Real world Application
Directions: Read the article below. Then answer the questions that follow.
It’s a challenge to persuade a population to adopt novel food tastes, but this PepsiCo subsidiary (Frito-Lay) is making a go for it. Frito-Lay sells chips with such flavoring as “crispy, fragrant French chicken wings” and “fresh, crispy seafood.” The goal by 2007: make Lay’s the number one snack in the world’s most crowded country.
Lay’s potato chips didn’t show up (in China) until 1997because China bans potato imports, forcing Frito-Lay to start, quite literally, from the ground up, opening two farms to supply big, round, sturdy potatoes short on sugar (to preserve whiteness). Three years after planting its first spud in China. Lay’s launched its first entry “salty flavored” and saw an instant hit. But in China Lay’s quickly found that dishes popular in one region did not sell well in others. Shanghai snackers tend to like sweet tastes, southerners prefer salty, westerners go for spicy flavors and northerners prefer meaty ones, forcing Lay’s to adjust its marketing.
PepsiCo also had to accommodate yin and yang, the Chinese philosophy that nature and life need to balance opposing elements (like light and dark or sweet and sour). It plays out in the local palate: Chinese consider fried foods to be hot and therefore shun them in the summer because the two hot’s do not balance; cool would be better.
That discovery last year led to Frito-Lay’s most creative effort in China so far: “cool lemon” potato chips. The yellow, strongly lemon scented chips are dotted with greenish lime specks and mint and are sold in a package featuring images of breezy blue skies and rolling green grass. Lay’s launched them with a TV ad featuring Malaysian pop star Angelica Lee, who asks fans in a stadium, “can you eat just one?” The campaign triggered a spike in sales. (China is a particularly good market for TV ads, given that it has 126 TV sets for every 100 households and still offers relatively few channels, making it harder to zap away from a barrage of commercials.)
1. What political/legal factors affected the launch of Frito-Lay potato Chips in China?
2.What two cultural factors influenced the variety of Chinese Lay’s potato chip flavors?
3. How would you classify Frito-Lay’s marketing strategy of its Lay’s potato chips in China-was it globalization, adaptation, or customization? Explain.
4. What factor helped Frito-Lay to decide on TV as a medium for its promotional strategy?