Lesson 4 Social and Cultural Environments

1. Lesson 4Social and Cultural Environments

2. Society, Culture, and Global Consumer Culture • Culture – Ways of living, built up by a group of human beings, that are transmitted from one generation to another • Culture is both material and nonmaterial • Physical aspect includes items created by humans • Abstract culture includes attitudes, beliefs, values

3. Material and Nonmaterial • Physical components of culture • Objects • Artifacts • Clothing • Tools • Pictures • Homes • Subjective or abstract culture • Religion • Perceptions • Attitudes • Beliefs • Values Return

4. Culture and marketing • Some ways of living are unique • Some ways of living are shared • Rapid inter-connectedness means shared ways of living increase • Global consumer cultures (credit-card culture, pub culture, coffee culture, fast-food culture, etc.) • Rapid interconnectedness means that resistance to imported cultures also increases • Cargill seeds, KFC in India

5. Culture and marketing • Find which aspects of culture does your product / brand impact • Are these aspects shared / unique • Shared aspects: standardized marketing programs • Unique aspects: Adapted marketing programs

6. Kelloggs breakfast cereals in India • Which aspects of culture are impacted? • Breakfast habits • Indians like to eat hot, sit-down breakfasts • Milk generally comes in fresh every morning. Needs to be heated before consumption • Rice preparations in the south, wheat and corn preparations in the north • Are used to and prefer spicier foods • Drink hot tea with milk and sugar with breakfast • Oats are for horses • Often eat with their fingers – may use a spoon

7. Kelloggs breakfast cereals in India • What should Kelloggs adapt and what should they standardize? • Product • Price • Place • Promotion

8. Society, Culture, and Global Consumer Culture “Culture is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one category of people from those of another.” - Geert Hofstede

9. Society, Culture, and Global Consumer Culture • Global consumer cultures are emerging • Persons who share meaningful sets of consumption-related symbols • Pop culture; coffee culture; fast-food culture • Primarily the product of an interconnected world • Primarily embodied in the global teenager • Which products are impacted by GCC?

10. Attitudes, Beliefs and Values • Belief - an organized pattern of knowledge that an individual holds to be true about the world • E.g. Japanese products are of a higher quality • Positioning implications for Japanese brands? • Attitudes - learned tendency to respond in a consistent way to a given object or entity • Like French wines over Chilean wines • Marketing implications for Chilean wines?

11. Attitudes, Beliefs and Values • Value - enduring belief or feeling that a specific mode of conduct is personally or socially preferable to another mode of conduct • Under strict Islamic law, women not allowed to socialize with men • What implications does this have for a dating service?

12. Religion Religion is one important source of society’s beliefs, attitudes, and values. The world’s major religions include: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.

13. Religion

14. Aesthetics • The sense of what is beautiful and what is not beautiful • What represents good taste as opposed to tastelessness or even obscenity • Visual – embodied in the color or shape of a product, label, or package • Styles – various degrees of complexity, for example are perceived differently around the world

15. Aesthetics and Color • What do you associate with Red? • Active, hot, vibrant • Weddings in some Asian cultures • Poorly received in African countries • With white? • Purity, cleanliness • Death in parts of Asia • With gray? • Cheap in China & Japan • Expensive in US and GB Return

16. Dietary Preferences • Would you eat….. • Reindeer (Finland) • Rabbit & Snails (France) • Rice, soup, and grilled fish for breakfast (Japan) • Kimchi - Korea • Blood sausage (Germany) • Converging dietary preferences (fast food)

17. Language and Communication

18. Phonology in action • Colgate is a Spanish command that means ‘go hang yourself’ • Technology implications for Text messages • 8282 means ‘hurry up’ (Korea) • 7170 means ‘close friend’ (Korea) • 4 5683 968 means ‘I Love You’ (Korea) Return

19. Some communication gaffes • The Big Mac: Originally sold in France under the name Gros Mec. The expression means "big pimp" in French. • The Rolls-Royce Silver Myst: In German, mist means "human waste." (Clairol's Mist Stick curling iron had the same problem.) • GM cars: Originally sold in Belgium using the slogan, "Body by Fisher," which translated as "Corpse by Fisher." • Cue toothpaste: Marketed in France by Colgate-Palmolive until they learned that Cue is also the name of a popular pornographic magazine.

