Bernd Schmitt has been profiled on CNNfn's Business Unusual, and has appeared on the BBC, CNBC, NHK and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Professor Schmitt is the Robert D. Calkins Professor of International Business at Columbia Business School, where he also directs the Center on Global Brand Leadership and is a noted expert on branding. A prolific writer on the subject, he has written seven books, which have been translated into 16 languages. Professor Schmitt's class is one of the most sought-after marketing electives at Columbia. In the following interview, Professor Schmitt talks about experiential brands, teaching in different countries and cultures, the Schmitt brand, his research on perceived innovativeness, and his popular marketing course. He also offers advice to students interested in a career in marketing. The following is an excerpt from his interview.


Do different regions require a different approach to marketing?
The general principles in marketing are the same but they are also frankly very trivial - principles such as "Pay attention to the customer," "Segment your market" and "Have a planning process that results in a strategy and an implementation across the four Ps."

I said they are trivial. However, this sort of thinking and approach still adds a lot of value to companies that are not customer-oriented and are more internally focused. Internally focused companies are not focused enough on specific target groups, and they think they can get the entire market with just one approach. So I guess they are not trivial for those sorts of companies.

In a broad-based planning process, you may still not come out with a great product with market success. So, you need to look at the details. And the details are cultural. They can be in naming, for example. In China, Korea and Japan, it's a big issue because of the writing system. It can be in the colors of the packaging: red in China is a very prominent color; in the U.S., blue is a much more common color, especially in business. It can also be in the advertising approach: In some countries, you can be very aggressively going after your competitors; comparative advertising is very common. In others, it is not considered appropriate - not just legally but also culturally. So these sorts of things are very important to consider.