As a result we were all less than our sparkling best for the L'Oreal visit today but it was still very worthwhile. We were treated to a champagne lunch then received presentations from four different managers in various parts of the business. The case studies around the success of Kiehl's in South Korea and the recent launch of a new Garnier Fructis 2-in-1 shampoo plus oil in India were particularly interesting. I think the biggest Aha! moment of the whole study tour for me came during the Garnier presentation, when we were asked to guess why unit sales of shampoo in India are higher than Australia but the total revenue is lower. It had not occurred to me that not everyone can afford to buy their shampoo one bottle at a time so sachet strips are the main unit sold. This really reinforced the importance of cultural awareness to me - having lived in Japan I like to think of myself as fairly aware, but if doing my masters has taught me anything, it is that my viewpoint is only one way of looking at the world.
We visited Mediaset in Milan yesterday, which was also very interesting and contained very up-to-the-minute information on the pay TV market, the switch from analogue to digital TV (which was very useful, as Italy is switching off region by region so Mediaset can learn from mistakes, whereas Australia will do it all at once), and the relaunch last week of a website which allows viewers to download full episodes of TV shows. It was also interesting to see the use of branding extend to the company logo (the white flower) being used on steps as a safety warning, instead of the yellow strips we generally see in Australia. We then had the afternoon free in Milan, our only taste of Italy on this trip, which was just beautiful. We managed to fit in the Duomo, the Castle, hot chocolate and gelati, then a group dinner before the train.
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