Cross-Cultural Consumer Behavior and Marketing Communication - Term Paper Example

?Analysis of Cross Cultural Consumer Behavior and marketing communication Introduction Consumer behavior is a complex area of research. Consumer’s purchasing behavior seems to change according to the product categories. When it comes to make a purchasing decision for any particular service or product, several factors influence consumer’s decision making process. One of such factors is product marketing. To what extent consumers will accept one particular product depends to a large extent on how well the product has been marketed. Consumer behavior is partly unpredictable, though in some cases the type of branding might affect the purchasing behavior of the consumer. There are different sections of consumer in a society formed according to the basis of monthly household income for example lower income class, higher income class etc. (Earl and Kemp, 2002) The purchasing behavior of a consumer partly depends on Consumer Psychology. A purchase decision confronts the consumer with a host of potential changes. Most important is the problem structuring that occurs prior to taking any decision: becoming aware of the need or availability of a new product or service, collecting information of alternatives, and thinking about the future circumstances relevant to the purchase decision & also considering the possible outcomes contingent to the decision. Now these types of action vary within the different sections of consumers. In this context the marketing of the product or the branding has a quite influence on the consumer purchasing behavior. (Earl and Kemp, 2002; Zaichkowsky, 2006). During the current phase of globalization, branding has a lot of influence on middle class consumers also. To buy a product, consumers first think about the quality of the product. If two different brands of a kind of product with more or less same appearance, & same price are there in the market, brand name & its branding effect matters a lot. Consumers often judge on the basis of various informational cues that they associate with the product. Thus, proper marketing of a product is extremely vital in a market economy. Hence, marketing communications play an important role in creating demand for any market in any market. The main key to success for any firm is the application of appropriate business strategy. To ensure high customer base along with substantial growth in business, a firm needs to devise several strategies regarding the production process, marketing, distribution etc. and efficiently implement them. Among all these strategies, proper planning regarding marketing of the products is very crucial for creating demand in the markets. Unless an appropriate marketing technique is adopted by a firm, it would not be able to attract customers towards its products and business would automatically fail. Now marketing is quite a broad area which embraces various aspects like price, place, promotion and product. These four aspects form a marketing mix of a firm. As far as the issue of marketing communications is concerned, it actually refers to the area of ‘promotion’ in a marketing mix. The term ‘communication’ refers to exchange of information. An interesting feature of communication is that although it simply implies flow of information among people, it does not mean one-way exchange of information. A successful communication takes place when the receiver of a message actually receives the message and provides proper response. Advertising is a very useful tool for communicating with potential customers. (Egan, 2007) Advertising strategies, however, vary across culture. Cultural differences are very prominent across the nations. Thus, one particular advertising or promotional formula will not be appropriate for every culture. There are various cultural dimensions that are required to take into account at the time of designing any advertisement. For example, the cultural aspects of western countries are quite different from the cultural values of the eastern nations. Thus, there exist significant differences in commercials across nations. This paper will take into account the effect of cultural differences in advertising strategies across nations. First, it will analyze cross cultural differences in consumer behavior and advertising. Then, it will select two particular cultures to examine the cultural differences in commercials. For this purpose, the paper is going to choose US commercials and commercials in Asian countries as examples to discuss cultural differences in advertising or product promotion. Cross cultural differences in consumer behavior and advertising One of the strongest points of human beings is that they can get adapted to cultural differences very easily. This has led to a huge progress in humanity and human beings. Everyone should respect each of ours cultures and this respect will build a strong bond among all human beings and will bring them more close to each other. This grip on the cultural differences has been termed in a new way as global economy which is a common platform for consumption, production and distribution. The world economy has progressed hugely and has reached heights of success because the economy has developed widely due to the extension of marketing level not only locally, but across the globe. This marketing that was done globally brought different cultures together from across all the boundaries of the world and has made all of us united in a global world. This global marketing is simply a medium the nature and idea of the product is being conceived and conveyed in the international market. This marketing that was done globally not only respected cultural differences