Tolhurst emphasizes Poland‘s distinct social and cultural background as the biggest country of the CEE region and believes that companies should not rely solely on their experience in foreign markets, expecting to reproduce these solutions on the Polish market. Martin Ender, managing director of the Polish branch of hypermarket chain Real, of Germany‘s Metro Group, concurs, asserting that replicating branding schemes and strategies verbatim does not guarantee success since differences in culture and habits are not taken into account.
„This was a major mistake on our part to try to bring over the exact model of the German supermarket,” Ender told WBJ. „Poland is a distinct country and culture and it is impossible to implement [strategies based on] other behavior patterns,” added Ender.
Food for thought
Krzysztof Najder, the CEO of strategic-marketing consultancy firm Stratosfera, sees two main factors as significant in determining branding strategy for the Polish market. Firstly, the greater part of Polish society still survives on incomes that are still relatively low compared with the rest of Europe, which makes it more difficult for certain premium brands to gain a high level of profitability. Secondly, mainstream consumers tend to be conservative, particularly with regard to food products where the tendency is to stick to traditional and natural products, and new products are met with skepticism.
Branding specialists need to be aware of distinct nuances in social structure and family models, including the role and image of women. „Cultural codes are obviously different in Poland than in the West,” says Mariusz Jastrz?b, from the Leon Ko�miński Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management (LKAEM). Moreover, substantial differences remain between big cities and the countryside. Jastrz?b explains that under communism, Poland missed out on a variety of social processes that promoted modernization in the West.
Learning the ropes
Poland‘s communist history and its isolation from Western practices affects not only the way in which brands and advertising are received by consumers, but also the way the marketing industry in this country functions. The industry in Poland has not yet achieved a high level of sophistication and will take some time to fully mature, despite the impressive degree of development in recent years. „It‘s impossible to learn it all overnight,” stresses Najder. He adds, however, that more and more companies and advertising agencies are willing to take risks and produce unconventional campaigns.
Dominika Maison, a senior lecturer in the psychology department at Warsaw University and owner of a marketing research company, says that a large section of Polish society, older people especially, values the informative content in advertisements. „A lot of middle-aged people fall for pseudo-rational argumentation, and references to various ’experts.‘ Older people, who have only recently been exposed to a free market, are critical and skeptical of advertisements but still fall prey to banal and very conventional tricks.” She adds, however, that the younger generation (those between the ages of 18 and 20) reacts no differently to advertising than their counterparts in Western countries.
Dominika Maison brings up some other characteristics of the market with regard to political correctness and taboo, which advertisers would do best to avoid. „Poles react negatively to comparative advertising,” she says. „Brands which are referred to as less attractive, surprisingly enough, attract more favor and support.” Maison adds that Polish advertising often breaks the restrictions of political correctness, presenting women as objects of sexual desire in a more explicit way than, for example, in the US.
Alternately, Krzysztof Najder suggests that subjects like religion, the military, the government and police are touchier subjects for the majority of Polish audiences.
Anything but Polish?
For many Polish consumers, a product‘s country of origin plays an important role. Generally speaking, if a product is a Western one, it is likely to be associated with good quality. Jastršb points out that awareness of Western brands existed even in the communist era. He explains that brands such as Marlboro or Max Factor managed to gain prestige in Poland after leaking into the country through informal channels in the 1960s.
While many Western brands are held in high esteem, a number of domestic companies struggle with a negative image, often for the simple reason that they are Polish. „We still demonstrate a lack of so-called consumer ethno-centrism,” explains Dominika Maison. „Unlike customers in other countries, we tend to opt for foreign products, especially when it comes to high-tech brands.”
Red roots
But certain domestic brands and products do stress their „Polishness” and - as surprising as it may sound - sometimes even their communist origins. According to Jastrzšb, nostalgic marketing is playing an ever-increasing role in Poland and other CEE countries. He cites the example of a popular weekly magazine, which came with a bar of communist-style immitation chocolate on the anniversary of the establishment of martial law. „In targeting the older generation, marketing specialists find ways to evoke a sense of a safe and simple world, a sense of longing for what is gone. Providing such a reminder can play a significant role for a product. The time of communism was the time of [the older generation‘s] youth,” says Jastrzšb. Nostalgic marketing is also used to target the younger generation, however the reference elevates the communist past to the status of myth where everyday absurdities of the time can even be considered charming.
As one might expect, associations with communist times can certainly have a negative impact on certain brands. This is definitely the case for Fiat cars, whose two models, the 125 and 126, were mass-produced on license in Poland from the late 1960s. According to Jastrz?b, the impact of these cars on society was enormous, particularly in the case of the 126 (aka the Maluch). Having a Fiat 126 in your garage represented financial security, family stability and social status. The symbolic value of the cheap little car by far surpassed its actual material value. Piotr Kolejwa from Fiat Auto Poland agrees, „For Poles, they had the same value as the Model T Ford,” he says.
However, the quality of the cars decreased in the 1980s and, when the market opened up in the 1990s, people went for Western brands that were previously unavailable. Fiat‘s reputation went into decline starting in 1989 and, according to Kolejwa, the brand had to be completely overhauled in Poland. Fiat‘s strategy included highlighting its roots in Italian design and has since launched a number of relatively unconventional marketing campaigns.
Polish brands abroad
Exploiting Poland‘s tumultuous history could also benefit Polish brands marketed abroad. According to Nick Tolhurst, names such as Wedel or Blikle - confectionary brands with century-old legacies - are often associated with their particular resilience to historical misfortune. Such references enhance the image and prestige of long-established brands.
Tolhurst adds that Polish brands abroad can build on other unique associations, like the youth and dynamism characteristic of the younger generation. As an example, he points to the huge success of the Polish beer Tyskie in the UK, which bases its marketing campaign on these sorts of references.
„There is no reason why this strategy cannot be used to market other products,” suggests Tolhurst.
Whether at home or abroad, the success of a brand hinges on an understanding of the cultural profile of the target consumer group, combined with a strategy that makes use of positive references drawn from local symbology and character of the product itself.
Advertising and marketing strategies on a global scale are imperative to the success of a global brand. However, marketing strategists tend to agree that businesses need to take local realities into account in order to optimize these strategies. As Nick Tolhurst, the director of the Institute for Corporate Culture Affairs (ICCA), says, „The clichéd slogan, ’think global, act local‘ is still valid.”
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