Gino BonaGino Bona is Vice President of Marketing for Camden National Corporation. He won the NFL's "Pitch Us Your Idea for the Best Super Bowl Commercial Ever" contest. His concept was turned into a commercial that aired during Super Bowl XLI.
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The Wal-Mart you never expected
Mar 9, 2008 07:52 PM
Categories: Advice, Management, Marketing, Starting a Business
A new Wal-Mart Supercenter opened last week in Dearborn, Michigan. That’s not newsworthy up here in Maine. But what is worth noting is the store caters to Arab-Americans.
Dearborn is home to nearly a half-million Arab-Americans, the largest concentration of Arabs outside the Middle East. So Wal-Mart stocked the store with Lebanese olive oil, Egyptian mango juice, Nido powdered milk, Halal meats, Muslim greeting cards, and Lebanese pop singer Ragheb Alama’s latest CD.
Need help finding stuffed grape leaves from Turkey? Just ask one of the dozens of Arabic-speaking Wal-Mart employees for assistance.
Yes, this is Wal-Mart.
As the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart typically drops its big-box store on a new community with the grace of a thump. It then sells products at impossibly low prices that undercut local merchants until they run out of business. That’s just part of the reason so many people oppose Wal-Mart. (The other reasons are well-documented in “The Wal-Mart Effect” by Charles Fishman.)
But this post is not to condemn Wal-Mart for the way they’ve done business; it’s to take notice of their surprising ability to adapt to a specific market. They didn’t just go into Dearborn and open a store “the Wal-Mart way.” Instead, they performed two years of research to gain an understanding of the needs and wants of Arab-Americans living outside of Detroit. Once they felt comfortable with their findings, they built a store to cater to their unique clientele.
So what does all of this mean to you?
If the world’s largest retailer can drastically change the way they go to market, so can you.
Dearborn is home to nearly a half-million Arab-Americans, the largest concentration of Arabs outside the Middle East. So Wal-Mart stocked the store with Lebanese olive oil, Egyptian mango juice, Nido powdered milk, Halal meats, Muslim greeting cards, and Lebanese pop singer Ragheb Alama’s latest CD.
Need help finding stuffed grape leaves from Turkey? Just ask one of the dozens of Arabic-speaking Wal-Mart employees for assistance.
Yes, this is Wal-Mart.
As the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart typically drops its big-box store on a new community with the grace of a thump. It then sells products at impossibly low prices that undercut local merchants until they run out of business. That’s just part of the reason so many people oppose Wal-Mart. (The other reasons are well-documented in “The Wal-Mart Effect” by Charles Fishman.)
But this post is not to condemn Wal-Mart for the way they’ve done business; it’s to take notice of their surprising ability to adapt to a specific market. They didn’t just go into Dearborn and open a store “the Wal-Mart way.” Instead, they performed two years of research to gain an understanding of the needs and wants of Arab-Americans living outside of Detroit. Once they felt comfortable with their findings, they built a store to cater to their unique clientele.
So what does all of this mean to you?
If the world’s largest retailer can drastically change the way they go to market, so can you.
JackMkt says,
Interesting, I didn't realize Wal-Mart adapted to a specific region, or at least as drastically as adding new product lines.
Mar 9, 2008 10:07 PM
Three3 says,
The story made it to the Drudge Report today, but Gino got it first!
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080315/wal_mart_mideast_makeover.html?.v=2
Mar 16, 2008 12:04 PM
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