What explains the failure of Google in the Korean market? The Impact of Multicultural PR Strategy

Abstract

The era of globalization provides us with both opportunities and threats. The success of a multina-tional corporation depends largely on its ability to itself to new market environment. We believe that understanding and implementing multicultural PR strategy can be a key to the multinational corporations` success in foreign markets. We argue in this paper that even a global iconic company such as Google needs to focus on how to understand local consumers` needs and preferences before formulating and implementing PR strategy. Having a global hit product or service is not sufficient enough to be successful in some foreign markets. It is especially more evident in the industries where companies deal with individual consumers, and perceptions and sentiments play a large role in their purchase decisions. Theobjective of this research is to find out the relationship between multicultural PR strategy and business performance. Therefore our main hypothesis is: better implementation of multicultural PR strategy by a multinational corporation will result in higher performance in the foreign markets. To prove the relationship between multicultural PR strategy and performance, we designed a framework that uses Rudan`s (2004) five for multicultural PR strategy. It is a contribution to the business academics as there are very few studies that directly focus on and analyza the multicultural aspects of a multinational company`s PR strategy. Through our re-search, we found strong evidence that there is a positive relationship between the level and effective-ness of a company`s multicultural PR strategy and its performance in the foreign markets. This offers some meaningful implications to the managers of the multinational corporations and those who are considering going into a foreign market for the first time. We also suggested a way of measuring the implementation of multicultural PR strategy. By applying five rules for multicultural PR strategy to Google`s PR activities, it allowed us to convert qualitative information into quantitative data. This kind of tool can be helpful for multinational corporations that want to evaluate their own PR activities.세계화가 가속화됨에 따라, 다수의 다국적기업 (Multinational Corporations)들은 재화, 노동, 서비스 등의 자유로운 이동을 발판삼아 해외 시장으로 뛰어들고 있다- 그러나 모든 다국적기업이 성공적이지는 않다. 본 연구는 다국적기업이 해외 시장에 진출했을 때 그 성패를 좌우하는 중요한 요인으로 다문화 홍보 전략을 꼽는다. 구글코리아의 사례를 중심으로 진행된 본 연구는 이러한 연관성을 증명하고자 한다. 구글은 글로벌 인터넷 검색엔진 시장에서 막강한 점유율을 자랑하지만, 한국 시장에서는 여전히 맥을 못 추고 있는 실정이다. 본 연구에서는 구글의 한국 시장 진출 실패 요인을 한국 인터넷 사용자의 특성에 맞도록 개발된 다문화 홍보 전략을 제대로 수행하지 못했기 때문이라고 보았다.