Ch 9 Notes Flashcards
9-1 Culture and Meaning Are Inseperable
What is Culture?
-What a person consumes helps determine acceptance by other consumers in society.
-The consumption act has meaning relative to the environment in which the act takes place; thus, culture embodies meaning.
-Culture determines what consumption behaviors are acceptable
9-1 Culture and Meaning Are Inseparable
Culture, Meaning, Value
Today’s marketplace is global.
Culture performs important functions for consumers, and these functions shape the value of consumer activities:
1.Giving meaning to activities
2.Facilitating communication
9-1 Culture and Meaning Are Inseparable
-Culture, meaning, and value are closely intertwined.
-Most, but not all, cultural norms are unwritten and simply understood by members of a cultural group.
Cultural norm
9-1 Culture and Meaning Are Inseparable
Popular culture captures cultural trends, and it shapes norms and sanctions within society.
Popular Culture
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
Where does culture come from?
Consumer researchers commonly use culture to explain and predict consumer behavior.
Culture causes differences in the value consumers perceive from different products and experiences.
What causes culture?
1.Ecological Factors
2.Tradition
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
Dimensions of cultural values
The most widely applied dimensions to describe differences in cultural values are those developed by Geert Hofstede.
The theory of value-based differences in cultures is based on multiple dimensions, with each representing an identifiable core societal value aspect.
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
Core societal values can be described along six dimensions
- Individualism
- Masculinity
- Power Distance
- Uncertainty Avoidance
- Long-Term Orientation
- Indulgence
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
High Score: Society expects one to take responsibility for self and family
Low Score: Life intertwined with large cohesive group
Individualism
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
High Score: Society values assertiveness and control
Low Score: Values caring, concilation, and community
Masculinity
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
High Score: Society values the division of authority and privilege
Low Score: Society blurs distinction among classes
Power Distance
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
High Score: Society values novelty, risk taking
Low Score: Society values charity and familiarity and avoids risks
Uncertainty Avoidance
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
High Score: Society values future rewards over short term rewards
Low Score: Society oriented in the present
Long Term Orientation
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
High Score: Values happiness and extraversion
Low Score: Values restraint and reserved personality
Indulgence
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
-Highly individualistic societies place high value on self-reliance, individual initiative, and personal achievement; nations with low individualism are high in collectivism.
-Western societies tend to be more individualistic, whereas Eastern nations tend to be more collectivistic
Individualism
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
-In a culture with low masculinity, men also tend to share some feminine traits.
-Consumers in cultures with high masculinity, regardless of biological sex, are more prone to take financial risks than are consumers in feminine cultures.
Masculinity
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
-Social class distinctions become a very real issue among consumers in high-power-distance nations.
Low-power-distance nations tend to be more egalitarian.
-In high-power-distance nations, those with less status must show deference to those with greater status.
Power Distance
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
-Consumers high in uncertainty avoidance prefer the known, avoid taking risks, and like life to be structured and routine.
-Nations that are high in uncertainty avoidance will be slower to adopt new products or react to novel price promotions.
-Consumers in high-uncertainty-avoidance cultures are quicker to buy something because of a perceived fear of scarcity of products.
Uncertainty Avoidance
9-2 Using Core Societal Values
-A CSV scoreboard can be put together using historical CSV dimension scores.
-The CSV scores for a given country can be essential information for marketers
CSV Scoreboard
9-3 How is Culture Learned?
Enculturation represents the way in which consumers learn and develop shared understandings of things (objects, products, services, actions, rituals) with their families.
Encultuation
9-3 How is Culture Learned?
Acculturation is a learning process.
*Old beliefs are replaced by new beliefs.
*Children generally become acculturated more quickly than adults.
Acculturation
9-3 How is Culture Learned?
Sociology theory long recognizes the family, school, and church as primary acculturation and enculturation agents
In more recent times, the influence of popular media, including electronic media, also merits consideration as an influential institution
Quartet of Institutions
9-3 How is Culture Learned?
