Venue Take-Home Examination

Student Number 17683595

Family Name Ho

First Name Cin Fui___________________

School of Marketing

EXAMINATION
End of Semester 1, 2017

MKTG2002 International Marketing

This paper is for Bentley (Internal and External), Miri and Singapore Campus students

This is an OPEN BOOK examination

Examination paper IS to be released to student

Examination Duration 48 hours

For Examiner Use Only

Reading Time Within 48-hours of Take-Home Examination

Q Mark
Total Marks 40 1

Supplied by the University 2

None 3

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Supplied by the Student
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No calculators are required in this exam
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Instructions to Students
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Section A: please answer all four (4) parts of question one (1)
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Section B: please answer two (2) questions out of the five (5) questions on offer
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Responses must be typed in 12-point Times Roman font with 1.5 spacing 10

This examination cover sheet must be attached to your submission 11

You are required to submit a hard copy to your tutors pigeonhole (date stamped) and 12
a soft copy via Turnitin by Friday, 16 June 2017 at 9am
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Penalty of 100% will be implemented for a submission after the due date and time
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SECTION A

Question 1

a. The PESTEL framework is the tool utilized by marketers to

monitor and evaluate the external marketing environmental factors which
PESTEL stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental
and Legal factors (Johnson 2006).

Political In Singapore, the car-less goal has been implemented alongside

with the heavy tax liability on owning a vehicle to loosen up the heavy
traffic in Singapore (Mahbubani 2015). Therefore, by developing a
suitable urban design alongside with the policy the goal will be more
achievable.
Economical Good urban designs are costly in short-terms, but in long-
terms it will be paid off by compensating the population density of costs
from different aspects like, cost of time from mobility, travel cost and
many more. It would contribute to the economy of developed countries
and increases employment rate.
Social With a good urban design, it promotes better living and also
increases population density in the urban areas. It enhances social
connectedness amongst the people in the urban areas of the developed
countries.
Technological Good urban designs attracts talents internationally such as
architects to work on the urban designs which educates local human
resources and improves the technology standards.
Environmental The city image of countries are a crucial factor of
attracting tourists in the mentioned countries to improve the tourism. By
having a good urban design improves the city image.
b. Placemaking is defined as a cooperative procedure by which we can
form our community land in order to make the most out of the value shared.
Other than enhancing urban designs, Placemaking eases imaginative designs
of utilization, compensating particular consideration to the social, cultural and
physical characteristics that outline a place and sustenance its ongoing
development ("What Is Placemaking? - Project For Public Spaces" 2009).

By proper place-making, it will definitely build up positive destination

images for urban cities with creative and attractive designs on the structures.
Firstly, it would build up the city image where the designs are made
accordingly to the city culture where portrays the lifestyle and culture of the
area. Secondly, it adds more tourist attraction destinations for the city and
enhances the communication and relationship between the communities.
Thirdly, it builds the economy where making more space can provide more
small-businesses opportunities for the vendors the sell merchandises to
achieve the ultimate goal to make the city a more livable place of urban
designing.

Domestics and international visitors would be more likely to travel to

the cities to experience the urban experience which is developed by the
advantages of place-making. The unique urban designs will shape the city
image to become more beautiful and attractive. Tourists from either domestic
or international would be more attracted to have more photos and sight-seeing
in the new designed urban areas. Other than that, the international visitors
stand a chance to taste more local delicacies from the vendors selling authentic
local food in the hawker stalls from the urban designed areas and experience
the local lifestyle there with more walking trips from locations to locations as
the street food scene in tourism is highly promoted in the tourism industries.
c. Urban design is the design of streets, spaces, cities and towns. It is the
cooperative process of modelling the physical aesthetics for life in towns,
cities and villages; the art of making places; design in a city framework. Urban
design includes the scheme of structures, clusters of buildings, landscapes and
spaces, and the establishing of structures and procedures that simplify
successful development ("What Is Urban Design?" 2011).

In the process of urban design, the accounting and valuation

procedures often neglect the design quality as the fuel and motivator of
business value. When urban designs are poorly designed, it often costs the
society, the neighbours and their occupiers. The costs are always not being
considered because it is imposed on the people whom are not making the
decisions but by the overall community. One of an example that portrays poor
urban design is the housing estate that was design in Holly Street of Dalston,
east London in the 70s. The design was so poor it had been demolished within
20 years where it was intended to last 60 year long and had cost a total of
92million pounds (Desyllas 2006). The example can raise the awareness that
poor designs may encourage crime rate and anti-social behaviours which
endangers the local society, residents and neighbourhoods, not forgetting the
financial risks that come along. Developing countries should take more
considerations towards designing the urban design to avoid having these issues
in the future as developing countries are denser in population.
d. Trend is defined as a steady alteration in a process, output, or condition,
or the tendency of a sequence of statistics points to travel in a certain way over
time (Trend 2017).

