INTERNATIONAL MARKETING

International Marketing

International Marketing

Introduction

Customers do not want to be managed, they want to be served. They don't want to be referred to as ratepayers, but as valued customers. Putting the customer at the centre of the enterprise is key to building loyalty. But making that happen in this unstable marketplace is difficult. As a solution, many energy companies are working on first-rate branding and marketing strategies that strive to acknowledge and respect the customer's authority. (Harris, Chernatony, 2001, 441-456)

Overcoming customer inertia is difficult, especially because customers don't think about their utility service until they pay a bill or experience an outage. In the process of searching for tools to help utilities chart deregulation from a branding perspective, three trends emerged:

Local identity: Companies are increasingly aware of the importance of a local identity in attracting or retaining customers.

Bundling for value: Alliances are forming between various players to provide a buffet table of products and services to customers.

Relationship management: Customer service is depending more on database management. (Harris, Chernatony, 2001, 441-456)

A brand marketing strategy that incorporates these three elements can add significantly to a company's bottom line--and allow it to thrive in an increasingly competitive marketplace. "We're after a new relationship based on timely, effective response to customers' needs ... and to do it better than the clown who's trying to steal them away from us," said Tim Gelvin, chief marketing officer for UtiliCorp/EnergyOne.

You know me, right?

A key concern expressed in interviews and research is that local identity is critical. And for good reason--utility incumbents' names have been nurtured in people's minds, in some cases for the last 100 years. And while a name is not the same as a brand, consumers naturally look at a name they have heard, seen and read for years, and compare it to the name of a new provider from outside their local area. (Harris, Chernatony, 2001, 441-456) Generally, utility consumers believe their energy comes from a local source, so a new name with a national feel is a disconnect. In recent research, when brand names--such as Enron or EnergyOne--were offered to focus groups, consumers didn't find them to be indicative of a utility provider with a local focus.

Perhaps this partly explains the uphill battle Enron, EnergyOne and other national energy companies have faced in California (See sidebar: "Branding in the real world"). Their names didn't resonate. In addition, they were unable to differentiate themselves from existing utility services. (To their credit, the market didn't open up as expected, leaving them with nothing other than price on which to compete).

For companies entering a new market, California has demonstrated the need for a serious point of difference for positioning among the incumbents. (Harris, Chernatony, 2001, 441-456) Nowhere has this been better illustrated than with Green Mountain Energy Resources, which has been able to make inroads in the market with environmentally preferable power. This was and is enough to gamer customer attention and overcome some existing regulatory ...