Lesson 5: Global Product Design

Reworked Cross-Culture Products

Let's begin with a bit of a quiz. Below are some examples of products you may or may not be familiar with. After the description, try and determine why the product did not initially work or how the product would need to be adjusted to fit the culture. Remember it is much easier to adjust the product than to adjust the culture.

Kellogg's established a branch in India in an effort to begin producing and marketing Corn Flakes as a breakfast cereal. After beginning production and introducing Corn Flakes to the market, the product did not succeed. What was a considerable success in North American markets, was initially a failure in the Indian Market.

Blenders are commonly used in both commercial and home food preparation. The initial market was largely for North American consumers, but its use spread throughout the world. Unfortunately the blenders sold in North America do not often fit the needs of international, culturally diverse markets.

A solar oven, designed and produced for the indigenous people in Southern Mexico, was very effective at harnessing the sun's energy and converting it to heat for cooking. Using this solar oven would prevent the need to use firewood for cooking and provide an inexpensive source of energy. Thus it could cook food using a renewable resource and help prevent deforestation.

So did you figure out why each product had problems moving into a new cultural market? The answers will be provided shortly. Cross-cultural design is the process of designing or modifying products for consumers from different countries, cultures, languages and economic standing. As the world becomes more globalized, more companies are not just designing a product for one market and then try to sell it to another. In many cases they are not taking a current product and just adapting it to another culture (although this does occur), businesses are looking at a product from its very beginning design and attempt to engineer it to fit several cultures. This not only makes the product more useful, but also more marketable.

Answers

Kellogg's is a breakfast cereal. In North America people do not think anything of putting cold milk on any cereal. In fact, it is preferred by most people. However in India, people think that starting the day with something cold, like a bowl of cereal with cold milk, would be a shock to the system. However, when you add hot water to Kellogg's Corn Flakes, they instantly turn into wet paper. As a result Kellogg's had to pull its product from the shelf and reengineer it to withstand a hotter temperature.

The blender was built for larger families. In some cultures, people only have (or are allowed to have) one or two children. Even without this consideration, most blenders were initially quite large and bulky. Reducing the size of the blender adjusted for both smaller family sizes and less kitchen space.

Finally, while the solar ovens were very efficient and effective, they did not fit the culture of the indigenous people of Southern Mexico. In this culture most of the cooking was either done early in the morning or early in the evening. Neither was a peak time to use the sun as an energy source. Also, while the oven was quite effective for boiling beans and soup, it was inadequate for cooking tortillas, a staple of the local diet. While it made sense technically, it did not fit culturally.

As can be seen from these examples, products that are designed, engineered, and used in one culture does not guarantee success in another culture. One of the advantages of having a global virtual (GV) team is getting information and feedback on how products will work in the culture of the team members. Imagine if Kellogg's had someone on their team who could point out why the initial Corn Flakes would not work unless modified. Had this happened, time, effort, resources and product brand could have avoided all of the negative consequences of not being ready for the local culture.