Urban designs with more place-making would be trending in the next

two years which creates more sustainable environments with longer lasting
buildings which improves the areas overall livability. With proper space-
making, it would form into a more walkable urbanism which encourages less-
car environment. With the introduction of a more walkable urban design, the
neighbourhood would be encouraged to walk more and drive less in the
neighbourhood. Where the traffic amount is being under control, it controls
the environment impacts from the air pollutive gases emitted from the heavy
amount of gases which promotes environmental friendliness simultaneously.

Developed countries are definitely in the position to adapt the

emerging trends that have been stated above. For example, developed
countries such as Singapore is facing heavy traffic congestion issues, by
adapting proper space-making urban designs, people in the country would be
more encouraged to walk more and drive less. It does not only decrease the
traffic congestion issue, it would help the environment to have lesser pollution
gas emitted from the heavy traffic such as Carbon Monoxide that would
impact the human health. Through the implementation of urban design as the
emerging trends stated above, developing countries will form a more
sustainable and livable urban area through the benefits of environmental
friendliness that the design promotes.
SECTION B

Question 2

Ethnocentrism is defined as the analysis of different cultures conferring to

prejudices originating in the values and customs of the respective culture
(Ethnocentrism 2017).

International firms have to be sensitive to charges of ethnocentricism because

upon penetrating to markets of different nations, study and analysis of the cultures are
crucial to understand the Dos and Donts to carry out the marketing, operation and
other processes to avoid insulting the community. This is due to different nations may
perceive messages in a different perspective. Therefore, messages sent from
advertisement must be sensitively processed according to the targeted audience
internationally to avoid unintended insults. Other than that, by proper analysis of the
ethnicity and cultures of the targeted audience, the intended message can be
communicated more efficiently through proper understanding of the culture.
Moreover, the marketers would have more advantage to acknowledge what different
cultures demands and make adjustments on their final product marketing on the
different segmentations that are targeted.

Cultural Sensitivity is defined as the awareness of the marketers on cultural

similarities and differences exist on respective ethnics and countries which would
affect the values, behaviour and learning (Bowman and Stafford 1997).

International marketing is defined as the application of principles of marketing

to one or more countries (Kingsley 2011).

When marketers are being culturally insensitive, it tends to create chaos,

confusion and rage as the targeted audience perceives the intended message from the
advertisement falsely. This is due to the marketers has neglected that different
cultures are sensitive to particular icons which includes, colours, numbers, figures and
exacta. For example, the Chinese people do not like the number 4 as it resembles
Death in the Chinese pronunciation and prefers the number 8 which resembles
Wealth in the Chinese pronunciation.
 The perfect example of unsuccessful international marketing would be the
advertisement made by Toyota for Toyota Land Cruiser and Prado GX in China. The
Japanese car manufacturer, Toyota lately provoked hatred from the China citizens
when it advertises two stone lions which is a traditional symbol which means power
in China (Yu Xiang 2003). It resembles that the Chinese have to pay respect, bow and
salute to the Toyotas Prado GX and Land Cruiser advertisements respectively. In the
advertisement, Toyota had translated Prado into the Chinese phrase Ba Dao which
means it domineering and high-handed. The advertisement also included a tagline
which translates as You have to respect Badao (Yu Xiang 2003). The two
respective advertisements of Prado GX and Land Cruiser has drawn hatred from the
Chinese citizens as they see the advertisement as an insult from the Japanese car
company. This is due to Toyota had neglected on the cultural beliefs and perception
towards the symbols that have been utilized by the advertisements. Other than that,
there are critics that stated that the stone lions connected to the historical event that
happened in 1937 where the Japanese troops invaded China (Yu Xiang 2003). It is
perceived as the Chinese people have to bow down to the Japanese brand even though
that was not the intended message to send to the targeted audience. The advertisement
is quickly fanned and resentment is spread in a very fast rate being in the internet era.
Moreover, the advertisement had also led to a huge boycott of Japanese produced
goods by the Chinese people. With that being said, the incident had shown a very
unsuccessful international marketing by Toyota. Toyota had also released a letter of
apology stating that the advertisements was not meant to deliver unpleasant feelings
to the Chinese people and they will continue to deliver quality and satisfactory goods
and services to the Chinese consumers (Yu Xiang 2003).
Question 4

Sharing economy is the system of economy where assets or facilities are

shared to private individuals from private individuals with either a charge of money or
not, commonly through internet (Botsman 2015).

