has your back.)

Even when the language is clear, the nuances might not be. In Canada, for example, you need translators who know Quebecois, not just French. If you’re running field research in Mexico, you could stick to Spanish; or try to ensure the Spanish translation is appropriately localised for Mexican idioms; or even think about the indigenous languages that are still spoken by a minority of the population.

In the Philippines, Filipino and English are designated official languages. But Spanish is commonly spoken (a legacy of its own colonial role), as well as Tagalog, Minna and even Arabic.

That poses interesting questions about how your sample might be affected by language choice. Remember: you might only be interested in affluent consumers in a given market, say, and that means choosing the dominant language is no problem. But for a genuine look across a country – regionally and socially – a different approach might be needed.

Tone and culture – how these differences can affect international market research

Then tone has to be calibrated, too. Understanding why emotions are triggered in different cultures or regions is really important. In eastern Germany, for example, the long history of the Stasi secret police means that even though the country reunified 30 years ago, suspicion about intrusive questions lingers. That means a deftness in your translations will be important.

In France, questions about sexuality or religion are usually considered unacceptable unless you carefully rephrase the survey to yield the information you need. It’s true even in English: what’s the difference between ‘a hobby’, ‘a pastime’ and a ‘personal skill’? How might asking about those different categories affect the kind of responses you’d get?

Cultural salience is also a stumbling block. Someone in a focus group might quote a nursery rhyme to evoke a particular emotion or assumption. A native might pick up a lot of meaning; a foreign translator might understand the context; but a machine translation is just going to give a verbatim that lacks any appropriate meaning.

Practical considerations when it comes to language differences in international market research

When it comes to qualitative research, a lot of the nuance you need comes from non-verbal cues, and those are much harder to evaluate. Here, it’s not even a question of your translation services, you need ‘boots on the ground’.

From a quant perspective, there are practical considerations around research-specific translations. Some text will appear much longer when translated. For example:

ا هي المدة منذ زيارتك الأخيرة للطبيب؟
自您上次看医生以来有多长时间？
Wie lange ist Ihr letzter Arztbesuch her?
How long since your last visit to the doctor?
Berapa lama sejak kunjungan terakhir Anda ke dokter?
Gaano katagal mula noong huli mong pagbisita sa doktor?
¿Cuánto tiempo ha pasado desde su última visita al médico?
Combien de temps depuis votre dernière visite chez le médecin?
நீங்கள் கடைசியாக மருத்துவரிடம் சென்றதிலிருந்து எவ்வளவு காலம்?

That might mean the translation of survey questions has to be tweaked to be more practical or accessible to users depending on the format or technology being used in the field. It’s another reminder that having a single, integrated agency working on the project – handling the research design as well as the fieldwork and analysis – will bring many benefits.

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Beyond language – thinking about local context in international market research

We’re always mindful that when a global brand puts forward a research hypothesis, not only do we need to translate the language, but we need to be able to contextualise that hypothesis for individual markets. Equally, you also have to be able to take local outputs and fit them into a balanced global interpretation. A lot of that depends on the purpose of the research. Are we looking to assess uniform global products? Work out which markets to target? Tailor products or positioning for a local audience? That will shape how we make insights actionable for a brand.

This is where brands and their research agencies need deeper levels of understanding. Exposure to local culture, language, attitudes and even research norms makes a big difference to the value a project can deliver.

Ultimately, research projects need to be localised, not just translated. Miles in the US and UK; kilometres mostly everywhere else. That applies in a host of areas, not just weight and measures. Most people outside America are familiar with the frustrations of ‘US Letter’ being the default paper size in many software products! Ask a French sample how many pounds they would like to lose on their next diet, and you might get some confused responses.

Aiming for transcreation

With so many factors on top of the raw translation, many brands choose to ‘transcreate’ their research projects for new counties, not just translate them.

What is transcreation in translation?

Transcreation is “the process of adapting a message from one language to another, while maintaining its intent, style, tone, and context. A successfully transcreated message evokes the same emotions and carries the same implications in the target language as it does in the source language.” (Thanks again, Wikipedia.) This makes it the go-to approach for the many research projects that seek to reveal consumer attitudes or emotions to particular brands, products or categories.

In research terms it means identifying the purposes of the research – looking at the brief and how the insights will be used within the organisation – and asking how best those requirements can be met within different countries or regions.

Clearly many of the outputs may need to be standardised. But if the local research team understands the brief and the outputs, if they can parse the emotional intent of the research, they can recreate the desired level of investigation and effectiveness in another language. That might mean changing the actual content well beyond simply translating.

But it does also mean that the intent of the research project is translated, not just the words of a survey. Ultimately, marketers will get more value from their international research if they work with an agency that can deliver against the broad brief and desired outputs from a project using people with a deep understanding of different markets.

Looking for support with international market research?

At Kadence, we have offices in 10 countries across the world. We’re proud of the diversity within our offices too – with project teams spanning colleagues from Sweden to Taiwan. To understand how we can help you navigate the challenges of international marketing research, take a look at our international market research capabilities or get in touch to discuss a project.

A usage and attitude study (U&A) is a brilliant way to understand the market for a given product, brand or category. It gives you a snapshot of how things stand, particularly for brands that people are aware of and use. But it’s also a technique that can help you understand what brands they might consider using – revealing important information about the competitive landscape.

Usage and attitude study objectives

We see that brands looking to embark on a U&A study tend to want to achieve one of the following objectives:

1) To inform what to do next

A usage and attitude study is often commissioned by a marketing team that wants to get some real clarity around the position of their brands in order to build a firm foundation for what they’re going to do next. It’s hard to feel confident about big decisions – such as promotions, product changes, advertising or even brand extensions – when you don’t have an up-to-date view of awareness, usage patterns or perceptions of the brand against competitors. Any of these factors could be pivotal in key marketing decisions.

2) To challenge assumptions

We also often see new management teams or marketing leads coming into a group or a brand management role who are keen to test the temperature around usage and attitudes before weighing up their own strategies. It’s extremely useful for senior decision-makers to have fresh data from a usage and attitude study to challenge long-held assumptions within their team.

3) To create benchmarks

A third use-case is running a usage and attitude study as the first phase of a wider project that might include additional waves of research. Here, we’re creating a clear benchmark for the follow-on work. This is often the case with new product development, for example, or a planned expansion into a new or international market. The U&A study can provide valuable background and context for everything that follows.

4) To understand how changes impact your organisation

One other interesting usage and attitude study objective is to measure the impact of events or major changes – not just after a marketing campaign or change to a product, but in the wake of shifts in the environment. Clearly the Covid-19 pandemic is a perfect example. The dislocation to consumption patterns may have lasting effects for particular brands and products, so a fresh usage and attitude study is a valuable tool for resetting baseline assumptions. But we might also be talking about the entry of a new player into the market, or a shift in infrastructure (such as 5G network roll-out or other innovative tech).

This gives us a useful list of applications:

Create a snapshot of consumer attitudes to your brand ahead of key decisions.
Assess the current and potential size of the market.
Place your brand in a competitive context.
Challenge assumptions about your brand and products.
Set a benchmark and context for deeper research.
Measure the impact on brand or product of major change.
Test opportunities for brand extension such as new products or markets based on consumer behaviour.
Spot gaps in the market allied to target consumer attitudes.
Develop a deeper appreciation for consumer engagement.

There are other applications – but at its heart a U&A study is designed to give you a firm foundation for almost any decision around a brand or a product.

Kicking off a usage and attitude study

For us as a market research agency, the first phase of a U&A project is something we call ‘immersion’. We spend time looking at what the client already knows about their customers and markets, exploring any data they have so we can either benchmark the study we’re going to conduct, or identify gaps in their understanding of usage and awareness ahead of the new study.

Immersion can sometimes highlight areas where previous research conducted by the organisation has missed crucial aspects of brand awareness; or where they can’t explain sales patterns showing strengths or weaknesses in key areas. The more detailed the immersion process, the better: it will help shape and focus the brief for the research to come.

