The Influence of Culture on Consumer Behaviour

1. The Influence of Culture on Consumer Behaviour

2. Agenda • Introduce culture concepts • Examine Canadian core values • Discuss culture concepts using two exercises

3. What is Culture? Culture The sum total of learned beliefs, values, and customs that serve to regulate the consumer behaviour of members of a particular society. • “Society’s Personality” • What is the difference between beliefs, values and customs?

4. Culture Key Characteristics of Culture • The impact of culture is hard to identify • Culture is dynamic • Culture is shared • Culture is learned through enculturation and acculturation • Culture offers order, direction, and guidancein all phases of human problemsolving • e.g. When to eat, Where to eat • What factors affect cultural change?

5. A Theoretical Model of Culture’s Influence on Behavior - Figure 2

6. Lifestyle Matrix for Global YouthFigure 3 Supranational Group Level We can also look at culture on a national level or group level 6

7. Formal Learning Informal Learning Technical Learning Forms of Cultural Learning • Enculturation and acculturation

8. Exercise #3 • Summarize a television show you watched recently. Describe how the program transmitted cultural beliefs, values and customs. • Did the commercials shown during the program create or reflect cultural values?

9. How Culture is Communicated • Language and symbols • Ritual • Type of symbolic activity consisting of a series of steps • Can be public or private • Often formal or scripted • Tend to be replete with ritual artifacts (products) that are associated with performance of the ritual • Examples? • Wedding, Birthday, Superbowl, Girls Night, X-Ring

10. What is Canadian Culture? • Rant • One Week • Canadian, Please • Criteria for Value Selection • The value must be pervasive. • The value must be enduring. • The value must be consumer-related.

11. American/Canadian Core Values National Post Survey

12. Canadian Versus American Core Values • Core values are not a Canadian phenomenon • Differences between Canadian and American values stem from differences in founding values, experiences and institutions • Are Canadian and American values diverging?

13. Comparison of Canadian and American Values

14. Enduring and dynamic

15. Relate to non-conformists Couples sharing home are family Widely advertised product is probably a good product Discuss problems and issues with others Father as master of house Prepared to take risk Enjoy demonstrating country’s superiority Men superior

16. Comparison of Canadian and American Values – cont’d • Canadians are less likely to say that religion is important to them • There are more agnostics, atheists and secular humanists in Canada than in the US • Canadians value the influence of immigrants more than Americans • Canadians are more ‘liberal’ in their values at every age than Americans

17. The Measurement of Culture • Content Analysis • A method for systematically analyzing the content of verbal and/or pictorial communication. • Frequently used to determine prevailing social values of a society. • Consumer Fieldwork • A measurement technique that takes place within a natural environment that focuses on observing behaviour (sometimes without the subjects’ awareness). • Includes participant-observers • Value Measurement Instruments • Rokeach Value Survey (RVS), List of Values (LOV), Lifestyle and Values (VALS)

18. Exercise #4

21. To which core Canadian values would you appeal in marketing the following? • Blood donation • Sun tan lotion • Diet cola • iPad (‘3’) • Recruiting volunteers to a charitable organization • Recycled products

22. Culture and Marketing Strategy • Identify key cultural values that affect the consumption of the product • Ensure the marketing mix appeals to these values • Examine changes in cultural values and adapt the marketing mix if needed • Modify marketing mix to subcultures if the culture is heterogeneous • Be aware of symbols and ritual