Major Concepts Influencing International Marketing - Essay Example

?Introduction Cultures are deep-seated; cultures are pervasive. Culture drives how people communicate and what they communicate. As international marketing communication has been of increasing interest, marketers have also developed interest in advertising across markets and cultures. Globalization of markets may have resulted in homogenization of needs, desires and preferences but cultures being deep-seated, it has not altered how individuals conceive and perceive messages. More and more marketers believe that as desires and needs converge, markets are becoming homogenized (Chan et al, 2007). However, globalization has not diminished social and cultural differences across markets which suggest that marketing communication strategy needs to address these differences when communicating across cultures. Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture are the most widely applied theory in understanding national and international markets. This paper argues that the concepts of self, personality and identity differ across culture which in turn influences advertising strategy across different markets. However, advertising strategy cannot solely be based on Hofstede’s dimensions of culture. Other factors and variables could also influence the advertising appeals. It is essential to understand how advertising works in different cultures and to understand this, the advertising value has to be perceived in the right manner. Consumers and Cultural dimensions Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another (Hofstede, 1990). National culture differentiates one nation from another but within the national culture several subcultures may exist. Consumers differ not only in their lifestyle, beliefs, attitudes and buying habits and at the root of all these, is the difference in culture. Cultural values actually represent the core beliefs of the society. It also includes education, religion and the physical environment. Attitudes develop over time and can change with age and education. In personal communication verbal and body language both can difference across cultures. Understanding cultural differences is a prerequisite for international advertising as a culture’s values are reflected in its advertising (Aillaud & Hahnel, 2006; Chang et al, 2009; Alozie, 2010). Culture and advertising Culture and advertising are inherently related and beliefs towards advertising differ across cultures (Liu et al, 2011). Advertising represents a special type of mass media discourse where verbal and non-verbal messages are unified into a single entity (Ustinova, 2008). Advertising merges the voices of authority and intimacy as they are constrained by the need to fulfill the wishes of their clients. Advertising is closely related to culture and must be adapted to meet the consumer’s needs. Tastes and desires may have become homogenous; values and needs have not become universal (Cemalovic, 2009). Cultural differences continue to exist in language, customs, and habits which heighten the importance of localizing the marketing strategy. Cultural values are an integral part of the consumer’s self. Therefore, for advertisements to be effective, they should be centered on the customer. Mental and social processes also make a difference in how advertisements are perceived (Mooij & Hofstede, 2010). Mental processes are internal – how people learn, perceive and process messages. Social processes include motivation and emotions. Both these processes affect mass communication and interpersonal communication which in turn impact the advertising appeals and advertising style. Advertising appeal and culture While designing advertisements the consumers must be focused upon. Culture influences various elements of consumer behavior and each of these have to be considered by the marketers when designing advertisements. Consumers differ in how they process information and perceive the message. Advertising appeals are specific approaches that marketers use to communicate how their products will satisfy customer needs by embedding values, norms and characteristics (Emery & Tiam, 2010). Cultural values form the core of advertising messages and typical advertisements reinforce the cultural values. Advertising has also been considered a mirror that reflects the values of certain cultures. Different cultures appeal to different emotions through advertisements. The Japanese ads contain more emotional and fewer comparative appeals while it is the reverse in the US. Emotions are universal but emotions are suppressed in high-power distance cultures (Mooij & Hofstede, 2010). Japanese is a collectivist society and also scores low on uncertainty avoidance. Chinese advertisements contain more utilitarian appeals and they focus on the being, and the promise of a better life. The post-modern society consumes signs and images, and hence advertisements have the power to control the behavior through emotional appeal. Denmark and Great Britain widely differ in their cultural norms and values as per Hofstede’s culture dimensions. Beer consumption is a social phenomenon in both cultures and is associated with relaxation. However, different emotional appeals have to be used for beer advertisements in these two cultures because as per Hofstede’s cultural model Denmark is a highly feminine culture while Great Britain has more masculine values (Cemalovic, 2009). Thus Denmark values community and care and hence the advertisements depict beer consumption as being harmonic. Great Britain is more success-oriented and hence the advertisements focus on exclusivity and quality of beer. Both these cultures have low power distance and weak uncertainty avoidance but as they differ in their scores in femininity, the emotional appeal differs. This also confirms that while the desire and taste for beer is prevalent in both cultures, cultural values differ which impacts advertising and marketing communication. Moreover, these two countries are not culturally very distant and