Standardization vs. Adaptation of the International Marketing Strategy Regarding Eco-friendly Packaging: A Country Comparison

The topic of the thesis is the decision on standardization and adaptation regrading eco-friendly packaging. As consumers’ and public awareness for sustainability is increasing, eco-friendliness becomes a more important issue to companies around the world. Therefore, also the eco-friendliness of packaging aroused attention. When multinational corporations are entering a foreign market they need to decide upon their international marketing strategy, to be more precise whether to standardize or adapt their marketing strategy in the foreign market. Instead of evaluating the standardization vs. adaptation debate in total, eco-friendly packaging material was chosen as a focus. Primary data from a green packaging study conducted by the Nürtingen-Geislingen University is used as major data source to compare and analyze consumers’ attitudes towards eco-friendly packaging material for two different markets: The German and the US-market. Additionally, secondary data is used to complement the legal and political background of both markets. The following research question is answered in this thesis: What factors are relevant for the decision towards standardization and adaptation? The purpose of this thesis is to describe how the factors influence the decision on adaptation and standardization of an MNC’s marketing strategy and subsequently analyze how the factors influence the decision on adaptation and standardization regarding eco-friendly packaging in the German and the US-market. Eco-friendly packaging and standardization and adaptation theory provide a theoretical background. On this basis the empirical data is analyzed. At the end conclusions are made and further implications and limitations are mentioned