Of course, sometimes a huge data dump isn’t available, or it’s a little out of date. That doesn’t mean a fresh U&A project will be less valuable. Far from it: while it’s true a decent picture of the situation can inform how we run a U&A study, starting fresh can be even more valuable, setting a new, up-to-date baseline for the marketing team and creating a foundation for future research projects and performance evaluation.

The phases of usage and attitude research

Just as a usage and attitude study can often set a baseline for further research or marketing decisions, the starting point for a U&A study is also creating a baseline – asking respondents for the products and brands that come to mind in a given category, entirely unprompted.

Clearly U&A research is designed to explore how consumers feel about, or use, specific brands too. So the next stage is to test their awareness of those brands. That ‘prompted recall’ phase might also include information about what brands in the category the respondents have used – or even have considered using. It creates a more colourful picture of usage and attitude patterns in the category.

At this point, you can dive into more detail: which brands are perceived as ‘premium’? Which brands excel in certain areas, and which perhaps aren’t so highly regarded? The aim in this phase is to get an idea of the relative strength of the competition. And it’s here your own brand’s place in the larger landscape probably comes into focus.

You can also ask in more abstract terms about product categories or even specific SKUs to get a more granular picture – which can be very useful as context for insights centred on your own brand.

So the sequence for exploring usage and attitude is pretty straightforward, and actually maps nicely onto traditional conversion models, such as the classic sales funnel:

Unprompted recall of brands or products in the category.
Level of awareness when prompted.
Level of consideration of the brand or product.
Levels of agreement with various statements about the brand.
Usage of the brand or product.
Repeat usage or promotion of the brand.

In most cases, it’s also useful to build out the same funnel – levels of awareness, consideration, usage and advocacy – for competitor brands too. Understanding how they compare – not least in terms of demographics – with the brands in question can be among the most valuable insights for your marketing team.

And for many clients, usage and attitude research can be an essential tracker study, measuring the change in usage and awareness at regular intervals. This is especially useful when you’re conducted major projects such as new product launches or marketing and advertising efforts. Usage and attitude research is a superb way to measure their effectiveness.

Methodology: “measure twice, cut once”

While the questionnaires for usage and attitude research might seem formulaic, there is a good deal of market research expertise that goes into optimising the value of the resulting insights.

A great example is the importance of sampling. In any survey, the sample should be genuinely representative of the population you’re interested in. You need to avoid skewing the demographics towards a younger, more brand-conscious audience, for example, if you’re going to secure a valid perspective of attitudes across your market.

But for very specific categories, sample selection is even more important. We worked recently on a usage and attitude study for a well-known manufacturer of farm machinery. Taking a general sample here is a little pointless. But even if you’re selecting for a particular group – in this case, farmers – you still need to carefully calibrate the sample. We looked at their primary crop types, the size of farms, regional representation and much more – so that the sample was as representative within that group as possible.

The old carpenter’s adage “measure twice, cut once” is the rule here. Getting the sample right (and using proven methodologies more generally) will secure much more compelling and reliable insights later on.

Online methodologies were already an option for usage and attitude studies prior to Covid-19 lockdowns, and obviously they have been critical during 2020 and 2021 when access to people face-to-face has been limited. They’re very efficient, too, but for usage and attitude studies it’s often sensible to augment with CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing) – not least in situations where a highly targeted and representative sample is needed. That’s particularly true, for example, in business-to-business environments.

Remember that research projects can be modular. We worked with one company that wanted to understand where they sat in the range cooker market – and how they stacked up against their rivals. We built a sample of people who already own that kind of cooker – then weaved a net promoter score (NPS) question set into a wider usage and attitude study. It was a good example of how a U&A study can dovetail with other research methodologies and objectives.

One other methodological point: by definition, some of the U&A questions will ask consumers or business decision-makers to be highly subjective and even emotive. That places additional emphasis on qualifying questions and careful analysis of the results.

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Top tips for usage and attitudes studies

Know exactly what you want to learn from the research – it could be general background or highly specific, in-depth usage patterns.
Know what you can change as a result of the research – as well as realistic idea of how the research my shape decision-makers’ thinking. This will help prevent the research becoming unwieldy or over-generalised.
Unambiguous questions are valuable – people should have the same reference point for the survey. A usage and attitudes study should be conclusive, not a topic for never-ending debate about what people meant.
Find a neutral starting point – a baseline – for people’s assumptions and ratings. This will help frame a solid interpretation of the results.
Thinking carefully about the competitor brands you need to understand – it can be risky to ignore smaller brands or niche products.
Think about results presentation – visualising the results (showing brand strengths in different parts of the conversion funnel, say) or making under- and over-indexing against rival brands very clear.

Looking for support with usage and attitude research?

At Kadence, we have conducted usage and attitudes surveys for a host of brands. Take a look at our capabilities in this space or get in touch to discuss a project.

Concept testing is a crucial stage when developing new products. Before you launch a new product in the market, you must understand how your customers will respond and how the product will perform.

Concept testing helps you avoid costly errors and nasty surprises; it is much better to understand your market and make a more confident and successful product launch. In this article, we’ll show you how concept testing works and how to do it. Let’s start with a more in-depth definition.

What is concept testing?

A concept is a precursor to every great product. It’s a detailed outline of what you’re going to produce, who it’s for, the problems it will solve, how it will work, how much it will cost, and much more.

To ensure your concept is ready to go to market, it’s essential to test it properly with real customers. This process is called concept testing, and in the rest of this article, we’ll talk about why this is so important and how to do it methodically.

The benefits of concept testing

Concept testing is the process of testing your concept before launch, so you can confidently put it into the market with a pretty good understanding of how your customers will feel and how they will respond.

There are several different methods spanning both qualitative and quantitative approaches (which we’ll dive into shortly). Still, they all involve presenting concepts to consumers and getting feedback about different attributes.

(Check out our detailed guide to concept testing for more information.)

There are multiple reasons to do concept testing, such as:

You get real feedback from users. Designers and product teams are often too close to the product to make clear-headed decisions, and they might overlook some crucial things. Concept testing allows you to access honest feedback from your target customers, which you can’t replicate with your internal team.
It helps you notice flaws. No concept has ever been perfect. Testing your product with real users enables you to detect problems that flew under the radar in the design phase, giving you many new pairs of eyes.
It allows you to refine your concept. Before testing, your product is a rough prototype with all the major pieces in place, but it probably needs some extra work. By shedding light on what consumers think, testing gives you some direction for refining and improving your product so that it’s more likely to gain traction when it hits the shelves.

The importance of concept testing

The above benefits are essential for many reasons. Here are some of the reasons why you should consider concept testing in new product development:

It’s easier to get backing for your product. Testing gives concrete data about how customers feel about your brand’s products. You can then use this data to make a compelling case to others in the organization about why you are making certain decisions. With this data, it’s no longer a matter of personal opinion, and it will be much easier to convince others.
It helps you find out what your customers like the most about the product. Concept testing is beneficial not just for that specific product and how to market it but also allows you to make better decisions in the future by focusing on the things that people like most and targeting popular pain points with different products.
Testing can help you segment your customer base. Who should you target with your product? If specific demographics love the product and others are less enthusiastic, this is extremely helpful when focusing your marketing and distribution efforts.
It helps you estimate how many sales you’ll make and the ROI you’ll generate with the product when it goes to market. This is helpful when setting budgets, making plans, and getting financial backing from others in your company.
It allows you to identify a reasonable price point. It’s common to ask users how much they would expect to pay for a product during testing. This helps inform your decisions about how much to price your product.

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How to test concepts: the qualitative and quantitative methodologies

Concepts can be tested quantitatively or qualitatively. Qualitative methods for concept testing include focus groups, online communities, and in-depth interviews that allow you to uncover rich qualitative feedback from current or prospective customers relating to your planned product. Ethnography or self-ethnography are other alternatives, particularly if the concept you’re testing is worked up and in prototype form that consumers can interact with at home.

