Chapter 12 Cultural and Cross- Cultural Influences Copyright © 2010 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill/Irwin

12-2  Culture refers to the mental frames and meanings that are shared by most people in a social group.  Cultural meanings broadly include:  Common perspectives  Typical cognitions  Characteristic patterns of behavior What is Culture?

12-3  Issues to consider while analyzing culture:  Cultural meanings can be analyzed at different levels.  Macro  Subcultures  Social classes  Reference groups  Family What is Culture? (cont.)

12-4  The concept of shared or common meaning is critical to understanding culture.  Need to consider cultural meaning at a macro social level.  A meaning is cultural if many people in a social group share the same basic meaning.  Cultural meanings are created by people.  Construction of cultural meanings is more obvious at the level of smaller groups. What is Culture? (cont.)

12-5  Cultural meanings are constantly in motion and can be subject to rapid changes.  Social groups differ in the amount of freedom people have to adopt and use certain cultural meanings. What is Culture? (cont.)

12-6 The Content of Culture  The content of culture includes:  The beliefs, attitudes, goals, and values held by most people in a society.  The meaning of characteristic behaviors, rules, customs, and norms that most people follow.  The meanings of significant aspects of the social and physical environment, including:  Major social institutions in a society.  Typical physical objects used by people in a society.

12-7 The Content of Culture (cont.)  The goal of cultural analysis is to understand the cultural meanings of concepts from the point of view of the consumers who create and use them.  Behaviors can have important cultural meanings.

12-8 The Content of Culture (cont.)  Aspects of the social environment can have rich cultural meanings.  Marketing strategies must be sensitive to cultural meanings.  Marketers need to understand the cultural meanings of their products and brands.

12-9 Measuring the Content of Culture  Content analysis  The content of culture can often be read from the material objects produced by the social group.  Ethnographic fieldwork  Procedures involve detailed and prolonged observation of consumers’ emotional responses, cognitions, and behaviors during their ordinary daily lives.

12-10 Measuring the Content of Culture (cont.)  Measures of values  Marketers use procedures to directly measure the dominant cultural values in a society.  Rokeach Value Survey  Kahle’s List of Values  Commercial techniques  VALS (Values and Lifestyles)  Yankelovich MONITOR

12-11 The Core Values of American Culture  Core values are the abstract end goals that people strive to achieve in their lives.  Knowing the core values held by people in a society can help marketers understand the basis for the customer–product relationship for those consumers.

12-12 Exhibit Core Values in America

12-13 Exhibit Core Values in America

12-14 Changing Values in America  Can create problems for marketers.  Can create new marketing opportunities.  Usually accompanied by changes in behavior.

12-15 Exhibit Lifestyle Trends in America

12-16 Exhibit Lifestyle Trends in America

12-17 Culture as a Process  Cultural meaning is present in three locations:  Social and physical environments  Products and services  Individual consumers  The cultural process describes how cultural meaning is transferred between locations by the actions of organizations and by individuals in the society.

12-18 Exhibit A Model of the Cultural Process

12-19 Culture as a Process (cont.)  Two ways that meaning is transferred in a consumption-oriented society:  Marketing strategies are designed to move cultural meanings from the physical and social environments into products and services to make them attractive to consumers.  Consumers actively seek to acquire cultural meanings in products in order to establish a desirable personal identity or self-concept.

12-20 Moving Cultural Meanings Into Products  Meanings are moved into products by:  Advertising  Symbols  Pricing strategies  Design strategies  Distribution strategies

12-21 Cultural Meanings in Products  Products, stores, and brands express cultural or symbolic meaning.  Cultural meanings of products vary across different societies.  Not all people in a social group perceive a product, brand, or activity to have the same cultural meaning.

12-22 Cultural Meanings in Products (cont.)  Some cultural meanings in products are obvious to those familiar with the culture, but others are hidden.  Many companies know little about the symbolic cultural meanings of their products.  Many products contain personal meaning in addition to cultural meanings.

12-23 Moving Cultural Meanings From Products into Consumers  Rituals are symbolic actions performed by consumers to create, affirm, evoke, or revise certain cultural meanings.  Acquisition rituals  Bargaining rituals  Possession rituals  Product nurturing rituals  Personalizing rituals  Exchange, grooming, and divestment rituals

12-24 Cultural Meanings in Consumers  Consumers buy products to acquire cultural meanings to use in establishing their self- identities.  Americans have a lot of freedom to create different selves through their choices of lifestyle, environments, and products.

12-25 Cultural Meanings in Consumers (cont.)  Goods cannot provide all the meanings that consumers need to construct healthy self- concepts.  People may consume products in an attempt to acquire important life meanings.  People have favorite possessions that are filled with important, self-relevant meanings.

12-26 Moving Meanings to the Cultural Environment  Consumer meanings can be transferred to the cultural environment through people’s social behavior.  The cultural process is a continuous and reciprocal movement of meaning between the overall cultural environment, organizations, and individuals in the society

12-27 Marketing Implications  Managing cultural meaning  The shared cultural meanings of a brand are a large part of its economic value, or its brand equity.  Using celebrity endorsers in ads  Celebrities are cultural objects with specific cultural meanings.  Can be related to their credibility and expertise concerning a product.

12-28 Helping Consumers Obtain Cultural Meanings  Marketers can help transfer important cultural meanings from products to the customer by understanding the role of rituals in consumer behavior.

12-29 Cross-Cultural Influences  Cross-cultural differences:  Do not always coincide with national borders.  Not always clearly demarcated by national borders.

12-30 Cross-Cultural Differences  Differences in consumption culture  Self-concept  Affect how people interpret product meanings and use products.  Similar cross-cultural changes  Create similar marketing opportunities in many societies.

12-31 Cross-Cultural Differences (cont.)  Materialism  A multidimensional value including possessiveness, envy, and non-generosity.  Marketing implications:  Marketers must determine which cross-cultural differences are relevant to their situations.

12-32 Cross-Cultural Differences (cont.)  A sensitivity to and tolerance for cross-cultural differences in meaning is a highly desirable trait for international marketing managers.  Managers from the local culture bring an intimate knowledge of the indigenous cultural meanings to strategic decision making.

12-33 Developing International Marketing Strategies  Adapting strategy to culture  Adaptation approach  Standardizing strategy across cultures  Global marketing  Less expensive  Changing the culture

12-34 Marketing Implications: The European Union  The considerable cross-cultural differences among the EU countries will not disappear.  It will be difficult to develop standardized marketing strategies to sell products in all countries in Europe.  Some products may lend themselves to standardized strategies, while others will require careful adaptation to local cultures.

12-35 Summary  Culture and cross-cultural factors influence consumers’:  Affective responses and cognitions  Behaviors  Physical and social environment  Culture refers to the meanings shared by people in a society.  Marketers can study the content of culture.

12-36 Summary (cont.)  Values and lifestyle trends influence marketing strategies.  Cultural meaning is moved between different locations through the cultural process.  Cross-cultural differences can influence consumers.  Marketers must use their knowledge of culture in developing international marketing strategies.