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the packaging for the overseas consumer. The question here is to what
extent the core product should be changed to satisfy the overseas market

(Doole and Lowe, 2008). Difficulties appear when the main competitive
advantage of a company is a message – such as the Bodyshop’s message
of ‘we do not test on animals’ or Laura Ashley’s message of ‘selling style’.

In this case, changing the core product is not just difficult but would be a
disaster for the company. The company has the responsibility to balance

standardisation and modification. The company will have to pay attention
to the accessibility of the product, ethical issues, green (environmental)
issues, the effect of different market entry modes and changes in

marketing management and product strategy (Doole and Lowe, 2008).

7.6 Product strategy

Majaro (1977) recognises that the product is the heart of the marketing

mix. If a company fails to satisfy the consumers’ needs through the product
offering, whatever effort is put into the other three elements of the
marketing mix, it will not improve the product performance. According to

Doole and Lowe (2008), it is inevitable that companies will adopt a very
wide range of product strategies in international markets. Mesdag (1985)

states that companies have three basic choices:

• SWYG: Sell What You’ve Got.

• SWAB: Sell What people Actually Buy.

• GLOB: Sell the same thing globally, disregarding national frontiers.

SWYG is the most common form of export strategy (existing products into
new geographical markets – Ansoff, 1957), but it is also the most common

reason for failure. The key objective for most firms following such a
strategy is to fill the production line at home rather than meet a market

need, but by concentrating only on a few markets, many companies do
successfully implement this kind of strategy. Mesdag (1985) points out that