but also overcame all the barriers of cultural differences. This also gave a boost to the global economy by connecting the whole world through close and inter dependent network. In the past cultural differences were not given much importance but in present world economy, global marketing has played a vital role in giving a respectable position to cultural differences, because nowadays in order to have a successful business organization, cultural differences plays a very vital role. (Han and Shavitt, 1994) The existence of cultural differences is due to many reasons. One of them that people from different cultures has different viewpoints and perspectives. Different people from different culture have their own way of thinking; they have different set of ideas and different working styles. It is very natural that different cultures have their own set of rituals. They not only differ in respect of lifestyles but also differ in customs, tastes and attitudes. Another vital factor behind cultural differences is the factor related to religion and racism. The two main pillars of cultural differences are race and religion. Though they are not very much reflected in global marketing but they play a lead role in the field of cultural differences. To be successful in the international world of business, a good global marketing strategy is very necessary. The global marketing strategy should be chalked out in such a way that it should not hamper the ideology behind cultural differences. Rather, it should keep cultural differences as the key point of the subject. Cultures are of different sorts. There is one culture possessed by local people and also there are cultures based nationwise. There are other forms of culture that are based on social grounds, business level and political grounds. In order to make the global marketing strategy a success, the strategy should be planned in such a way that it connects all these different cultures together and take a note of every single culture in order to avoid any kind of misdealing with cultural differences. If not taken into note, the marketing strategy which is globally based can fail invariably which in turn can collapse the global business entity. One example of such mishap is Nestle. The marketing strategy of Nestle could not focus on the point related to cultural differences as a result it affected the image and brand name of such a multi national company one of the product of Nestle substituted its global marketing strategy with the marketing strategy of Africa. Nestle was a brand name for every people nation wide. But the product that came in the market as a substitute of mother’s breast milk did not take into note the point of cultural differences, as a result, when the product was launched in the markets of Africa, it did not focused on the African culture as a result, the product proves out to be malnutritious for African babies. Since the marketing strategy did not reflect its attention on cultural differences, therefore, it did not consider the illiteracy rate of African people. Since the African people were not so literate and knowledgeable, they failed to understand the potentiality and vitality for such a product which was a substitute of mother’s breast milk and hence misused the product. This resulted in huge criticism of the global marketing strategy of Nestle which failed completely. (Han and Shavitt, 1994) Consumer behavior varies across countries as cultural differences exist across nations. In this age of globalization, a significant number of companies are becoming multinational in the sense that they are operating in different countries. The markets of most of the products have crossed their national boundaries. Today, products face an intensely competitive international market. In order to survive in this market, it is very essential to adopt appropriate marketing strategies. Advertising or product promotion occupies a significant place in the area of marketing. But given the existence of cultural differences, designing any advertising strategy for the global customers is very complicated. The advertising strategy can not be same for all consumers. Cultural values of consumers varies across countries and hence the same advertisement can not appeal in the same way to all. Thus the content of the advertisement, its design and presentation should be different in countries with different cultural values. Thus, cultural differences considered to be one of the major obstacles in developing internationally accepted products. (Han and Shavitt, 1994) One of the most important factors of success in a business entity is the strategy needed for doing advertisement and marketing. The advertising strategy should be in such a way that will bring the point of cultural differences into limelight so that it can be appealing to people of every culture and they can be satisfied with the mode of publicity done globally. There can be a particular section of people belonging to a particular culture, who may not like the mode of publicity and they might not want themselves to be spotlighted on international level. While there can be other section of people with individual culture who can be very excited grabbing all sort of attention received from different parts of the world. Therefore, one should be very careful and sensitive while structuring the plan for advertisement. (Han and Shavitt, 1994) It is very necessary for any business entity to launch their product on international grounds that the strategy for global marketing and advertising should be well designed and planned properly. In this regard we can take Mc Donald’s as a very good example. Their strategy of business is that their type of food products changes according