Page 183 - Aamir Rehman - Dubai & Co Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States-McGraw-Hill (2007)

Making Your Pitch: Marketing to GCC Buyers 167

Figure 6.3 Christmas tree, Dubai shopping mall

crucial. Local competitors can gain an edge over global firms if the
global firms seem indifferent to or disinterested in local needs.
Restricting oneself to the multinational’s home language also limits
the breadth of the market to which the message is accessible: bilin-
gual strategies have greater reach. Noncustomization can also be a
cue that the global firm will not make a special effort at customer
service: for example, that it won’t have salespeople who speak
Arabic. These drawbacks are prohibitive for many firms that seek
deep penetration into the GCC market. The most common
approach, therefore, is not noncustomization but rather the next
degree further: adapting the message.

ADAPTING THE MESSAGE
The majority of global firms and their local distributors see
some degree of customization as crucial for connecting with