Collaborative Consumption is defined as the economic system of

decentralized marketplaces and networks that utilizes more on value of less-used
assets by fulfilling the demand of needs and wants without the presence of a
middleman (Botsman 2015).

Yes, it is true that sharing economy does encourage collaborative consumption.

It is because sharing economy promotes the sharing of assets between private
individuals with a charge of monetary value. It creates an economy between the
sharing party and the shared party. This concept encourages collaborative
consumption as collaborative consumption by-passes middleman and promotes
consumptions between individuals to utilize more value on underused assets that
fulfils the demand.

Government operations would be affected by the tax money that should have
been liable to existing companies that provide similar goods and services such as taxi,
hotels and many more. By the existence of sharing economy, transactions are dealt
privately between individuals which most of the time tax money are being neglected
as the transaction amount could not be competed against the companies that originally
provides the similar goods and services. Because most of the individual and private
service providers normally spare out their assets to earn a little money as side-income
since their assets are underused.

Business operations would be impacted both positively and negatively. One of

the positive impact comes along the emerging trend of sharing economies, more
entrepreneurial opportunities might open up for business operators through the
utilization of sharing economy online platforms. For example, houses can be bought
and rented out as homestays through the platform of AirBnB. Existing business
operations would be negatively impacted as sharing economy grows over time. As
sharing economy platforms grow overtime, many existing industries such as the taxi
industry, hospitality industry and other industries that provide services based on
properties and assets will face more competitions from the consumers. As the
platform grows, the supply grows alongside. Therefore, the business operations would
be forced to standout against more and more competitors and readjust their goods and
services to suite the demand as the time passes by.

Consumers would definitely benefit through the growing of sharing economy.

Firstly, more goods and services selection would be provided from private sectors
which means lesser tax imposed on the consumers where the consumers will still
receive quality goods and services with a much cheaper price. Secondly, the supply
for existing goods and services will increase in a very big scale. As supply is
increased, the price of the goods and services would be adjusted to be cheaper to
increase the demand to fulfil the economic wellbeing. Therefore, similar goods and
services that are provided by sharing economy force the price to decrease. Thirdly, it
creates business opportunities for consumers that possess assets such as houses and
cars which they have not been using it as much. For example, Zipcar provides a
platform for consumers to rent out their cars to other consumers ("Car Sharing: An
Alternative To Car Rental With Zipcar" 2017), therefore, people with extra cars
which they have not been using it to its full value can rent it out the people who
needed the cars with a charge of money. But all these conveniences that sharing
economy also brings negative impact to consumers. The consumers are more exposed
to criminal behaviours through the platforms. Criminals might take advantage of the
platforms to carry out crimes such as robbery, theft and exacta.
Reference List

Botsman, Rachel. 2015. "Defining The Sharing Economy: What Is Collaborative

Consumption?". Rachelbotsman.Com.
http://rachelbotsman.com/work/defining-the-sharing-economy-what-is-
collaborative-consumption-and-what-isnt/.

Bowman, Hanna, and Eking Stafford. 1997. "Definition Of Cultural Sensitivity".

Uvm.Edu. http://www.uvm.edu/~cdci/prlc/unit3_slide/sld005.htm.

"Car Sharing: An Alternative To Car Rental With Zipcar". 2017. Zipcar.Com.

http://zipcar.com.

Desyllas, Jake. 2006. "The Cost Of Bad Design". National Archives UK.
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110118095356/http:/www.cabe.o
rg.uk/files/the-cost-of-bad-design.pdf.

"Ethnocentrism". 2017. Cambridge Dictionary. New York: Cambridge University

Press. http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ethnocentrism.

Kingsley, Edward. 2011. "International Marketing". Business Jargons.

http://businessjargons.com/international-marketing.html.

Mahbubani, Kishore. 2015. "The Road To A Car-Less Singapore". The Straits Times.
http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/the-road-to-a-car-less-singapore.

"Trend". 2017. Cambridge Dictionary. New York: Cambridge University Press.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/trend.

"What Is Placemaking? - Project For Public Spaces". 2009.

https://www.pps.org/reference/what_is_placemaking/.

"What Is Urban Design?". 2011. Udg.Org.Uk. http://www.udg.org.uk/about/what-is-

urban-design.

Yu Xiang, Zhao. 2003. "Toyota Apologizes To Chinese Consumers For Improper

Ads". People's Daily Online.
http://en.people.cn/200312/05/eng20031205_129766.shtml.