The Creation and Diffusion of Global Consumer Culture Chapter 17

1. The Creation and Diffusion of Global Consumer Culture Chapter 17

2. VIBE.COM The Creation of Culture • Influence of inner-city teens • Hip-hop/black urban culture • Outsider heroes, anti-oppression messages, and alienation of blacks • “Flavor” on the streets

3. 360HIP-HOP.COM The Creation of Culture (Cont’d) • A brief chronology of black urban subculture and its incorporation into the mainstream • Co-optation • Hip-hop fashions as an example when marketing systems take meanings created by members of culture, reinterpret them, and produce them for mass consumption

4. Figure 17.1:The Movement of Meaning

5. Cultural Selection • The selection of certain alternatives over others • Culmination of complex filtration process (see Figure 17.2) • Characteristics of fashion/popular culture: • Reflection of fundamental societal trends • Style begins as risky by small group, then spreads as others become aware/confident • Styles as interplay between deliberate inventions and ordinary consumers who modify styles to suit needs • Cultural products travel widely • Influential media people decide which will succeed • Most styles eventually wear out

6. Culture Production Systems • CPS: set of individuals and organizations responsible for creating and marketing a cultural product • Important factors • Number/diversity of competing systems • Amount of encouraged innovation vs. conformity

7. Components of a CPS • Three major CPS subsystems • Creative subsystem • Eminem • Managerial subsystem • Interscope Records • Communications subsystem • Advertising and publicity agencies

8. Cultural Gatekeepers • Responsible to filtering the overflow of information and materials intended for customers • “Tastemakers” who influence products consumers get to consider • Throughput sector • Movie, restaurant, and car reviewers • Interior designers • Disc jockeys • Retail buyers • Magazine editors

9. High Culture and Popular Culture • CPSes create many kinds of products • Distinction between art and craft products • Thomas Kinkade’s success • High art vs. low art • High and low culture blend together today in interesting ways • Costco now stocks fine art (Picasso, Chagall) • We appreciate advertising as an art form • The arts are big business…marketers often incorporate high art to promote products

10. Discussion • Is advertising an art or a craft? • Which should it be?

11. Cultural Formulae • Mass culture churns out products for a mass market • Aiming to please average taste of undifferentiated audience • Certain roles/props often occur consistently • Romance novels • Recycling of images • Creative subsystem members reach back through time for inspiration (“remix” the past)

12. Discussion • Can you identify a cultural formula at work in romance or action novels? • Do you see parallels among the roles different characters play (e.g., the hero, the evildoer, the temptress, etc.)?

13. Aesthetic Market Research • Creators of aesthetic products adapt conventional marketing to fine-tune their mass-market offerings • Testing audience reactions to movie plots • Discussion: Many people would most likely oppose the practice of research findings influencing artistic decisions, claiming that books, movies, records, or other artistic endeavors should not be designed to merely conform to what people want to read, see, or hear • What do you think?

14. Reality Engineering • Many consumer environments have images/characters spawned by marketing campaigns or are “retreads” • Marketers appropriate popular culture elements and use them as promotional vehicles • “New vintage” (e.g., “used jeans”) • Elements used are both sensory and spatial

15. Examples of Reality Engineering • Japanese “alibi buddy” service • Rick’s Café in Casablanca • Coyote Ugly bars • “Soup Nazi” Al Yehaneh • Nissan’s brief in-person live commercials

16. Reality Engineering (Cont’d) • Cultivation hypothesis: the media’s ability to distort consumers’ perceptions of reality • Heavy TV viewers overestimate how wealthy people are and likelihood that they will be victims of a violent crime • Media also exaggerates frequency of behaviors such as drinking or smoking • Discussion: Comment on the growing practices described as reality engineering • Do marketers “own” our culture? Should they?

