What you need to know about the Filipino market

understand that for us to show that we provide quality products, everything around it must look the part.

Filipinos often believe that local brands are inferior. This colonial mentality is something we can overcome. In fact, in the case I just stated, the local brand dominates the market. The key here is to focus on qualities that Filipinos desire, but which the foreign brand would find hard or costly to imitate. Local companies would also be far quicker to adapt their strategies and tactics as the foreign firm would need to get approval from their mother companies if they want to make major changes in their operations.

Filipinos are loyal to their brands. This trait is both positive and negative— positive if, of course, the consumers are already loyal to your product, and negative if you are trying to convince the market to shift from their favorite product to yours. We Filipinos are not really the type to experiment habitually. We tend to be loyal with products that have already impressed us before, and do not bother trying out other competing products. Take a look at your body soap. How many years have you been using the same brand? Some may even say they have been using it ever since they can remember. How about your toothpaste? Probably the same. It would take a lot of effort for the marketers of new products to convince their target audience to try theirs. I’m not saying it’s impossible. It is possible, but it is hard. You need to be able to offer something more significant than what the leading and trusted brand offers in order to gain market share.

Besides its peculiarities, the Filipino market is in rapid transition and the challenge for every company is to be consistent with their efforts in trying to understand the behavior of their particular market and to continue to learn changes in trends and behavior. As a business owner or marketer, keep yourself updated with the daily news, check out social networking sites, observe and ask. Never assume that what worked in another country will also be a hit here.