As I believe a product that would be difficult to formulate a cohesive global IMC program would
be durian. In Asia countries, durian is famously called “the king or fruits” due to it sweet and
fresh custardy flesh that described as a cheesy crème brûlêe texture with a strong aroma smell.
Fresh durian or dried durian snacks were produced due to its popularity among Asian countries
and it become best selling products for travelers if they could have a chance to stop at any of
these country as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam. However, in other Western
countries, people describe durian as “sweaty gym sock smell” fruit that they really not into it,
they don’t even want to try to taste it after its stinky smell. Durian make people neither love it or
just hate it, so this is really hard to attract customers and sell in Western countries.
If marketer want to formulate durian to Western market, they need to create a new product that is
based on some already popular products of that country market and mix them up with the durian
flavor, for example like durian ice-cream, durian cookies/waffle or even candies, things that easy
to adopt into the Western food cultural. Giving out free sample would be a great marketing
strategy to promote this challenging product.