The primary quantitative method used for testing concepts is an online quantitative survey, an approach that allows you to test at scale.

Different approaches for testing concepts

There are four main approaches for concept testing a new product, each with its pros and cons. It’s best to consider your specific situation and then pick one which works best for concept testing your product.

Monadic testing

Monadic testing is where the audience is divided into groups, and each group is given one concept in isolation and asked to evaluate it via a series of questions.

For example, they might be asked to rate the design, evaluate the price, or give feedback on the packaging.

The pros of monadic testing are:

There is less room for order bias since the concepts are shown and evaluated in isolation.
It’s easier for users — they only have one product to focus on, and all the questions apply to that product.
It encourages more profound feedback as users dive deeply into one concept instead of skimming over several different ones.

On the other hand, the main drawback to monadic testing is that it requires a larger sample size to get enough reliable data. It can be costly to gather all the necessary participants and challenging to find enough people to assess niche concepts.

Sequential monadic testing

In sequential monadic testing, multiple concepts are evaluated one after the other. Each participant sees two or more concepts presented in random order. Participants answer questions about each one in turn.

The main benefit is that fewer people are needed, so this results in the following:

Being cheaper to gather enough people and set up the testing
Taking less time to collect a sufficient amount of data
It also works well with niche markets where there might not be many potential customers

The main downside is that it takes longer to carry out each test since participants evaluate multiple concepts instead of just one.

Comparative

In comparative testing, concepts are shown next to each other, and participants evaluate all of them at the same time. It’s an effective way to find out how one concept compares directly against another in the eyes of your customers.

The main advantage of comparative testing is that it’s suitable for measuring small differences and drilling down into the specific advantages and drawbacks of each product. The main downside is that its comparative nature means it’s not very effective when both products are flawed.

Comparative testing is often used as a follow-up for monadic testing to gain deeper insights into a specific product.

Proto monadic

Proto monadic concept testing is a blend of monadic and comparative testing. Customers evaluate a product via monadic testing and then are shown the same product compared to another.

It’s done to confirm the initial monadic results to gain a more sturdy overall conclusion about a product’s strengths and weaknesses.

What to measure

Once you have settled on a testing method, it’s time to consider what you want to measure. There’s a long list of possible factors to analyze with concept testing, and these might vary based on your chosen method.

Here are some common examples of things to measure:

Overall reaction to the product – this measures how customers feel about the product overall and can be measured with a Likert scale (a series of options from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”).
Reaction to different elements of the product – you can also use the Likert scale to rate specific aspects of the product, for example, the packaging, ease of use, battery life, and more.
Need for the product compared to the current market – how much demand does your participant think there is for the product? Is there an urgent need for it, or is the market already saturated with similar products?
Comparison with other products on the market – how does your product compare with what’s already out there in the market? Is it a significant improvement on what exists, worse, or just more of the same?
Likes and dislikes – what are the individual things people like and dislike about the product?
Purchase likelihood – this is where you ask your respondents to rate their likelihood of buying your product. You can use a Likert scale for this (“very unlikely” to “very likely”).
Pricing analysis – how much would your participants be willing to pay for the product?
Likelihood of use – how much of a need does your participant have for the product, and what kind of role would it play in their lives?

(Check out this article for examples of how to test new product concepts.)

Testing your concepts is crucial if you want to release the best products to your target market, market them effectively, delight your customers, and see your revenue soar.

How can we help?

It’s crucial to do concept testing properly, so your new products have the best chance of success when they eventually hit the market. To find out how Kadence can help you deliver this, request a proposal or contact the Kadence team here.

Conducting market research on an international scale is an increasingly common requirement. Global markets are more critical than ever, offering growth to businesses facing domestic stagnation or saturation. But international market research can be a challenge to get right. This article explores the top 5 challenges in international marketing research and our top tips for overcoming these.

What are the top challenges in international marketing research?

#1 International markets are incredibly diverse.

Some brands fail to appreciate the diversity within a region or country. You can only get an accurate picture of what people value and whether your products and services might succeed by rooting out the nuances of different geographical areas, cultures, and consumers.

#2 There can be a temptation to go too broad.

Linked to this, sometimes, when companies set out on international marketing research projects, they make the mistake of going too broad and trying to understand a region as a whole. Another error we see is firms commissioning research to target one market and then using this as a jumping-off point into others with “similar” attributes. This inevitably leads to costly mistakes as brands map their assumptions about one market onto another.

To avoid this, be clear on the emphasis of your research. Where are you looking to focus and why? Looking too broadly across a region of different markets, or exploring how an entire product range might perform, can cloud the picture.

# 3 Finding the right research partner.

The next big question is whether you have the research capabilities to conduct meaningful projects internationally. Most brands and their research partners can run domestic research projects with ease. But if you’re in the US or UK, say, going as far afield as Japan, India, or Germany requires different sensibilities and capabilities. The more international you get, the harder you must look for that kind of experience and expertise.

#4 Bringing together local and global expertise.

Misalignment is one of the biggest challenges in international market research. To overcome this, there must be a collaborative effort and a shared understanding of the mission, methodology, and insights. A research team at HQ might work with a local marketing team to understand how to position a product for success in an emerging market. But if the teams are siloed and don’t have a consistent understanding of the brief, their approach to researching the market and their findings might not help deliver on the challenge.

#5 Ensuring the project is realistic from the outset.

This is where all the other challenges in international market research come together: which markets, what purpose, the capabilities available, and the effectiveness of the output – all within a budget that makes sense. There will always be limits to what’s practical – and the last thing any client needs is to spend large sums testing international markets to no effect.

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Meeting the challenges in international marketing research – tips and tricks from our experience in the field.

Get the brief and the scope right.

The more you can nail down exactly what you need to know and about which markets, the better your international market research will be. The key here is to dismiss the idea that lessons from one market can be overlaid onto other markets. Your approach might not even work in the same region, much less globally. So ensuring the brief isn’t burdened with too many assumptions, and is very clear on objectives, is key.

For research into one new international market, the brief can be clear-cut. You’ve picked a new place to trade, and you probably have some specific questions. Will the branding work? Do we need to alter the packaging? Are there particular features we need to tweak? But as soon as you broaden the scope – to, say, three new markets covering a region – the nuances become more critical in the research brief.

One solution is to ask questions at every stage. Why these three markets? What are they like? What do we need to know about purchaser sentiment there? How will a research project change what we decide to do in each market? Companies that are open with their agencies on operational and marketing strategies – rather than prescribing research about the areas they know matter in their existing markets – will see more effective results.

Understand the cultural nuances you’ll face

Everyone knows instinctively that cultural differences are both a factor in conducting meaningful research internationally – and a major reason for doing that research in the first place. ‘Market immersion’ is a key concept, and that’s all about getting to grips with the cultural context. But local nuances within new markets can catch people out.

In South Africa, for example, there are multiple cultural groups. Having local knowledge of how to tease those out is vital to breaking in South Africa.

That means one of our jobs as global research partners is challenging clients at the briefing stage to ensure these considerations are baked into the research approach and the analysis and interpretation of the results. The good news is that when you have research experts living and working in these markets as we do, cultural nuances are easier to plan around. We use this inside knowledge about people’s lives to help understand opinions, habits, and behaviors.

Don’t think language is just about translation.

Companies are often wise to the importance of understanding ‘culture’ and, as a result, adopt a cautious approach. But one mistake people make in international market research is to assume that ‘language’ is more straightforward – or that it’s just a question of running a survey or its results through Google Translate. But that’s never a good idea. It requires a much more nuanced approach.

Language isn’t just what we say but how we say it. And local variations within international markets – think Swiss German or Quebecois French, but the list is endless – further complicate the issue.

You’ll need the nuance: go regional.

Understanding local culture and language are essential in its own right. They’re also the gateway to getting out of the big cities and understanding the whole market. Tokyo is a true megacity – but it doesn’t reflect all of Japan. Paris is iconic – but its citizens have very different values to those in Marseilles, let alone rural France.

