HARMONIE WATER: REFRESHING THE WORLD NATURALLY

(Brief Case Study)

I. OVERVIEW OF CASE:
This study focuses in the branding strategy of the Harmonie Water and what should it
take. Antoine Comeau is the Marketing Director of the Harmonie Water wherein he planned
to build a global brand that will become their identity and edge to its competitors. However,
Comeau had a conflict between the country managers because it is not easy to build a
global brand identity with differences among its culture of a certain country. Comeau
launched a task force namely Project Unify and Project Aqua. Project Unify had identified
characteristics that consumers are universally associated with Harmonie while the Project
Aqua extended the results of Project Unify and after the results, it was proposed that
“revitalizing” and refined are the Harmonie’s core themes that became the second best-
selling bottled water in both at its home country of France and worldwide.

II. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

How can Antoine Comeau create a way to solve the situation between the country
managers and the corporate itself?

III. QUESTIONS:
1. Is Harmonie Water a Global Brand? Why or why not?
2. Based on the findings of the Project Unify and Project Aqua, what has Comeau learned
about building a Global Brand Identity?
3. How can Harmonie develop its brand through advertising?
4. What factors should Comeau consider in deciding how much Harmonie’s brand identity
and communication can be standardized and customized?

IV. ANSWERS:
1. Yes, it is a global brand. Because according to the case study itself, at 2015, the company
sold in over 130 countries with sales of $7.1 billion. It was heavily advertised, with
approximately $100 million dedicated to its purpose. And according to “The Blake
Project, you will know that a company is a global brand if the brands are recognized
 throughout much of the world. This means and validated that Harmonie Water is a
certified a global brand.
2. Based on the findings of Project Unify and Aqua after proposing the theme of Harmonie
named “revitalizing” and “refined”, Comeau found out that it is not easy to implement a
marketing strategy that fits to the characteristics of many different cultures. Because
according to Delaney (2018), a truly global brand has the same product formulation, the
same core benefits, the same positioning and same core values and cultures. So from
this quote, it can be approving that developing a global brand identity requires a lot of
things to do in order to be internationally known.
3. According to the case study, Comeau uses the country’s PCC or the Per Capita
Consumption of water to gauge that market’s maturity, as well as the company’s
market share in that country to gauge Harmonie’s competitive position. If the market
share is low, Harmonie’s Water is the best bottled water to buy, while if the market
share is high, it’s the opposite. From the given part of the case, Comeau uses the PCC
and the market share of every country to create a standard advertising. According to
Meenaghan in his journal “The role of Advertising in Brand Image Development” he said
that Advertising has an important role in developing brand image. It informs consumers
of the functional capabilities of the brand while simultaneously imbuing the brand with
symbolic values and meanings relevant to the consumer.
4. The factors should Comeau consider in deciding how much Harmonie’s Identity and
communication can be standardized and customized is that either of the two, weather
to standardized or customized it has a positive effect to the company because
according to Levitt, standardized corporations view the world or its major regions as one
entity instead of collection of national markets. Also he distinguished the products and
its brand. The global product is standardized or sold with only minor modifications,
branding, positioning, and promotion may have to reflect local conditions. Adaptation
emphasize customization because when entering a foreign market, one must considerall
environmental factors and constraints such as language, climate, race, occupation,
education, taste, different laws, cultures, and societies(Czinkota and Ronkainen,1998).
So in the case of Comeau, either of the two or both are the valid reason to decide a
Harmonie’s global brand Identity.

V. REFERENCES:
www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2010/02
www.thebalancesmb.com
www.emeraldinsight.com
www.opentextbooks.org.hk/ditatopic/6981
http://successfulglobalmarketing.weebly.com/untitled/global-marketing-strategy-
standardization-vs-adaptation
 PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Goa, Camarines Sur
A/Y 2018-2019

Project in
Entrepreneurship
(Brief Case Study)
Submitted by:
Joshua E. Zape
Edrea Kaiza P. Cea
Janet Y. Cleofas
Monica M. Cornejo
Pearl Jalliah B. Malbog
JoyceP. Remoto

Submitted to:
Joachim Pilapil
Subject Instructor