글로벌 제품표준화 전략의 실행 가능성 연구: 애플리케이션을 통한 스마트폰의 개인화에 관한 실증분석을 바탕으로

The necessity of global product standardization asserted by Levitt (1983) is still an open research subject in the area of international marketing strategy, and there are many arguments both for and against it. The very recent introduction of smart phones in the world market has provided a new approach to exploring the effectiveness of Levitt's logic. One of the biggest advantages for companies pursuing a global or standardization strategy lies in their ability to take advantage of economies of scale, as local market conditions converge worldwide due to increases in technology development. Another advantage of having a standardization strategy is increased visibility and consistency for the global brand image of the company. However, a counter argument is also well presented: The marketing strategy of an international company should reflect local diverse tastes and preferences stemming from a long history of culture, customs, and institutions. Many scholars on this side of logic criticize Levitt's argument as naive without solid evidence. Under this circumstance, the introduction of smart phones, especially under the strategic approach of Apple, has shed additional light on this conventional dispute over a global marketing approach once again. We are captivated with the standardization marketing strategy implemented by Apple all over the world. How can they supply exactly the same product worldwide and will that be accepted by global consumers? What makes their global strategy successful? We paid an attention to an intriguing marketing tool, personalization, as a lens to understand the global/standardization strategy of smart phone producers. We analyzed consumer satisfaction of smart phone users who have personalized their smart phones through application use, focusing on the strategy of smart phone makers. Even while they provide identical products worldwide, which is an obvious standardization strategy,customers with different cultural, institutional, geographic, and economic backgrounds accept them. Therefore, we hypothesized that standardization strategy for smart phones can be a feasible option via personalization through which process consumers/smart phone users worldwide derive a high level of satisfaction. Through the process of personalization, which provides a chance to use a diverse set of applications, customers around the world can increase the level of fit between the product offering and their demand condition or taste: Through applications they could increase the fit which will lead to a higher the level of satisfaction with their smart phones. We conducted a questionnaire survey of domestic and international exchange students attending a university in Korea and collected 456 responses. We divided the sample into three groups of students from Asia (N=177), Europe (N=142), and North America (N=137) in order to compare and test their level of satisfaction with smart phones measured by the perceived utility. The results show that personalization through application use satisfied the individual needs and that standardized global products - smart phones - provided a higher level of product utility perceived by consumers in all three groups. These results provide the possibility that product personalization through application use enables firms to implement a global product standardization strategy.