17. Product Placement • Insertion of specific products and use of brand names in movie/TV scripts • Reese’s Pieces in the film E.T. • Many consumers believe the line between advertising and programming is becoming too fuzzy/distracting • Directors like to incorporate branded props for film’s realism • Branded entertainment

18. THE APPRENTICE Product Placement (Cont’d) • Product placement can aid in consumer decision making • Familiarity of props = cultural belonging and emotional security • Incongruent placements inconsistent with plot = negative feelings for out-of-place brand • Products are popping up everywhere • NBC’s “The Apprentice” • MLB in Japan: Ricoh patches • Kmart and the WB TV shows • Companies providing “educational materials” to schools

19. Advergaming • Gamers have become a more sophisticated lot and are now more representative of the general population • Online games are merging with interactive advertisements that let companies target specific types of consumers • Advertisers can get viewers’ attention for a much longer time in video games • Can tailor games and products to user profiles • Format gives advertisers great flexibility • Can track usage and conduct market research

20. The Diffusion of Innovations • Innovation: any product that consumers perceive to be new • New manufacturing technique • New product variation • New way to deliver product • New way to package product • Diffusion of innovation • Successful innovations spread through the population at various rates

21. Adopting Innovations • Adoption of innovations resembles consumer decision-making sequence • Individualistic consumers are more innovative than collective consumers • Likelihood of adopting innovations categories • Innovators and early adopters • Laggards • Late adopters (mainstream public)

22. Adopting Innovations (Cont’d) • Innovators • Tend to be category-specific • Tend to favor taking risks • Higher educational/income levels • Socially active • Lead users • Early adopters • Concern for social acceptance (expressive products) • Involved in product category and value fashion • Tend to “field-test” style changes

23. Behavioral Demands of Innovations • Three major types of innovations (amount of disruption/change they bring to our lives): • Continuous innovation • Evolutionary rather than revolutionary • Dynamically continuous innovation • More pronounced change to existing product • Discontinuous innovation • Creates major changes in the way we live

24. Prerequisites forSuccessful Adoption • Compatibility • Trialability • Complexity • Observability • Relative Advantage

25. The Fashion System • All those people and organizations involved in creating symbolic meanings and transferring these meanings to cultural goods • Fashion affects all types of cultural phenomena (music, art, architecture, science) • Fashion as code/language for meanings • Fashion is context-dependent/ undercoded • Fashion vs. a fashion vs. in fashion

26. Cultural Categories • The basic ways we characterize the world reflects the meaning we impart to products • Culture makes distinctions between different times, leisure and work, and gender • Dominant aspects/themes of culture are reflected in design/marketing of items • Costumes of politicians, rock/movie stars • 1950s/60s: “space-age” mastery • Fashion colors for each season

27. Cultural Categories (Cont’d) • Creative subsystems attempt to anticipate the tastes of the buying public • Collective selection • The Western Look • New Wave • Nouvelle Cuisine

28. Behavioral Science Perspectives on Fashion • Psychological models of fashion • Conformity, variety seeking, attraction, etc. • “Shifting erogenous zones” and fitness premium • Economic models of fashion • Supply and demand • Parody display, prestige-exclusivity effect, and snob effect

29. Behavioral Science Perspectives on Fashion (Cont’d) • Sociological models of fashion • Collective selection model (hip-hop and Goth) • Trickle-down theory modified for contemporary Western society • Mass fashion has replaced elite fashion • Trickle-across effect • Current fashions trickle up from lower classes

30. Behavioral Science Perspectives on Fashion (Cont’d) • A “medical” model of fashion • Meme theory • Memes that survive are distinctive and memorable • Tipping point • Cycles of fashion adoption • Cabbage Patch dolls • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

31. Fashion Life Cycles • Fashions tend to flow in a predictable sequence Figure 17.4: A Normal Fashion Cycle

32. BADFADS.COM Fashion Life Cycles (Cont’d) • Fashion acceptance cycle • Stages: introduction, acceptance, and regression (see Figure 17.5) • A classic • A fad • Nonutilitarian • Adopted on impulse • Diffuses rapidly, quickly accepted, and short-lived

33. Discussion • Boots with six-inch heels are a fashion rage among young Japanese women. Followers of the style claim they are willing to risk twisted ankles, broken bones, bruised faces, and other dangers associated with the platform shoes • Many consumers around the world seem to be willing to suffer for the sake of fashion • What do you think? What is and what should be the role of fashion in our society? How important is it for people to be in style? What are the pros and cons of keeping up with the latest fashions? Do you believe that we are at the mercy of designers?

