Global Marketing

I really enjoyed doing the research for this project. It reminded me that the world is becoming smaller all the time. The three global marketers I chose to research are Ford, Red Bull, and Apple. Each of these companies have different methods of appealing to their customers in different parts of the world.

Ford Motor Company

Did you know that you could pick up a brand new Ford Mustang in Abu Dhabi? Neither did I. Did you know that you can get the Harley Davidson-themed F-350 in Israel? If you check out http://www.ford.com/ you can pull up a map that will show all the countries in the seven continents in which Ford operates. When you click on a country on the map it will take you to that country's Ford website. Each website is in that country's language and unique to that country's tastes.

I was really impressed to see the amount of work that went into each country's website. I am a car guy so it was also very interesting to see all the different Fords that are sold all over the world. Ford, however, was not my favorite of the three websites .

Red Bull

Red Bull's advertising confuses me sometimes. One day there is a Red Bull commercial of a guy jumping a motorcycle on the Great Wall of China. The next day there are bizarre cartoon characters with wings. But their website is fantastic!

Red Bull's marketing campaign takes aim at a young, high energy crowd. So Red Bull sponsors a lot of international extreme sports and motor sports teams and events.

Visit http://www.redbull.com/ and the homepage has videos and articles on what is going on globally in Red Bull's different events. Don't miss the button in the bottom right hand corner that says "international". Click on this button and a list of the different countries Red Bull operates in comes up. Choose the country you want and not only does the text change to that country's language, but the content dramatically changes. The website's content focuses totally on the chosen country's specific sponsored events, music, and culture. That is brilliant to me! Red Bull's website differs from those of Ford and Apple because of the level of detail that goes into including each country's young customer interests.

Apple

Apple sells many of their products right off of their website. Like Ford and Red Bull's websites, it is easy to access the different international sites through Apple's website. But each county's version of the Apple site does not vary that much in theme or content. The only big difference besides language are the products offered in each country. Most other countries, for example, do not have access to the iPad or iPhone 4. The attention to detail that Red Bull and Ford puts into their advertising is not really there for Apple's international customers. Apple may have the global marketing mentality that Apple products just sell themselves