hence the findings carry importance. Another study was conducted among two culturally close nations and the study found that while the two cultures differed in their attribute rating. Gen Xers’ attitude towards advertising was evaluated in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Respondents across both cities found advertising interesting and entertaining but the attribute rating differed across the two cities (Jozsa et al, 2010). This finding is important as it shows that culture is not the only factor that influences advertising appeal. This could be associated with differences in education and level of sophistication. Therefore the external environment also influences how the messages are perceived. Hong Kong is a multicultural city and the youth is more sophisticated than the Xers in Shanghai. This study also demonstrates the difference that can occur due to subcultures. Hofstede model of national cultures Hofstede’s culture model has been depicted along four dimensions – individualism (IDV – group or individual orientation), power distance (PD – societal desire for hierarchy), masculinity (MAS – sex role dimension) and uncertainty avoidance (UA – culture’s tolerance for uncertainty) (Okazaki & Mueller, 2007). This basis of categorizing regions and cultures also enabled a deeper understanding of cross-cultural consumerism and helps marketers in adapting a localized approach to marketing. Cultural differences along the individualism-collectivism dimension affects people’s reaction to certain advertising appeals. Thus advertising that focus on individualistic benefits are more successful and appealing in the US than in China. The outcome can change depending upon the product attributes, claim Emery and Tiam (2010). Emery and Tian (2010) find that Hofstede’s cultural dimensions may not be used as the sole predictor for effective advertising appeals. This model according to them lacks the currency and fine grain necessary to predict the success of effective advertisement appeals. According to the authors other factors such as age, product usage, political-legal factors and societal trends influence the effectiveness of advertising appeals. Besides, Hofstede’s model was prepared decades ago and changes in the social, technological, legal and political environment could have influenced changes in how advertisements are perceived, contend Tiam and Emery. However, there is no concrete evidence to suggest that this and advertising appeals continue to be governed by cultural paradoxes. Advertising also includes visual imagery, colors, movements, music, and other non-verbal elements to convey cultural values. Nigeria being a developing country, international marketers have been finding the location attractive and have been using different advertising techniques. Advertisement brought about changes in consumption habits and the youth found the advertisements of western products more reliable. Such messages prompted a major cultural shift in the society and away from traditional values. Nestle introduced a major campaign urging young mothers to give up traditional breast-feeding. Through visual imagery, Nestle implanted the idea that women who use baby formula retain their youth and beauty and carry on with their normal life (Alozie, 2010). While this was unethical advertising on the part of Nestle, the Nigerian women were attracted to such advertisements because of lack of education. The Nigerian society has an uncertainty avoidance culture and hence fell prey to such advertisements. Through such advertisements Nestle could appeal to their emotion to be modern and westernized. This also shows that marketers do not adopt standardized marketing techniques. Cultural sensitivity Advertisers do not take into account cultural sensitivity in their commercials. A television commercial of McDonald's in China featured a Chinese man kneeling down to beg for discount. This was considered insulting the Chinese consumers and “kneeling down” was considered degrading (Chan et al, 2007). This was perceived as unequal power distribution between the Chinese consumer and the advertiser, hinting American imperialism. Moreover, collectivist societies pay attention to relationship between objects (Mooij & Hofstede, 2010). This was considered offensive in China and similarly, in Germany a Benetton campaign was considered offensive. This campaign showed several offending visuals such as blood-covered dirty clothes, overcrowded boats with refugees jumping into the sea, dying people or people with tattoos reading “HIV positive”. All of these were considered offensive. This study suggests that dissimilar cultures (China collectivist and Germany individualistic) can also find advertisements offensive. Therefore offensiveness cannot be decided based on the cultural dimensions of Hofstede. Time, place and demographics can affect consumers’ perceived level of offensiveness, thereby implying that advertisers need to go beyond the cultural theory of Hofstede in designing advertisements. The degree of offensiveness can vary across time and geographic location. Besides, different attributes could convey offensiveness in different markets. Competitive environment Advertising both reflects and influences cultural values. This results in perceptual difference which in turn implies that different advertising information content has to be used in different cultures (Tai & Chan, 2001). Hong Kong and the US have high degree of similarities as far as their political system, economic condition and literacy rates are concerned. Both encourage consumption and are open to consumption from all over the world. Creative expression and freedom of speech is encouraged by their governments. However, the two nations differ across the cultural dimensions as per Hofstede’s model. Hong Kong demonstrates high power index while the US has high individualism scores. Advertising for financial services in both these cultures required different information content but these were not based on the differences in cultural values. These