34. Fad or Trend? • Chrysler’s PT Cruiser and retro cars: a fad or a trend? • Guidelines for long-term trends: • Fits with basic lifestyle changes • A real benefit should be evident • Can be personalized • Not a side effect or a carryover effect • Important market segments adopt change

35. Transferring Product Meaningsto Other Cultures • Innovations know no geographic boundaries • Costly consequences of ignoring cultural sensitivities • 1994: McDonald’s reprinting Saudi Arabian flag on disposable packaging/promotions • 2002: McDonald’s litigation settlement for mislabeling French fries as being vegetarian • 2002: McDonald’s cancellation of McAfrika • 2005: McDonald’s Prosperity Burger

36. STARBUCKS Adopt a Standardized Strategy • As firms compete in global markets, they must learn to manage global characteristics of their brands • Success story of Starbucks’ standardized strategy around the world • Critics say that Starbucks succeeds by obliterating local customs and driving out small competitors • Café flaneurs and oppositional localists • Etics perspective: commonalities across cultures • Developing one approach for multiple, homogenized markets • Economies of scale benefit

37. Adopt a Localized Strategy • Disney learned lessons in cultural sensitivity • Euro Disney, Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland • Emic perspective: stress on variations across cultures • Each country is unique and has a national character • Strategy must be tailored to each specific culture to make product acceptable to local tastes

38. Cultural DifferencesRelevant to Marketers • People around the world develop their own unique preferences • Marketers must be aware of a culture’s norms regarding sensitive topics such as taboos and sexuality • Language barrier and back-translation • “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux” • Fresca is Mexican slang for lesbian

39. Does Global Marketing Work? • Rather…when does global marketing work? • In practice, a homogenous world culture has met with mixed results • Consumers in different countries simply do not use products the same way • Significant cultural differences can show up within the same country • Coca-Cola has been successful in crafting a single, international image • It still must make minor modifications in each culture

40. Does Global Marketing Work? (Cont’d) • Multicultural marketing efforts tend to succeed more with two types of consumer segments: • Affluent “global citizens” exposed to ideas around the world through travels, business contacts, and media experiences • Young people influenced by MTV/other media

41. Does Global Marketing Work? (Cont’d) • Three dimensions of global brands: • Quality signal • Global myth • Social responsibility • Four major segments of consumer who evaluate global brands: • Global citizens • Global dreamers • Antiglobals • Global agnostics

42. The Diffusion of Consumer Culture • The allure of American consumer culture has spread throughout the world • In a global society, we are quick to borrow from any culture we admire • Japanese culture is popular in Korea

43. I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke… • Western lifestyles/English language are associated with modernization and sophistication • Some consumers abroad say they will avoid U.S. companies/products • Some products have become so widespread that many are only vaguely aware of their countries of origin • American TV inspires knockoffs around the world (e.g., “The Apprentice”) • Also, U.S. TV hits often start out as imported European concepts (e.g., “Big Brother”)

44. I’d Like to Buythe World a Coke… (Cont’d) • Regions in the Middle East protested/ boycotted American companies and products after events of 9/11 • Critics in other countries: Americanization of their cultures = excessive materialism • Opposition to a global fast-food culture • Slow Food movement and Slow Cities group

45. Emerging Consumer Culturesin Transitional Economies • Western “decadence” appears to be infectious in foreign countries • Globalized consumption ethic • Ideal of material lifestyle and well-known brands that symbolize prosperity • Rituals/product preferences in different cultures become homogenized (e.g., Christmas in China) • Attaining consumer goods is not easy for those in transitional economies • Loss of confidence/pride in local culture as well as alienation, frustration, increase in stress

46. Emerging Consumer Culturesin Transitional Economies (Cont’d) • Meanings of consumer goods often mutate to be consistent with local customs/values • Examples of creolization: • Indipop • Coca-Cola’s Nativa soft drink • Chivas Regal wrappers on drums in highland Papua New Guinea • Japanese use Western words for anything new and exciting • “I feel Coke and sound special” • “Too old to die, too young to happy”