Here’s where you need to understand geography and supply chains. If you’re moving into a new international market in a limited way – or if the distribution is going to be impractical outside conurbations, say – then researching inside big city bubbles might work just fine. But for national penetration and in markets where businesses or consumers are more evenly distributed, understanding attitudes and behaviors across the country is a must.

For brands with an existing presence, existing assets on the ground are a hugely valuable resource for understanding these nuances. That could be local-office marketers or salespeople. Distributors and major customers can also offer insights. We love to work with chief marketing officers (CMOs) who have a helicopter view of a region and are clear about strategic objectives. But triangulating between them, their local marketing teams, and our local research teams in the field tends to generate better results.

Decide on the most effective methodology.

Another significant benefit of having local teams in place like ours is that they have expertise in the best methodologies to use in different markets. This is sometimes a subset of culture, but in other markets, it’s driven by the levels of technology adoption, geography, or working practices. Some examples:

In Indonesia, face-to-face research is considered the norm; telephone in-depth interviews tend to deliver a poor hit rate.
In Japan, groups respond better to moderators of the same gender, and people are more likely to undertake qual work at the weekends.
It’s not acceptable for researchers to interview women in the home one-on-one in Saudi Arabia. And across the Middle East – and many other regions – mixed-sex focus groups tend to be a no-no.

You can read about others in our guide to conducting online market research in Asia.

This is also why more open briefing processes can be valuable in international research. It’s too easy to apply a blanket methodology across a whole region and end up struggling to execute the research. Better to frame the key questions the organization needs to answer and tailor the research study to each key market.

Calibrate your responses.

Cultural and language shape the way you ask questions, and they’re huge factors in interpreting any research results, too. A keyword search on a crude translation of responses could mean missing crucial insights – or, worse, coming to incorrect conclusions.

And don’t think this only applies to qualitative, descriptive research where local idiom, slang, or cultural references might catch you out. International quantitative research also has to be calibrated by analysts with an appreciation for local nuance.

Respondents in some markets are more likely to agree with statements than others. For instance, you’re more likely to see people agree with statements in India than in Japan. Even the way you phrase questions – not just translate them, but the nuance in the question itself – will affect the consistency in scores you can achieve between different cultures.

That’s particularly important for big global brands with a very set idea about how they do their brand equity or NPS studies. The alternative is to develop a more organic approach so that the questions allow you to reflect local nuance. It might be as simple as using a four-point rather than a five-point scale in markets where respondents are most likely to sit on the fence.

Use market research as a tactical, not just strategic, lever.

It can be tempting to seek broad answers from international market research: “Will this product work in this market?” Or: “How should we tweak the service offering to meet this country’s needs?” These will help brands decide on strategic issues. But the more nuanced the approach, the more likely it is that the research will feed into local tactics for a brand, making its international investments work even harder.

That’s a common theme in research: properly granular insights ought to help with several decisions. It’s not just a ‘go/no-go’ binary, but research should inform everything from pricing to choice of distribution channel, support for local sales operations, to targeted advertising.

A new era for international research

We’ve moved on from an earlier era when global brands assumed continent-scale uniformity. Even if a business sees an opportunity in ‘Latin America,’ has an ‘Asian strategy’ or issues financial reports for ‘EMEA,’ serious decision-makers know they need to go, at the very least, to the country level for insights that will help their plans succeed. And they understand that it can be counter-productive to seek out ‘apples to apples’ comparisons between markets when a little nuance can go a long way.

More recently, one factor that’s complicated the picture is the global Covid-19 pandemic. Because so much commercial activity is managed remotely, there’s a temptation to run multi-market studies with a uniform online methodology. If everyone in the world is attending focus groups via the same videoconferencing app, what’s the difference?

The risk here is that the vast advantages of technological solutions are watered down in the hunt for low-cost, ‘big picture’ regional results. Online research can be conducted quickly and flexibly. And clients can immerse themselves in research projects more easily, gaining their own insights into consumer reactions on the other side of the world.

But research that is tailored, for example, to local respondents’ cultural norms will yield much better results. You can quickly adapt a methodology to a market when you have local research expertise and a clear idea of the brand’s mission. For instance, recognizing that in India, you’ll need to avoid any methodologies that rely on lengthy video inputs, and instead, combining text, image-based and short video tasks will get you the insights you need.

The most successful companies understand that an international project is more complex than handing a research agency a questionnaire and generating uniform results across every territory.

You know your product or service better than anyone. We know the right questions and methodologies to get you where you need to go. Our local teams understand the cultural norms, and good translations – culturally and linguistically – can bring it all together. Find out about the regions where we can conduct international market research or get in touch to speak to us about an international project

Have you heard the story about Steve Jobs dismissing consumer market research as a tool to shape new products? The driving force behind the Mac, the iPod and the iPhone famously said in a 1985 Playboy interview, “We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research.”

It is, of course, one of the most widely debunked stories in business. Apple does conduct consumer market research – and is, arguably, in its pre-eminent position precisely because it innovates using insights generated by analysing in incredible detail its consumers’ behaviours and the market appetite for its products. (There’s video of a young Jobs extolling the virtues of market research for these purposes – it’s 90 seconds well spent.)

The fact is, most new products are very similar to things people have seen before. For every genre-busting innovation there are tens of thousands of new iterations of existing ideas, tweaks to brands and updates to proven sellers. In most cases, some kind of market research will have shaped the new iteration and how it was conceptualised; helped stand up the business case for it; framed the marketing; and guided its introduction to consumers. So how does market research help businesses design and launch successful new products?

Using market research for product development at each stage of the innovation funnel

There are lots of different ways to describe the innovation process, broadly broken down into three phases: ideas, concepts and creation. It’s not a science with a standard formula, however, but there are some common steps. For example, some experts recommend breaking the process into 5Cs:

Capture intelligence about market gaps and organisational potential.
Connect opportunities to capabilities.
Convert ideas and available resources into concepts for products.
Confirm these products are viable in the market.
Conclude by executing a market entry plan for them.

Another way of thinking about it is a series of questions that need to be asked at each stage of the product development process. Market research can help answer them all.

1: What’s the opportunity?

Desk research, analysis of existing customer data and some qualitative investigation can help frame likely areas for innovation. In many cases, an organisation will face an internal problem – overcapacity, falling margins, consumer appetites shifting away from existing products – that also frame the need for new products. The output here is an extrapolation of big trends to identify emerging needs, changing behaviours and whitespace for innovation.

2: What ideas might thrive there?

In some organisations, internal R&D will have a ready supply of potential innovations that might be applied to the opportunity. More likely, R&D and marketing teams will benefit from a brief developed from the ‘opportunity’ phase to direct R&D in more concrete areas. This process might include brainstorming inside the organisation or more formal ideation sessions with an external research agency. At this point surveys can be harnessed to give more shape to the ideation process. In the search for an iterative new product (rather than a genuine technological innovation) there might be 30 broad ideas that can be tested in quantitative surveys to thin down the field.

3: What concepts deliver on those ideas?

In the next stage, focus groups and market analysis can clarify which concepts ought to progress further by exploring the strengths and weaknesses of each idea. This is also where the innovation and R&D efforts of the business are properly moulded around consumer and market insights – and some iteration takes place to align the two. Note that research here isn’t just among consumers in the core market. Channel partners, consumers and suppliers in adjacent industries are all valuable sources of insight and inspiration. For example, when Kadence worked with an airline to develop new first and business class seats, we looked to bedding experts, audiophiles and high-end restaurant maîtres d’hôtel to shape the concepts.

4: How might those concepts perform in the market?

By this point, an organisation should have narrowed its ideas down to a small number of solid concepts. At this stage, a large-scale quantitative survey can be used to identify the concept with most potential to take forward, as well as the size of the potential customer base.

5: What’s the investment case for launch?

The insights gained from market and concept testing will allow numbers to be attached to the product at this point. What might revenues be? What’s the cost to produce the product or service? With research around pricing, what’s the margin likely to be? Does this justify retooling a factory or investment in marketing? This is the “go/no go” point for a new product.

