Design differentiation for global companies: Value exporters and value collectors

Design Management Journal, Fall 2001 by Grinyer, Clive

KEYNOTE ARTICLE

In the global marketplace, should companies maintain uniform product profilessome with strong national characteristics-or adapt regionally? Most companies tend toward one end or the other, concludes Clive Grinyer. Clearly distinguishing between "value exporters" and "value collectors," he articulates the advantages and disadvantages of each. Companies must strike their own strategic balance, hopefully without diluting the regional diversity that makes life and consumer choices so interesting.

Travel internationally and you will find that despite a recognizable name, some products and services look very different in different parts of the world. You would expect product communication on packaging and in media advertising to reflect language differences and cultural tastes. But often the design is different too. A Nokia in the US does not look, or even work, in the same way as a European or Asian Nokia.

But there are some companies that utilize their national characteristics to retain a single design vision outside their home countries. Companies like Braun capitalize on their European cachet when they are marketed in the United States, and Harley-Davidson motorcycles wouldn't sell nearly as well overseas without their American outlaw mystique. Many automobiles trade on national or cultural values to enhance their appeal outside their own countries.

The natural inclination of any international business is to shoehorn everybody into the same size in an attempt to find one design that fits all. And sometimes this is successful. The Ford Focus, for example, is a design that sells well in both the US and Europe. The savings in development and tooling are, of course, dramatic; the challenge is to overcome the threat that design will be compromised by trying to appeal to such a wide audience, and most of the time, companies tend to take a different tack.

Two strategies for international design

Design therefore can be a tool to emphasize uniqueness, or it can be a tool for getting closer to local market conditions and different user needs. In my view, global companies tend to fall into one of two approaches to selling a brand outside their home countries. They become value exporters or value collectors.

Value exporters: local values and global virtues These companies, which I'll call value exporters, have especially strong values that are often linked to national characteristics. They use design as a tool to emphasize either their national origin or the set of values that differentiate them from other products. Although the brands already mentioned-Harley-Davidson and Braun-tend to fall into this category, perhaps the best market in which to observe this approach is the automobile sector. Audis and Volvos, for instance, look the same in the US and in Europe-their message is the same from culture to culture. Volvo, for example, despite being a global brand and now part of Ford Motor Company, has always retained a strongly Swedish identity that is associated with safety and protection. Volvo has always been a leader in developing safety systems for cars, from seat belts to side impact bars. How did this local characteristic develop into a global virtue?

Peter Horbury, head of design at Volvo, described at a recent joint Design Council/ Svensk Form seminar in Stockholm how values peculiar to Swedish life and culture affect Swedish car design. Sweden was, after all, one of the first countries to develop an advanced social welfare system; the concept of caring is at the heart of Swedish national culture. Looked at in this light, safety was from the beginning a natural consideration in Swedish car design. This is how a local value translates into a global virtue. Volvo design carries with it a hint of a national characteristic, like local seasoning in an international dish.

Perhaps because of the physical and traditional parameters around automobile design, cars are platforms from which national values are communicated loudest. Cars designed in the United States are eminently recognizable, and in most cases their successful export owes much to their novelty value. In Europe, Citroen for many decades made cars that defined our perceptions of French culture. The 2CV, designed as low-cost transportation for French farmers and accompanied by instructions to let the air out of the tires before traveling across ploughed fields, was a functional solution that became a lifestyle choice. Citroen styling stood out and was like no other. Another French car company, Renault, has created innovative cars for decades, establishing the first hatchback, the first small urban car, the first Euro MPV, and then the innovative and much copied Scenic, an MPV on a compact car platform that combined the needs of rural and urban driving. This was a car designed to do what every Parisian wants to do: park in the city and drive the family out to picnic in the country on the weekend. As Scenic designer Ann Asensio, now head of design at GM, in Detroit, explained in a recent interview, designers "inhale everything from the streets": old architecture, modern fashions, even the movements of people, and these become the source of values that can translate to the global experience. This approach has transformed Renault into a successful European car company from simply a French one.