To Adapt or to Standardise

To what extent should a company adapt a luxury product or service to meet local conditions in a range of Asian countries? This is the issue discussed in this paper which found that consumers wanted virtually no adaptation to a selected luxury product even though they were located in markets as diverse as India and China. What they wanted was the original, authentic, and value-ridden Western product as this was a link (or a conduit) to a world of perceived success, glitter, and empowerment. In a sense they did not just purchase the product: they purchased part of a dream. If they were located in rural and remote areas across Asia they believed in this Western dream even more fervently than if they were located in capital cities (where it was still a strongly held belief), attesting to the power, and mythical image, of the Westand its luxuryand unadapted products. It was acceptable to make use of local pop stars or fashion figures in print or television advertising for the Western product as these icons helped to build a bridge between the local world and the foreign product but even here these people had to somehow look part Asian and part Western-true international citizens of a globalised culture where one had unprecedented access to wealth, success and power. Many international companies have adopted a global and unadapted strategic stance in the market place and this research endorses this view in broad terms, recognising, however, that it was also viewed as acceptable for some promotional and advertising activities to be adapted to some extent to draw a link between the product and the local marketto create the perception that an international product (and associated values) might be relevant and of value at home in an Asian context.