6: What should the final product look like?

Using the research on market potential and consumer attitudes to the new idea, a business can shape decisions on final feature set, ancillary products or services (again, both quant and qual market research will illustrate the need or potential for these), packaging, marketing and pricing.

7: How do we get it out to market?

Research can also highlight optimum product launch strategies, including distribution, adverting and partnerships to make the most of both existing markets and potential follow-ons – whether that’s mass-market adoption for a product designed initially for a niche or early adopters; new demographic segments; or launch into different international markets.

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The known unknowns for new products

There are broadly two types of business keen to answer these questions. First there’s the radical innovators, the people who come up with brand new ideas and product concepts and want to understand whether they stand a chance in the market. This group are interested in ‘unknown unknowns’, the broader trends in consumer behaviour that might hint at acceptance of a brand new idea. We’ll come on to these Steve Jobs types later.

The second, much larger, group understands the innovation funnel in more detail and seeks data to optimise a pipeline of new products. They are interested in ‘known unknowns’ and using the answers to justify, shape and execute a launch.

For this group, the challenge is modelling the potential performance of a new product against a number of variables already visible in the market. These organisations often have a sophisticated process in place to test new ideas and are keen to benchmark any new product in order to validate investment. They will have an algorithm for product development. The more variables they can pin down using market research, the higher the confidence in making those investments.

‘Benchmarking’ in this case might be looking at the performance of products within the target market; or evaluating consumer attitudes to particular features or benefits. This makes it a largely quantitative methodology.

This kind of quantitative approach is often applied with good reason. Standardised questionnaires and clear, consistent methodologies can help ensure that the market research process is more reliable and easier to interpret. And for many larger organisations with a wide portfolio of potential innovations, a fixed investment budget and the need for reliable returns, this rigour can be highly valuable.

But beyond simply looking at the “go / no go” result, it’s important to dig into the reasons why products didn’t pass this hurdle. This can provide valuable insights to inform future development.

Competitor analysis can also reveal opportunities for developing successful product iterations. Research might include:

Rivals’ marketing strategies – what’s their targeting and messaging; what are they missing?
Customer satisfaction with competitor products– where are there discontents that might be satisfied by your product?
Other gaps in the market – such as different price points or localised versions for international consumers.
Other competitor strengths and weaknesses – consider brand halo effects or financial status.
Early-adopter behaviours – in similar markets or using new technologies that might be adapted to your own target markets.

A word of warning – New Coke and the importance of taking the right approach to market research for new product development

But it’s not always done right. There’s no shortage of case studies of new product launches that didn’t go well. And often that’s not because an organisation didn’t do any market research. It’s because they didn’t use it deftly enough.

New Coke is a great example. Coca Cola is an innovative business and wields one of the greatest brands in history. In the 1980s, management decided to rebuild its dominant position with a new formula. Clearly this was a huge decision, and as a market research powerhouse, it took no risks. It spent $4m on development and conducted over 200,000 taste tests across the US to research how consumers would score the new flavour against rival Pepsi. And based on those tests, New Coke was going to be a hit.

But management made a series of errors. In a classic case of confirmation bias, they tended to put more weight behind positive views expressed in focus groups, ignoring those who warned a change would turn them off the brand. They discounted emotional feedback on their brand. And they over-focused on differentiation with Pepsi, which had long marketed itself as the sweeter product.

One big mistake was conducting sip tests instead of researching how consumers would feel drinking a whole can of the sweeter formulation. But narrowing down their research focus – ignoring the context for consumption – they ended up launching a product that turned consumers off the brand altogether.

The error, then, was not failure to conduct market research. It was failure to treat research objectively and apply appropriate methodologies. Management sought justification for their decision – not confidence that it was the right one.

The impact of market research on new product development – giving you the confidence to guide a product launch

The key word here is ‘confidence’. Even iterating an existing product entails risks. Using market research for product development helps reveal and manage that risk – and allows decision-makers to test rigorously against hypotheses for new products, rather than head off down potentially blind alleys.

Note that qualitative research plays a crucial role in helping product developers fine-tune their approach and create innovations more suited to particular audiences. And as the New Coke example shows, qual research can capture the emotional components of product change much better than quantitative analysis might. Every new product launch is a balance between gains and losses for the consumer and understanding that balance is vital.

When it comes to qualitative research, organisations shouldn’t just ask themselves whether to conduct it, but how to conduct it. Whilst central location testing for instance, allows you to ensure the product is experienced in a consistent way during the testing process pandemic lockdowns have obviously accelerated this shift towards at-home testing. New technologies are helping. Augmented reality (AR), for example, is an ideal way to help consumers visualise new products even at the concept stage. Using their mobile phones, they can ‘see’ products in their own home or a work setting, providing valuable depth to qualitative studies at even earlier stages. This is something we’ve piloted with Asahi to test their London Pride packaging and are seeing a number of benefits, such as respondents using AR organically noticing and commenting on small visual details that aren’t picked up by other respondents assessing a 2D concept.

Using market research to guide blue-sky thinking

So we can test against quantitative benchmarks to validate new product development. And we have qualitative studies to test emotional reaction to new products and shape their evolution in ways that will make them more successful. There’s also a third way of using market research for product development: coming up with new ideas in the first place.

This is often called ‘ideation’ and it’s an area where market research has played a key role since the birth of the industry – regardless of what Steve Jobs said. He was right that consumers are typically quite poor at predicting what might define or satisfy meet their own future needs. But understanding how R&D and human appetites come together is core to the market research offering.

Take a dairy business, as an example, that’s facing a slow decline in consumption. One solution would be to increase the appeal of organic products. How might they craft a brief to their own product development team?

Working with Kadence, the company use a structured approach to frame where this innovation might gain some traction in the market. Using proven research techniques, they also explored possible options for further innovation. These can be tweaked and repositioned using further research.

This approach can be further optimised if like us, the research agency has an in-house creative team that can quickly visualise concepts based on consumer feedback. We worked with a global beverage brands wanting to relaunch its range to make this happen. Based on focus groups, we were able to redesign the packaging in a matter of hours in a way that capitalised on insights from the research.

One other process to consider: the ideation sprint. Rather than gradually piecing together some R&D, market analysis and internal feedback before gradually building out a new product for consumer testing, this involves getting all the stakeholders into a project group together to develop new ideas within a short timeframe.

Kadence has conducted these sprints with food manufacturers – where that combination of chefs, technicians, marketing experts, salespeople and researchers working in concentrated bursts over a couple of days can see a menu of ideas created, tested with consumers and refined incredibly quickly. And because these sprints are cross-departmental, buy-in for the new product internally is much greater.

Concluding thoughts

Product development is risky even when you’re not launching a category-busting innovation or changing the world. New flavours, revived branding, tweaked feature-sets or version updates can upset existing product performance or result in costly investment in ideas that might not fly.

Far from stifling product development, market research can deliver reassurance and confidence at every stage, helping inform the choice of new products to pursue, their key attributes, how they might be marketed and what contribution they make to a business operationally and financially.

This is an area where Kadence has extensive expertise. Find out more about our product development research services or get in touch with us to discuss a brief.

Whether it’s an entirely new geographical region with a range of cultural, linguistic, and economic factors to consider or just a new age demographic — breaking into a new market is rarely easy.

There are all kinds of risks to try to mitigate and hurdles to overcome. Brands will never manage to avoid every potential pitfall, so a degree of complication should be expected.

Businesses that can minimize these risks and challenges can reap serious rewards. In this article, we’ll look at 5 of the biggest risks and barriers businesses typically face when entering a new market.

Let’s start with the risks.

The risks of market entry

There’s no risk-free way to enter a new market. Some may be easier than others, but problems are always possible. We can break down market entry risks into three main categories — internal, external, and legal.

Internal risks for market entry

Internal market entry risk factors are those that come from within the organization. These are generally easier to control than external risks but are often unpredictable and seriously damaging.