Beyond the teen years particularly, differences in tastes, political views, and preferences are expected to remain somewhat distinct from culture to culture
Culture and Policy Related Consumer Communication
9-3 How is Culture Learned?
Young children observe their parents and model their behavior.
Adolescents may be more susceptible to modeling their friends’ behavior.
Modeling
9-4 Fundamental Elements of Communication
-Marketers wrestle with the problem of translating advertisements, research instruments, product labels, and promotional materials into foreign languages for foreign markets.
-Translation alone is insufficient to guarantee effective communication
Verbal Communication
9-4 Fundamental Elements of Communication
Translation–back translation is a way to try to produce translational equivalence.
Translational equivalence
9-4 Fundamental Elements of Communication
Comparing average scores for consumer attitudes from one culture to the next requires scalar equivalence
Metric equivalence
9-4 Fundamental Elements of Communication
-Research suggests that well-known global brands are better off sticking to real English in advertisements.
-Local brands in non–English-speaking countries can improve their quality perceptions by using a little Globish.
Globish
9-4 Fundamental Elements of Communication
Many nonverbal communication cues are culturally laden so that the meaning depends on culture
Nonverbal Communication
9-4 Fundamental Elements of Communication
Nonverbal Communication Affects the Message Comprehended
- Time
- Verbal Communication
- Symbols
- Relationships
- Agreement
- Etiquette
- Space
- Mannerisms/Body Language
= Message!
9-4 Fundamental Elements of Communication
-Americans typically place a high value on time and timeliness.
-Consumers from some other cultures do not value timeliness in the same way.
-In other cultures where individualism is much lower than in the United States, timeliness is not valued as highly.
-Asian cultures show much more patience consistent with high long-term orientation.
Time
9-4 Fundamental Elements of Communication
The mannerisms that reveal meaning include the following characteristics:
-Facial expressions
-Posture
-Arm/leg position
-Skin conditions
-Voice tone
Mannerisms/Body Language
9-4 Fundamental Elements of Communication
Space varies in importance based on population density.
The value that consumers place on space affects communication styles.
Space
9-4 Fundamental Elements of Communication
Differing CSVs have other implications for consumer–brand or consumer–service provider relationships.
With high collectivism, the idea of a relationship is no longer personal
Relationships
9-4 Fundamental Elements of Communication
An Asian consumer who responds to a sales appeal with “yes” is not indicating agreement. This is more a way of indicating that the consumer understands what is being said
Agreement
9-4 Fundamental Elements of Communication
Because different cultures have different value profiles, objects and activities take on different symbolic or semiotic meaning.
The symbolic meaning of objects also affects gift giving from culture to culture.
Marketers need to take care not to unintentionally promote offensive items based on cultural symbolism.
Symbols
9-5 Emerging Cultures
International marketers traditionally direct most efforts at consumers from developed nations.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, marketing investment in developing nations increased dramatically.
In recent years, the high uncertainty associated with many emerging markets has curbed further direct foreign investment.
*In 2020, the U.S. represents the most attractive markets for foreign investment.
*China comes in second place at about half of the investment in the United States.
*After China, Brazil is the next emerging market.
9-5 Emerging Cultures
Brazil, Russia, India, and China were singled out as having rapidly growing economies.
In each market, large middle classes emerged as job opportunities followed the emerging consumer cultures.
In 2010, South Africa was added to the list to turn BRIC into BRICS.
Political changes coupled with large, growing populations mean that places like Mexico, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nigeria, Vietnam, and the Philippines may be leaders in the next round of emerging consumer cultures.
BRIC Markets
9-5 Emerging Cultures
Over 250 million households call India home.
As Indian incomes rise, the market potential of India expands as well.
More and more Chindian consumers are stepping up to some luxuries that would have been out of their reach previously.
Chindia
9-5 Emerging Cultures
he term glocalization represents one alternative that allows flexibility in responding to the unique value profiles of consumers.
In contrast, global brands like Coca-Cola and Red Bull shun the glocalization approach in favor of a more global appeal.
Glocalization
