The lure of hot markets

Like an endless dark shadow, a long trail of pessimistic nouns has riddled media headlines about the global economy: “doldrums,” “economic squeeze,” “financial crisis,” “inflation,” “recession,” “slump,” “gloom and doom.”

For the international marketer, however, the news need not be so dire – thanks to new growth markets in the former Communist Europe, certain parts of Asia and Africa, the Middle East.

Today’s global economy and the growing penetration of accessible digital media mean the world is more connected than ever before.

On the one hand, this might mean that when one major market sneezes, a flu epidemic spreads like wildfire. On the other, globalization has empowered strong brands to access a constant stream of new markets, creating new business opportunities for their owners.

In the 1990s, marketers focused on establishing a presence in North America and Western Europe. In the Noughties, they discovered the rapidly developing BRIC regions: Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Now marketers may be moving beyond BRIC.

Instead of allowing the current global downturn to hold them back, they are unearthing new frontiers in regions previously considered uneconomic.

Whether they are in the business of mass-market consumer goods, luxury items, financial services, automobiles, or information-technology systems, these marketers are spending millions and billions to enter the new emerging economies.
They are talking about MENA (Middle East/North Africa), and CEEE (Central Europe and Eastern Europe). Turkey is also proving to be a favorite.

With the FIFA World Cup international soccer tournament, considered the world’s second biggest sports event after the Olympic Games, taking place in South Africa in 2010, the once ignored SSA (sub-Sahara Africa) is on marketers’ radar.

Marketers from these new regions are laying down foundations for potential future wealth by also going West. A typical example is the 2007 move by French multinational Lafarge to pay $12.9 billion for the cement-manufacturing business of Orascom, the Egyptian conglomerate with telecommunications interests in the Middle East, North Africa, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Italy and Greece. Orascom, in turn, gained a stake in Lafarge.

During these challenging times, this edition of The Internationalist examines the new marketing frontiers and how interest in new markets is reshaping worldwide brand thinking. Many of these locales are emerging as new centers of marketing excellence.

Leading marketers in a variety of categories, ad agency executives and media specialists tell the Internationalist how they see the new shape of the world, how they balance creative and media solution for these new hot spots.

Moreover, despite recent political turmoils and the continuing human rights controversies in Russia, India, Brazil and China, they see continued room for growth in the BRIC markets.

And others actually see the mature regions in North America and Western Europe making a comeback thanks to investments by dollar-rich companies and governments in the new markets.

Will we soon be talking about TRIBECAPA (Turkey, Russia, India, Brazil, Europe, China, Americas, Pan-Arab)? It might be a bit of a mouthful, but it encapsulates a new world order where the developed and fast-growing developing markets are mutually benefiting from each other. Read on.

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