to the nature of places and culture. Firstly, they study the food habits of the people in that particular region, they study the products that are high in demand and then they bring in their food products into the market based on the taste and preferences of the customers. This has led to a huge success of Mc Donald’s in the international market. (Han and Shavitt, 1994) Another important factor for a global marketing strategy to be successful is the mode of promotion that is done. The strategy for any promotion of a product is directly related with legal issues. The laws for advertising and promotional activities vary from one country to the other. The nature of product which is permissible in one state may not be permissible in another state. This might depend on the differences in cultures, hence, leading to a difference in taste and preferences. Industrial goods can be produces on a way that can be accepted in a global way but consumer goods cannot be produced maintaining a single particular global standard as the differences between cultures come in as a key factor. (Han and Shavitt, 1994) There are significant variation in cultural dimensions in consumer behavior cross countries. Hofstede (1991) talked about four cultural dimensions and Hall (1976) pointed out one hidden cultural dimension. Among all these dimensions, collectivism versus individualism considered to be the most important and popular cultural dimension that is widely adopted by advertisement strategy makers worldwide. However, there exists significant criticism against the cultural dimensions specified by Hofstede and Hall. Critics have pointed out their validity in present day and their generalizability (Ferle et al, 2002). Furthermore, these dimensions have also become outdated and they cn not be applied in present day. Realizing the need for developing new cultural dimensions for designing advertisements, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1998) developed a few new cultural dimensions to take into account at the time of designing advertisement strategy for a country. These cultural dimensions include universlism versus particularism, neutral versus emotional, individualism versus communitarianism, specific versus diffuse, variation in orientation in time, ascription versus achievement, and variation in attitudes towards the environmental factors. All these cultural dimensions have been built on the basis of the differences in consumer behavior across different cultures. For example, a country where consumers interact with one another diffusively in different fields of life and at different levels of personality develops a diffusive culture, whereas a country where consumers interact only in some specific fields and t a single level of personality develops a specific culture. In Asian countries like Korea, one can find diffuse culture, whereas USA is well-known for having a specific culture. Thus at the time of designing advertisement strategies for the same products for Korea and USA, differences in this cultural dimension should be kept in mind. Hence, cultural differences and global marketing strategy cannot be segregated separately, as both are inter linked with each other and also they are inter dependant. In order to meet the needs of global market , it is very much needed for successful business organizations to have a good understanding in cultural differences of different countries. Then only they will be able to serve people in the most comfortable way as it is demanded. This is a key to success for any branded international company. The more they will study and understand the nature of culture, the more they will capture the preferences of the customers hence bringing the international market into its grip. Cultural differences in advertising across nations with special focus on the differences between USA and Asian countries Cross-cultural analysis of product promotional methods is quite able to identify particular differences and similarities in promotional strategies and expressions across nations with different cultures. These kinds of findings are extremely helpful in addressing the question of whether same type of advertising strategies or expressions can be used in global marketing or expression or messages should be different across nations. A significant amount of studies have been conducted to find out the extent to which advertisement strategies differ cross countries. For example, Weinberger and Spotts (1989) performed a study to examine the difference in the content of television advertising in USA and UK. They found that television advertising broadcasted in USA used to have comparatively higher level of information than the advertising broadcasted on British television. The level of information content in USA television advertising was much higher in case of rational products. According to the researchers this difference was due to the existing differences in the socio-cultural setting of the two nations. In another cross cultural study conducted by Biswas, Olsen and Carlet (1992), it was found that French advertisements showed a greater tendency of using humorous content, emotional appeal compared to US advertisements. Frith and Wesson (1991), on the other hand, found that magazine advertisements in US portrayed more individualistic characters compared to British magazine ads. The study also found that British advertisements had a tendency of showing social class differences more than USA magazine ads. As far as cultural differences commercials of USA and Asian countries are concerned, a significant amount of studies have been conducted to examine how cultural differences are manifested in the commercials of USA and Asian Courtiers. For example, Belk