20. Communication gaffes • Puffs tissues: In Germany, puff is slang for "whorehouse." • The Jotter: A pen made by Parker. In some Latin countries, jotter is slang for "jockstrap." • Schweppes Tonic Water: The company changed the name from Schweppes Tonic Water to Schweppes Tonica when they learned that in Italian, "il water" means "the bathroom."

21. Marketing’s Impact on Culture • Universal aspects of the cultural environment represent opportunities to standardize elements of a marketing program • Improved communications have contributed to a convergence of tastes and preferences in a number of product categories

22. Marketing’s Impact on Culture • Movement has 70,000 members in 35 countries • “Slow food is about the idea that things should not taste the same everywhere.”

23. High- and Low-Context Cultures • High Context • Information resides in context • Emphasis on background, basic values • Less emphasis on legal paperwork • Focus on personal reputation • Saudi Arabia, Japan • Low Context • Messages are explicit and specific • Words carry all information • Reliance on legal paperwork • Focus on non-personal documentation of credibility • Switzerland, US, Germany

24. High- and Low-Context Cultures

25. Hofstede’s Cultural Typology • Power Distance – expectation and acceptance of unequal distribution of power (High PD – Hongkong, France; Low PD – Austria) • Individualism / Collectivism – ‘one above all or all above one’ (High I/C – USA, UK; Low I/C – Taiwan) • Masculinity – sharply defined roles for men and women (High M/F – Japan; Low M/F – Sweden) • Uncertainty Avoidance – comfort with ambiguity (High UA – Greece, Portugal; Low UA – Denmark) • Long-Term Orientation – Is gratification immediate or deferred (High LTO – Hongkong; Low LTO – Spain)

26. Hofstede’s Cultural Typology – Some Implications • Power distance – higher PD means lower trust levels • Greater control preferred in countries with high PD • Greater individualism – generally greater demand for luxury goods • Immediate gratification, less team work • Greater collectivism – word-of-mouth very powerful e.g. Tamogotchi (virtual pets) • Groups in ads vs. individuals in ads

27. Hofstede’s Cultural Typology – Some Implications • Masculinity – directly related to decision-making roles • Greater masculinity means women relegated to less powerful roles • Uncertainty Avoidance – greater UA means greater brand loyalty • Advertising stresses warranties, brand names, guarantees • LTO – greater LTO lays greater stress on building relationships and customer satisfaction • Building relationships comes first, business, later

28. Self-Reference Criterion and Perception • Unconscious reference to one’s own cultural values; creates cultural myopia; e.g. Coke’s advertising in India • How to Reduce Cultural Myopia: • Define the problem or goal in terms of home country cultural traits • Define the problem in terms of host-country cultural traits; make no value judgments • Isolate the SRC influence and examine it • Redefine the problem without the SRC influence and solve

29. Diffusion Theory • The Adoption Process • Characteristics of Innovations • Categories of Adopters

30. The Adoption Process • The mental stages through which an individual passes from the time of his or her first knowledge of an innovation to the time of product adoption or purchase • Awareness • Interest • Evaluation • Trial • Adoption Return

31. Characteristics of Innovations • Innovation is something new, five factors that affect the rate at which innovations are adopted include • Relative advantage • Compatibility • Complexity • Divisibility • Communicability Return

32. Categories of Adopters • Classifications of individuals within a market on the basis of their innovativeness. • Five categories • Innovators • Early Adopters • Early majority • Late majority • Laggards

33. Categories of Adopters Return

34. Implications for marketers • New product adoption and diffusion speeds vary depending on Hofstede’s typology and Context culture • E.g. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are high context cultures where uncertainty avoidance is high – new product adoption under a well-known brand name will proceed faster than in the West

35. Environmental Sensitivity • Environmental Sensitivity reflects the extent to which products must be adapted to the culture-specific needs of different national markets • Sensitive products – food, clothing, etc. • Insensitive products – Integrated Circuits

36. Environmental Sensitivity