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Why the shampoo
didn’t make it to my hair
By Arda Mardirossian
This Week in Palestine
magazine
June 2007
http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=2155&ed=142&edid=142#
Eighteen months ago, I stashed away a perfectly good quality local shampoo
that was delivered as a free sample to my doorstep. This shampoo never
made it to my hair, but rather found its way elsewhere. I did not know the
local producer of the shampoo, nor did I connect with the product as I did
with “my” Herbal Essences, Dove, Sunsilk, and others. These and many other
imported brands tapped into my values, emotions, and aspirations through
satellite communications; plus the products were good. The 30-second ads
provided me with a sense of safety, well-being, and “happiness” during our
daily family routine of isolation in Ramallah. Yet the impact of these 30
seconds lasted long enough to make me a loyal customer. As for Israeli
products, well it’s simple, long years of habit and lack of trust in local
products ensured that locally made goods stood no chance of getting into
my shopping cart.
As heads of our
household, my husband and I made a mutual agreement seven months ago that
Ramallah, Palestine, is the one and only home to our small family. After
this decisive day, my life took a 180-degree turn. This turn brought about
a true sense of relief. Now all I had to do was stop complaining about the
political, economic, and social conditions. In my continuous and
frustrating search for my family’s safety, health, and educational
aspirations, my anxiety levels kept escalating and threatened to spill
over into our home anytime.
The “Ramallah
reality” and/or the satellite façade provoked a re-evaluation of our daily
path and its end result. The fastest and easiest way to act was to simply
use the one and only opportunity to decide what to eat, drink, and use.
Under scrutiny was the impact that imported products have in facilitating
or impeding the materialization of a “real” safe, healthy, and happy
environment for our children. The one major attribute enjoyed by local
manufacturing firms is their ability to directly contribute to my family’s
and others’ similar hopes for a decent life.
Recently, my
career path took me to Solutions for Development Consulting which, by the
way, is a young local consulting firm that works in the field of
private-sector development. Coincidentally, within two months I became the
manager of “InTajuna,” a project aimed at enhancing the Palestinian
consumers’ perceptions toward locally produced products, in particular,
processed food, beverages, and personal care and household consumables.
InTajuna’s
approach is a combination of critical services that will tackle - over the
next seven months - a number of inherent weaknesses that are imbedded in
the users of the products such as me, points of sales and, finally, local
manufacturers.
The core of
InTajuna’s methodology is the accumulation of industry insight such as the
fast-moving consumer-goods market characteristics. The following charts
summarize the results of our research.
The chart above
reflects conservatively the existing market opportunities in this
industry. The local share of the above-mentioned market size is estimated
roughly and more optimistically in the chart below.
Ironically, the
figures above show the outcome and extent of the damage done by consumers’
hesitance to try local products, such as my decision 18 months ago.
However, we believe that with the right support, the local share can and
must be recaptured by consumers as a means to improve their families’
quality of life in the medium term. Capturing local share will
automatically, through market forces, translate into growth, expansion,
and consequently job opportunities in local companies.
The project
goes further to investigate Palestinian household needs, concerns,
motivations, and emotions through a focused consumer survey in five major
cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Ten to fifteen
companies will “set the example” in substantiating claims of good-quality
local choices. These companies’ products will undergo a qualification
process in order to aim pediments in Palestine
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Arda Mardirossian
is Palestinian and the mother of Marcel and Maiia. She is the InTajuna
Project Manager and has professional experience in design and management
of marketing and capacity-building projects for private-sector
development. She can be reached at Solutions for Development Consulting,
arda@solutionsdev.ps.
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