Management and organization

How well is your company structured? In your home market, it’s sometimes possible to function successfully with a flawed organizational structure. However, those drawbacks can become painfully obvious when you enter a new market.

Some common management mistakes include:

Unclear vision from leadership. A lack of coherent vision from the people in charge can lead to widespread confusion and inefficiency. Ensure your goals are established and communicated to everyone on the team.
Sudden staff changes. When a new member joins the team to replace someone else, they must have all the necessary information and direction. Failing to do this can often result in failures in communication and significant setbacks when entering your new market.
Lack of coordination. Working together effectively is critical in a new market — especially one far away from your home market. Your team members must be on the same wavelength, up-to-date with current processes, and in regular communication with each other and leadership.

Human error

Human error is one of those risks that we can’t always control. Mistakes happen in business and life, and while we can’t predict them very accurately, we can certainly say that people will make mistakes.

When entering a new market, a simple mistake can set a project back and send out ripples into the entire process. Usually, one or two small mistakes won’t mean the end of the world, but a series of minor errors can add up.

That could involve failing to convert currency accurately, using the wrong measurement units, or giving incorrect advice about cultural norms. In these cases, one small mistake can quickly snowball into a major setback if nobody catches it.

Logistical issues

Things like delays, accidents, labor shortages, transport and delivery problems, and other logistics and infrastructure challenges can be significant roadblocks for businesses when entering a new market.

These hurdles are especially relevant when expanding into developing countries and regions. Here, infrastructure and technology are often very different from what you might be used to in your home market, so it will be harder to predict delays and disruption.

Markets in developing countries sometimes use more manual processes, so there is often a greater need to work closely with local teams and sometimes the need to adapt your services.

Tech issues

The technology and equipment you rely on as a business won’t always work seamlessly. One considerable risk for market entry involves technology failing to get the job done effectively in a new market.

One example is the Internet of Things devices, which can be powerful assets for businesses when monitoring conditions and optimizing processes in manufacturing. However, if your devices or networks fail, it could cause a significant setback.

If you’re looking to enter a developing country, it’s worth bearing in mind that technological infrastructure can differ greatly from your home country. In some countries, we’ve seen a leapfrog effect, where newer technologies have been adopted to a greater extent, as there are fewer issues with moving away from legacy systems.

Cash flow problems

Entering a new market requires a lot of financial resources, and if the supply of money is interrupted or halted, it can cause major problems for your operation. If not promptly dealt with, internal issues like this can quickly stop a market entry attempt.

External risks for market entry

Businesses must contend with many external risk factors and risks that stem internally within their organization. These can be much more difficult to control and are often unpredictable.

Regulations

It’s essential to be aware of and comply with the local laws in your chosen market. One recent example is Europe’s GDPR law which requires anyone doing business with European customers, or any company based in Europe, to adhere to strict data privacy rules.

Local regulations and requirements are often overlooked — and this can be especially tricky in emerging markets where regulations can be harder to interpret if you’re unfamiliar with the landscape.

Failing to keep up with regulations can be high — the maximum fine for GDPR violations is €20 million or 4% of your annual global revenue. A mistake here can seriously damage your entire company, not just your new market activities.

Politics

Politics can be hard to predict anywhere in the world, although businesses can be reasonably confident that radical changes won’t disrupt their market entry efforts in stable regions.

However, all bets are off in less stable parts of the world. Revolutions, wars, and sudden and significant new legal changes are just some of the political risks you must contend with when entering a new market.

Sudden changes to government can have severely damaging effects on your business. One example is when Fidel Castro’s government took control of Cuba in 1959, seizing hundreds of millions of dollars of US-owned property and companies.

Social unrest

A country (and a market) is nothing without its people. Events involving social unrest and widespread disruption are constant sources of risk for businesses in many markets around the world.

Riots, protests, and revolutions can cause damage to premises and shut down businesses for long periods, while nationwide strikes can leave you without a workforce. It’s crucial to have a plan of action to ensure survival during civil unrest.

Major non-violent social movements and trends can also impact your business. If you fail to show solidarity or are perceived as insensitive to a specific public sentiment, this could cause reputational damage.

Cultural differences

Entering a new market often involves introducing your business to an entirely new culture, which comes with a whole host of new risks.

Brands need to be aware of different customs and cultural nuances. Failing to adapt can impact how your products and services are received in the new market. You’ll need to consider how culture will affect how your new customers will receive your marketing. A television commercial beloved in Western cultures might be perceived as grossly insensitive in more conservative cultures.

It’s easy to get excited about entering a new market and the potential it might offer your business, but you need to do your research upfront. Is there actually a market for your product? Will it need to be adapted for success? And at what point does this become unfeasible?

Knowing when not to enter a market is just as important as knowing when to invest.

Natural disasters

It isn’t just people that businesses have to worry about when entering a new market — nature itself is often working against them. Natural disasters are a significant source of risk when establishing a presence in certain parts of the world.

Hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, droughts, and many other disasters can quickly stop any market entry effort. They can destroy property, interrupt shipping, and close down entire economies in hours. Worst of all, it’s often impossible to predict when the next disaster will strike.

One way to mitigate damage is through insurance, although coverage in developing countries has historically been low. Research shows that only about 1% of natural disaster-related losses between 1980 and 2004 in developing countries were insured, compared to approximately 30% in developed countries.

Market issues

There are several external risks in the market. These can take the form of unexpectedly tough competition, fluctuations in the cost of services and resources your business relies on, and volatile exchange rates, leaving a dent in your profit margins.

Legal Risks

There are many legal risks to consider when entering a new market, and this type of risk encompasses internal and external activities.

Every region in the world has its own set of laws and regulations, which can change significantly even between parts of the same country. For example, it’s legal in many U.S. states to sell cannabis; however, this could carry a severe penalty in others.

Some legal risks to consider are lawsuits, patent rights, and data privacy regulations. To ensure you stay on the right side of the law, you must work with local lawyers in your target market. A major legal setback like a big lawsuit could end your market entry campaign, so ensure you stay on the right side of local laws.

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Barriers to market entry

As well as risks, there are also multiple market entry barriers to consider. Fortunately, these are far more predictable than the risks mentioned above. It’s almost guaranteed you will encounter these obstacles during your market entry journey, so it’s easier to prepare for them.

There are many barriers, but we will cover two of the main ones here – costs and marketing challenges.

Costs

Entering a new market is a costly endeavor. You’ll generally need considerable resources to make this happen, and costs can be much higher than expected.

Some market entry campaigns cost less than others — trying to reach a domestic demographic with your product is more financially workable than establishing a solid presence in a foreign market such as China.

A successful market entry will allow you to make back your investment over and over. But it’s important to understand what costs you might need to consider when entering a new market.

Export and import costs

Moving to a new overseas market typically involves a certain amount of moving goods across borders. Even if you establish a manufacturing base in your new market, there will be costs associated with importing certain materials and goods from your home market.

Switching costs

This refers to the cost involved in switching to a new supplier, brand, product type, or alternative. You might have to do this a number of times when entering a new market, and these costs can add up quickly.

Marketing costs

Reaching your target audience in a new market will require a certain level of expenditure, depending on how well-known your brand is. For example, KFC opening a restaurant in a new region will have less work to do than a smaller and less famous company. Costs include market research, advertising, digital marketing, and analytics.

Access to distribution channels

This is how you make your product available to your customers. Accessing and managing a distribution infrastructure in a new market comes with various costs.

It’s important to anticipate as many costs as possible when entering a new market. Even if you do a great job of this, it’s likely that some costs will still spring up and take you by surprise. Make sure you have the financial resources available to handle these unexpected expenses.

Getting your marketing right

As well as the many costs associated with market entry, another barrier facing companies involves marketing.

Marketing is essential to make your voice heard and your product known in your new market. You need to immediately start connecting with your target customers across various channels and establish your brand as an option.