and Bryce (1986) conducted a research to find out the differences between the television advertisements of USA and one of the highly developed Asian countries, Japan. They has undertaken a content analysis in an attempt to determine if there was any kind of differences in cultural values manifested in advertising in terms of individual determinism and materialism. The researchers found that US advertisements showed higher tendency of placing higher emphasis on materialism and individualism compared to Japanese advertisements. In another study as well, Mueller (1987) made significant effort to find out cultural differences between Japanese and American advertisements by performing content analysis method. The researcher mainly focused on comparing the themes of the advertisements and he came to the conclusion that consumers of the two nations had significant similarities in their tastes. He found that similar kinds of advertising appeals were used in American as well as Japanese advertisements. The researcher, however, found that the extent to which these appeals were utilized varied from one nation to another. According to the researcher, the cultural differences were reflected through the different extents to which same appeal varied from USA to the Asian country, Japan. In another study, Hong et al. (1987) tried to find out the differences between Japanese and American magazine advertisements. He focused on finding out the differences in advertising content and expressions. He took under consideration a number of cultural variables including emotional appeals, information content of advertisements. He found that there was no difference between the advertisements of USA and Japan in terms of advertisement content. However, he found that there was difference in emotional appeal in the advertisements. He found that whereas the Asian country put major emphasis on emotional appeal, USA did not placed much importance on emotional appeal of the advertisements. Ramaprasad and Hasegawa (1992) analyzed information content of commercials of Asian countries and USA. They found that most of the Asian, particularly Japanese, and American advertisements placed their focus on similar types of information cues. However, the study revealed that the commercials between the two regions mainly differed in the number of signs employed in product description and categories of strategies employed. In another study (Rice and Lu, 1988), it was found that Chinese magazine advertisements had relatively higher level of information compared to American advertisements. Alden, Hoyer and Lee (1993), on the other hand, analyzed the use of humorous content in advertisements of Asian countries and United States. The findings revealed that across the nations, particular content of humorous advertising varied across major cultural dimensions like individualism and collectivism. Other very interesting differences in culture in advertisements of Asian countries and USA have been identified by a number of researchers, For example, Kang (1988), Steward and Furse (1986) found that Asian countries have a tendency of adopting indirect and non-confrontational approach in the advertisements at the time of differentiating from competitors. On the other hand, USA has tendency of using direct and confrontational approach at the time of differentiating with competitors. In fact, American advertisements directly use the name of the competitors in the ads. The US culture is considered to be highly individualistic and hence most of the US advertisements contain individualistic appeals keeping the collectivistic at the lowest possible level. American advertisements mainly stress on self-reliance, independence, personal achievements, etc, whereas advertisements of Asian countries lay more emphasis on collective goals, family integrity, emotional content, humor, and interdependence. (Han and Shavitt,1994). It is also quite frequent for Asian advertisements to use popular figures like popular film personalities or players, whereas USA advertisements do not really stress on using popular figures. Conclusion The influence of culture difference on marketing communication has been documented quite well in several studies. All these studies have pointed out that one of the biggest challenges of international marketer is communicating messages to consumers of different culture. Because of the differences in value system, perception, attitudes, advertising strategies should vary across diverse cultures. These cultural differences in commercials are very prominent in American and Asian advertisements. Several researches have been conducted to analyze those differences. On the basis of the findings it can be concluded that while American advertisements place more emphasis on individualism, independency, direct confrontation, less emotional appeal, less humorous elements, etc., Asian commercials mainly show collectivism, emotional appeal, humor, social integrity, etc. References: 1. Weinberger, Marc G. & Harlan Spotts (1989) 'Humor in US versus UK TV Commercials: A Comparison', Journal of Advertising 18(2): 39-44. 2. Biswas, A., Olsen, J.E., Carlet, V., 1992. A comparison of print advertisements from the United States and France. Journal of Advertising 21, 73-81. 3. Frith, K. T., & Wesson, D. (1991). A comparison of cultural values in British and American print advertising: A study of magazines. Journalism Quarterly, 68(1/2), 216-223. 4. Belk, R. W., & Bryce, W. (1986). Materialism and individual determinism in U.S. and Japanese print and television advertising. 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(1986), Effective Television Advertising: A Study of 1000 Commercials, Lexington Books, Lexington, MA. Read More