The business culture in Kurdistan is way too different from Sweden. After hours of meeting and many promises from clients that seemly agreed on contracts and just about anything else, sometimes we find ourselves waiting for call backs from them.
I find it a bit troubling, the way we do business here in Kurdistan. Too much talk and so little action. Major companies that make millions of dollars per month has little interest in buying commercial or branding or marketing. No matter how much we explain the importance of branding for any major company I find myself looking a bit silly. As long as they make the millions roll in they have no ambition to find out more about marketing.
The are a few major companies that actually know more about marketing, PR and branding then any other company, one of them is Asia Cell, the rival mobile telecom company that has recently launched a major campaign to promote their “Youth Line”. You can also find them on the Internet (Google, Youtube, Facebook etc).
This is how our most common conversation goes with general directors or owners
Me: So, what is your company marketing strategy?
Owner: What do you mean by marketing?
Me: Well, if you have a product and you want to introduce it to your target group then you need a strategy for marketing your product, right?
Owner: What is target group?
Me: Well, your product is good but you cannot sell it to everyone and every where? Right? So you have to find a group, and target that group to get he best return on investment.
Owner: What is best return on investment?
Me: Well, let us say you have a 10 000 USD budget for introducing your product to a specific group of people that we call the target group and ..{taking a deep breath}… just forget about it .. do you want to buy some TV ads or not?
Well thats about it. Buy or not to buy. It’s frustrating and sometimes I feel powerless to convince these newly millionaires and “biznisman” to think marketing.
Filed under: Marketing
