Unilever case: This case studies the difficulties that country managers confronted while trying to establish central

direction over international / Pan European product development, positioning, and sales. It documents the rollout of a new spread alternative, "Krona", and how its strategy failed to balance cross country cultural differences and product perceptions, as well as biases of Unilever country managers. At the time of the case, Unilever was anxious to centralize management to improve its economies of scale, leveraging fixed investments in brands, new product development and manufacturing capabilities. It positioned itself to maintain a centralized management model while not sacrificing their core strength of local responsiveness. The new organization forced country managers to be concerned with diversity of other countries' tastes and needs in developing and marketing of new products. This was a distinct contrast to the previous culture. Coping with this diversity across countries to create a Pan European brand was difficult. Internal frustrations at Unilever created barriers of communication as country managers were frustrated by their loss of autonomy and an increased burden of international coordination of strategies. A global approach to a new product kept development and country managers from focusing on consumer variances in consumption habits. General differences toward types of food and consumption varied greatly across Europe. For example, German consumer concerns centered on food safety, environmental impact, and natural products, whereas French consumers valued traditional cooking, pleasure/taste, and eating well. The end result was a conflict of cultural issues within the company and a deteriorating regard for consumer preferences externally. Results after the development of Krona were poor. Krona was a great success in Germany, where it was developed, but nowhere else. The development team had continually relied on local preferences and marketing Krona: Consulting with the margarine product managers in each major European country, the Hamburg innovation center defined a product concept for a new spread that consumers would not perceived as a butter product or a margarine product. The Hamburg innovation center executed the development project without much interaction with their counterparts in other countries. Krona was launched; Successful beyond expectation in Germany. But when managers from other European country organizations were urged to launch Krona, they balked. Negative consumer reaction Divergent financial priorities (they had their own product innovations to push, and their own annual operating budgets to meet) Interpersonal affronts by the German team.

Exhibit 4: Not all consumers in Germany view butter as a healthy, natural product; not all UK consumers view butter as a thing of the past. The market research appears to have been to identify differences. Results would have been different if their purpose had been to identify similarities in tastes and preference.

Exhibit 6: The closer the product is to a finished consumable meal, the more differences in taste and preference. Wide disagreement about whether a single product can be sold across Europe. How can Kraft sell Philadelphia brand cream cheese as a relatively standard product across Europe, whereas the category of cream cheese seems to need more localization?