Marketing in a fresh market comes with a range of challenges. We already covered costs above, but here are some other key marketing considerations:

Demand

Before you even set foot in a new market, do enough people want to buy your product? Your marketing campaign will be an uphill struggle if there isn’t existing demand for your offering. It’s much easier if people are already clamoring for what you have. This is where market research is crucial for helping you to size the opportunity.

Competitors

Entering a new market means — most of the time — walking onto another company’s turf. You’ll need to show your target audience that you can offer something better than your competitors.

Brand identity

Your brand has an identity; it can take a lot of work to import that identity and everything associated with it into a new market. How do you establish yourself in a certain way and send out the right message to your potential customers? Again market research is vital here to understand what to retain and what to adapt.

Customer loyalty to existing companies

We already mentioned your competitors. Many of the customers in your new market will have existing loyalties and strong ties to them. Luring customers away from a brand they have used and loved for decades is much more complex than simply attracting a new customer to your brand. You must stand out, offer something extra, and communicate this clearly. It’s worth paying attention to your competitors and what people like about them.

How will you reach your audience?

Consider how the people in your new target market get their information and spend their time. For example, if you’re targeting an older demographic, investing heavily in influencer marketing might not be a good idea. On the other hand, magazine and TV ads may work to great effect.

Cultural issues

If you’re expanding into an overseas market, you’ll need to consider the differences in culture and how this affects the tone of your marketing. Make sure your messaging doesn’t come across as offensive or inappropriate or appear tone-deaf due to a lack of understanding about cultural nuances and norms. Understanding cultural differences is an area where it pays to work with people who understand the culture intimately. Take the case of Starbucks — whose attempt to break into the Israeli market fell flat due to hubris and a lack of understanding of what the Israeli customers wanted.

Marketing can take a lot of work to get right, which is even more true when entering a new market. The most important thing is to research your new market as heavily as possible and gather as much information as possible before beginning your campaign. Also, be prepared to adapt your approach as you go along in response to data and feedback.

Market entry always comes with a massive amount of risks and challenges. No business can escape this, not even those with a global presence.

But when you get it right, you can reap significant rewards.

Kadence has helped companies of all shapes and sizes research their target markets and gather all the intelligence they need to lead an informed and successful market entry campaign. To find out how we can help you do the same, check out our guide to market entry or get in touch today.

How do you enter a new potential market?

Expanding your brand into new markets allows you to reach potentially vast numbers of new customers and grow your revenue massively. However, the process can be complex and filled with complications.

A market entry strategy maximizes your chances of success when moving into a new market. In this article, we’ll look at some reasons to consider moving to a new market, the differences between domestic and international markets, and some strategies you can use.

Market entry defined

Market entry strategy is a plan to expand the visibility and distribution of a product or service to a new market. Market entry research helps brands to expand into new domestic or international markets where the competitive, legal, political or cultural landscape might be less known.

Market entry research is the path to understanding a new market. It helps brands identify different success factors, reveal potential challenges, and discover hidden potential opportunities.

Why move to a new market?

First up, why should you consider moving to a new market in the first place? It’s challenging and expensive, so what are the reasons that make it worthwhile? Here are some of the main ones:

You’ll gain more customers and make more money – The number one reason to consider new markets is to grow your business and increase revenue by selling more products to more customers.
There might be no more opportunities for growth in your home market – If you’ve maxed out what your local market is capable of in terms of revenue, expanding to new markets may be the only way to grow.
You’ll reduce risk by diversifying your business – If one market suffers for whatever reason, you’ll have others to keep you going.

Domestic markets vs. international markets

Are you planning to enter a new domestic market or take your products overseas to sell in a foreign country? The approach for each of these will be very different.

Domestic markets

Typically, this will be much easier than entering an overseas market. The culture will be the same, everything will be geographically closer, and things will likely be very similar to your existing markets.

International markets

Global expansion is where things become more complicated. You’ll have to factor in several differences in how you currently run your business. These include:

Cultural differences
Administrative differences
Economic differences
Logistical challenges involved in transporting goods abroad

Things to consider

Before you enter any new market, it’s crucial to take some time to confirm whether you can afford the move. Can you afford the costs of exporting, working with intermediaries, tax, and all the other expenses involved? And what proportion of the market can you realistically expect to be able to serve?

You must also consider if the product or service will work in your intended market. Market research (both online and offline) plays an important role here — ensuring demand for your product justifies the export cost.

Risks of entering new markets

There are also numerous risks involved in entering a new market, including:

Country risks, like the possibility of political unrest, sudden changes, or financial issues that could impact your business.
Foreign exchange, such as the possibility of currency exchange rates changing, could seriously affect your bottom line.
Cultural risk, which essentially means the possibility of your new business venture running into challenges due to significant differences in culture and customs.
Weather unpredictability. Are you moving into a market where natural disasters and weather conditions could cause damage to your facilities and cost money?

Once you have carefully researched your new market and weighed the potential risks, you may decide it’s worth entering. If so, there are several different strategies you can employ, each with its pros and cons.

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Different market entry strategies

Direct exporting

Direct exporting is where you ship your products to the new market directly. You’ll have to handle all aspects of the process independently, from transport to payments to operations in the new market.

This method requires more resources and time compared to working with an intermediary. You’ll need to create an exporting infrastructure, train employees, and make and receive international payments, among many other challenging tasks.

On the plus side, this approach maximizes your profits as you don’t need to pay any third parties. You’ll also have complete control over your sales and marketing processes.

Indirect exporting

Indirectly exporting involves working with an intermediary. It has some advantages, such as:

Much lower risk. An experienced third party will take care of the exportation process, which minimizes the risk of failure.
You can focus on your own business and domestic markets without being occupied by your new ones.
Fewer resources are required on your part.

On the other hand

Profits are lower since you have to pay your intermediary.
You’ll be disconnected from your customer base, so you’ll miss out on important insights and lessons.
You’ll lose complete control over sales and marketing abroad.

There are several different options when it comes to indirect exporting. Here are some of the most common ones.

Indirect exporting with buying agents

Buying agents are representatives of foreign companies that want to buy your products. You’ll work through them when selling your products to your new market.

They’re usually paid by commission and will try to negotiate the lowest possible price. Sometimes, buying agents are government agencies.

Indirect exporting using distributors

You can sell your product directly to distributors or wholesalers, who will then distribute the product to retailers.

Indirect exporting through the management and trading companies

Export Management Companies (EMCs) exist to take care of all your export and sales processes in your new market.

It’s worth taking some time to research and find the correct EMC, as most specialize in a particular market and region. They’ll help you identify markets, find customers, handle all shipping and logistics, and more.

Indirect exporting through piggybacking

Piggybacking is where you allow another non-competing company to sell your product. This can work exceptionally well if the partner company already has a customer base and distribution infrastructure in your target market.

You’ll get immediate access to your new market but for a fee.

Producing products in the target market

Another option is to manufacture your products within the target market. This saves you the cost of transport and the many logistical challenges involved in exporting your product abroad.

However, you’ll also need to consider the many challenges in manufacturing your product abroad, legal issues, costs, possible risks, and more. Depending on your situation, this could be a good option.

(For more information on the most effective strategies for entering a new market, check out our top four marketing strategies article).

Franchising / Licensing

While franchising is often associated with fast food or quick-serve restaurants, it can successfully aid expansion in many different categories.

Franchising is where a semi-independent business owner (the franchisee) pays fees and royalties to the franchisor to use a company’s trademark and sell its products or services.

While franchising and licensing are both business agreements where certain aspects of the business are shared in exchange for a fee, a licensing agreement is typically more limited.

Entering a new market can be extremely rewarding and allow your business to move to the next level and achieve new growth. It’s essential to research all the options and ensure the export strategy you deploy is the safest and most effective for you. You’ll also need to thoroughly research the market to understand its potential and position your product for success, something we cover in our Ultimate Guide To Market Entry.

Kadence can help you do that. We have extensive experience assisting businesses by conducting game-changing research to create effective strategies for market entry. To find out more, learn about our market entry services or get in touch.