were based on the competitive environment in these two cultures. The Hong Kong Chinese prefer more emotional ads and hence packaging cues were used. Again, Hofstede’s cultural theory is not always the basis on which advertising appeals can be decided. The advertising appeals used in ads in Korea are related to interdependence and harmony whereas in the US they are related to independence and individuality (Hornikx & O’Keefe, 2009). Since values are emphasized different in different cultures advertising too displays this variation. Advertisements that adapt to the cultural values can be slightly more persuasive and better liked than ads that are not adaptive to cultural values. However, this is applicable only to individualism-collectivism dimensions. The role of two cultural dimensions – individualism –collectivism and uncertainty avoidance was evaluated in humor types in print advertising across two culturally diverse environments – UK and Greece. The UK is a highly individualistic society while Greece scores extremely on individualism scores. At the same time the UK scores the lowest in the EU in uncertainty avoidance against Greece which scores the highest. Humor ads in the UK are witty ads with high entertainment value, aimed at particular social class (Hatzithomas, Zotos & Boutsoki, 2010). Communication is subtle and they are least intrusive, implying individualistic nature of the society. Greece was going through a transition and this transition reflected in their advertisements. Cultural and social orientations influence people’s interpretation of pictorial representations of social behavior in print ads. Consumers with different social identities interpret images depicting independent and interdependent social interactions (Callow & Schiffman, 2003). The Filipino audience has a collectivist orientation and hence more likely to develop interdependent implicatures. They consider interdependence as a weak characteristic compared to the US and the Spanish societies, which are individualistic in nature. Thus the high-context audiences such as the Filipinos are more likely to over-read into the meaning of the visual ads. Collectivist societies attach more importance to such visuals thereby creating weak implicatures which are positively related to their perceived social identity. Cultural differences also impact the verbal and non-verbal language. English is the common language of international business but its interpretation differs across cultures. When Pepsi entered the Chinese market, the translation of their slogan "Pepsi Brings you back to Life" was a little over-read into the meaning, which is typical of high-context cultures. They associated “back to life” with “back from the grave”. Clearer messages have to be designed so that there is no scope for the consumers to decipher unwanted interpretations. Therefore, advertisers need to have a deeper understanding of the local culture in international markets. Discussion and conclusion Thus the research suggests that Hofstede model of national culture has been extensively applied to global marketing and advertising. The model does explain various concepts of how different cultures interpret messages, how values make a difference on product usage and how societies find meanings into advertisements. This paper however, finds that while Hofstede model is widely accepted and applied, in recent times, advertisers and marketers have to go beyond the model to gain deeper insight and enhance the advertisement value. That culture and advertising are interlinked has been established. Advertisers have been attempting to design advertising that reflects the culture and the cultural values of the target audience. However, advertisers recognize that adhering to theories and models do not suffice and advertising must meet consumer needs. They also recognize that advertising appeals are influenced by several other factors. How people learn, perceive and process messages differ across cultures. Thus, emotional appeals are used different in different cultures as in some societies emotions are suppressed while in other emotions are expressed. This would influence how they perceive the ad messages that have an emotional appeal. While product usage is common to two different cultures the purpose of usage differs and hence advertising has to reflect the different needs of these two cultures, as in the case of beer advertising in Great Britain and Denmark. The impact and effectiveness of ads also depends upon the economic status of a nation. Nigerian consumers could be lured by ads because of low education levels but the same ad will not work in another equally developing nation with similar cultural values, where the education level may be higher. Competitive environment can also impact how advertisements are interpreted and perceived. Therefore, while the Hofstede model of national cultures is widely applied, factors such as age, education, economic environment, competitive environment and other external factors also have to be focused on, if the advertisers wish to fulfil customer needs and not create ads that have offensive value or no value. Nevertheless, knowledge of the dimensions of national culture does help but over time changes in the external environment should encourage the advertisers and marketers to alter their advertising strategy as well. References Aillaud, N. & Hahnel, O. (2006). The Validity of Cultural Dimensions in the Development Process of International Advertising. [online] Available at: [Accessed 27 April 2012] Alozie, E.C. (2010). Advertising and Culture: Semiotic Analysis of Dominant Symbols Found in Nigerian Mass. Journal of Creative Communications, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 1-22 Callow, M. & Schiffman, L.G. (2003). Sociocultural meanings in visually standardized print ads. 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English and American Culture Appeal in Russian Advertising. Journal of Creative Communications, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 71 Read More