Many global economies are defined by stagnant growth, falling populations and saturated markets, making growth for brands a tricky proposition. In many ‘emerging markets’ there are still big opportunities grow… if you keep your eyes open.

Many businesses are looking to fast-growth, high-energy markets outside the so-called ‘developed’ economies to fuel their expansion. Unlike congested and sometimes shrinking economies in ‘the west’, many parts of the world are seeing rapid population growth, fast-rising incomes and are adopting transformative technologies without the burden of legacy investments. The result? Vibrant new opportunities for businesses.

But while entering any new market is a challenge for brands, moving into these more dynamic economies – often with very different cultures, business practices and consumer expectations – can be particularly tricky. Berlin isn’t the same as Birmingham, but many of the norms in both markets are recognisably similar. Head to Beijing or Bamako, and the assumptions you make about brand, product and business practices will be challenged.

Take a phased approach to understanding the opportunity afforded by new markets

The best way to understand your opportunity in different markets is to take the traditional phased approach to research. This involves the following considerations.

Which markets might we look at? Consider the number of consumers, the country’s income levels and the stability of its economic and political structures. You can also examine the maturity of business practices and think about geographic location, transport links and accessibility in-market.
What’s the macro environment like in a market we want to enter? Revisit all the above, in more detail. Focus on specifics – such as the transport and tech infrastructure; and business support networks (such as accounting firms or legal protections on IP) – and how the trends are evolving in those areas.
How does the competitive landscape affect its attractiveness? Pay attention to other outsider brands and how they’re doing; but also domestic rivals and potential competitors poised to move into adjacent markets.
What are the practical issues for market entry? In new markets further afield, transport links, language barriers, different cultural norms and local regulations can throw up roadblocks.
How do we adjust our product, service or messaging to optimise our offer there? As above, but remember that very different cultures and climates can challenge even the most basic assumptions about how a product will perform.

Step away from the generalisations

It’s vital to acknowledge that ‘emerging markets’ aren’t as uniform as the term suggests. Far from it. There are so many variations by region or category that talking about common features of ‘emerging markets’ is a dangerous over-simplification. And there are as many differences within countries as between them. This particularly true in countries where rapid urbanisation has seen a break with traditional cultures outside cities.

(That’s true for any generalisation, of course. Alcohol brands, for example, can’t even treat the US and Canada the same. North of the border, there are drinking-age laws set province-by-province, massively complicating online alcohol sales. They might look the same in terms of development and even geography and demographics. But they’re not.)

That’s not to say there are no rules that apply to entering markets that share particular attributes. The pace of economic or population growth, or the expansion of middle-class consumers with disposable income, might always be a feature of your selection process for target markets.

But in many categories, consumption is growing so quickly that only the real beneficiary of a ‘toe in the water’ market entry is likely to be knock-off brands and domestic substitutes able to adjust output more responsively to local conditions, especially where legal protections for intellectual property are less secure for global players.

All these caveats mean that in-depth research into new-market consumer appetites, infrastructure and competition is just as important in growth areas as it is in more mature markets.

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Assessing new markets – 5 key considerations

All that being said, knowing the likely biggest points of difference when entering markets with strikingly different fundamentals is still important. Five things to consider:

1. Affordability

In many emerging markets, disposable income may be much lower for large parts of the population. For global products, that means understanding the more affluent segments better and targeting marketing appropriately. For localised or commodity products, the question is cost. Can you use local manufacturing, logistics and even branding to deliver your product to a mass market?

2. Distribution

Getting product to consumers might be more challenging. For brands that rely on developed economy logistics partners, understanding infrastructure constraints, developing local contacts and ensuring quality of service is crucial. When Haagen-Dazs first entered China, it set up its own warehouse and delivery network to ensure the product reached consumers correctly.

3. Localised branding and marketing

What works well in Boston, may not succeed in Beijing. Cultural understanding is key to ensuring that your marketing and branding hit the spot further afield. Caveat: remember the urban/rural split. Many urban consumers are ‘world citizens’ and expect to be treated as such.

4. Watch for local rivals

The cachet of being a global brand can help enter emerging markets. But cost, customisation and the risk of ‘brand colonialism’ can make more assumptive Western brands seem out of touch and vulnerable to local alternatives.

5. Native teams

As a global market research agency, we benefit from having local teams in the markets we evaluate for clients. This means we understand the cultural context, consumer trends and broader macro situation. It is possible to enter emerging markets at arms’ length. But having local people in decision-making positions is the surest way to avoid clumsy cultural or operational missteps.

Look for leapfrog opportunities

There are plenty of upsides to emerging markets, too, beyond simply vast numbers of new customers. In some cases, our research will throw up opportunities that just aren’t available in mature markets at all.

Look at the way different platforms have developed to cater to the nuances of local markets, for example. In many fast-developing economies, traditional channels have been leap-frogged by the adoption of newer technologies. This often happens where older tech infrastructure has attained much less penetration, allowing a newer tech to fill a void.

In many African countries, for example, low population density and long distances between conurbations means traditional copper or fibre telecoms can be limited. But mobile telecoms are more practical and affordable. They offer a plethora of additional over-the-top services that have led to an e-finance and e-commerce boom. Entering those markets will require different thinking about distribution – as well as marketing and payments using creative local solutions.

Remember, e-commerce is not the same everywhere

The Philippines is another good example. In other countries, Facebook might be just part of your online marketing toolbox. But there, Facebook has attained an absolutely dominant position in e-commerce – for one simple reason. With lower average incomes, Facebook and local mobile companies realised their penetration was constrained by the cost of network data. So almost every plan has free Facebook data regardless of contract status. For market entry success in the Philippines, Facebook is going to play a big role.

But we need to distinguish between being available on those platforms on the one hand; and entering a market on the other – which involves boots on the ground. Yes, that’s more investment. But you’re also surrendering less of your margin to platform owners and logistics providers.

A staged approach to entering less well-understood markets, starting with the more popular local social networks or e-commerce platforms, allows you to refine the consumer profile. Companies also get time to get to grips with the legal and financial frameworks that might shape future involvement; and see how local fulfilment clarifies their operational options.

Don’t assume that tried and tested e-commerce strategies from the US and Europe will work everywhere in the world, however. Amazon, for example, simply doesn’t have a presence in some markets. In others, consumers can use the site, but limitations on distribution and other logistics mean delivery times, cost and availability are prohibitive. Local research about the best platforms for reach and fulfilment is a must.

Lazada, Shopee, Zalora and Carousel, are some of the top e-commerce sites in South East Asia. These names may not be familiar to firms outside the region. But they can play a crucial role for testing in these markets. Again, it’s worth working with people who understand how to optimise those platforms, as well as interpret the effectiveness of marketing on them; and what the results say about the potential for deeper market entry.

Understand the technicalities of new markets

Even online entry into a very unfamiliar market can be daunting. Moving in for formal distribution, licensing or agent agreements or even setting up locally or buying into a native business brings with it additional issues that need to be researched.

European companies with experience of entering new markets in the EU can find the regulatory and legal considerations in countries farther afield a challenge. Even in the US there are federal laws and individual state regulations over companies and property to contend with. This can make establishing a new business relatively tough. And that’s considered a ‘developed’ market.

In parts of South East Asia, many European companies report lengthy delays in registering businesses. Others discover that in some markets domestic firms have particular benefits. This could be a form of protected status, or reserved access to certain kinds of contract. This is worth exploring in due diligence especially if you plan to sell to government agencies that are often required to ‘buy local’.

Don’t make any assumptions

Most of the key factors for market entry will depend on exactly which market you’re looking to enter. There are very few hard and fast rules that apply across the generalisation ‘emerging markets’.

But there is a common theme from this guide that should frame your thinking: these markets change – fast. Before committing to entering any market – and especially ones evolving so rapidly – it really pays to research the opportunity fully. This is something that Kadence has helped many clients with, allowing companies to succeed in lucrative emerging markets. Find out more about our market entry services, or get in touch to discuss a project.