Article by: Ramona Stanca

International Marketing Communication - Cultural influence

One of the oldest definitions of culture is the one of Tylor, who defines culture as "Culture is that whole complex which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, laws, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by the individuals of one society ".  (Tylor, 1871, p. 1).

Researcher Geert Hofstede defined culture as "the collective mind which distinguishes the members of a human group from another "(Hofstede, 1991, p.5). Culture, in this sense, includes the systems of values; and the values ​​are among essential components of a culture (Adler, 1997, p 15).

Therefore, the culture is a collective phenomenon that is shaped by the social environment of the individuals and not by the individuals themselves. Essentially, culture is the whole legacy of a society, transmitted by word speech, literature or other forms of communication, but also the way of life and thought of that society that are passed on from generation to generation. Culture reflects the human side of economic environment.

Culture has a strong impact on marketing activity. Marketing involves gaining profit by meeting needs, human desires and requirements. In order to better meet them, the target-market culture must be understood.

Cultural influence on product decisions

There is a wide range of decisions regarding the product, the product itself, branding, packaging, labelling, warranties and after-sales service, positioning. Regarding the product itself, the important characteristics that are influenced by the culture are the dimensions of the product, shape of the product, the content itself of the product, the quality, methods of use of the product, the product color. Product dimensions as size, capacity or volume are subject to market and environmental influences, and often require separate solutions for each market. One of the important factors is the choice of the system metric or nemetric. The company must go beyond the simple conversion from one system to another. And also other environment factors influence the size of the product. Japanese hands are smaller; Americans feet are bigger, so gloves and shoe manufacturers have to take into account this fact. Also, houses in some countries are less spacious and manufacturers of houses items should take this into account. Even in the countries where the customers’ preferences seem to be similar, there are significant differences regarding the size and capacity of the products. The European Union consumers have special preferences on washing machines. Italians prefer washing machines with a capacity of 4 kg, English a capacity of 5 kg and Germans and Swedes prefer washing machines with a capacity of 6 kg.

The product shape is an important element in the decision to produce. In this respect, the symbolism is a key-factor in the decision to produce (Dubois, 1987). The symbolic representations have theirs expression in tradition and habits. If the symbolic attribute of a product is negatively charged, it will be amended. The Middle East, the round or square representations are accepted. The six-pointed star or the raised forefinger are avoided.

The content of the product itself is also influenced by the culture, in particular the consumer goods. The Muslims do not eat pork and do not drink alcohol. Therefore, in the Islamic countries the animal fat should be replaced by the vegetal fat due to the religious restrictions. The Brahman Hindus do not eat meat at all. For example, the Australian company, Uncle Ben's, a producer of food for pets had to eliminate pork even from the food for the animals, as the consumption of Pork is forbidden by the Islam religion. If there are a large number of illiterates or women are excluded from education, the products should be simplified.

A product may have varied uses on other markets, and the methods of preparation may be different. For example, the American company Dunkin's Donuts, didn’t success at the beginning in Brazil, because usually the locals do not serve breakfast. So they had to adapt to the local market, making products from local fruits for dessert or parties.

Neither the company Campbell wasn’t successful in Brazil with his beef and vegetable soups, as the Brazilian housewives prefer dry soups like Knorr and they add local ingredients.

An important role has the colors of the product. They can be used to distinguish the mark - the company Herz, for example, uses yellow and Avis green. Rolls Royce uses shiny silver to create the image of a luxury car. Pepsi-Cola had many problems when they changed the color of their machines from dark blue in blue sky in the countries from South-East Asia, as this color symbolizes there mourning and death.

The brand is influenced by the following elements of culture: language , aesthetics and cultural values. The brand name may be influenced primarily by the language if it is not translated correctly and its meaning has a negative connotation . For example, the expression "no va " in Spanish means "no go " and can be confused with the Italian word " nova " which means "new". As a result, the company General Motors was not successful in the Spanish-speaking countries with its Nova model . Also, the word " Fresca " (name of U.S. soft drink Fresca ) is a Spanish slang for lesbians; and the cars brand Pinto from Ford had to be changed into Corcel in Brazil , after it was discovered that in this country " pinto " is a slang for the male sexual organ. Sometimes the same word has a completely different meaning in other countries (false friends). For example, the word "diet" in French suggests a poor health. So, in France, Coca –Cola doesn’t use " Diet Coca -Cola ", but" Coca- Cola Light ".

In the countries with high patriotism, the local brands must be used in order to access the market. For example, in 1996, the Vietnamese government has imposed that the name of all the brands to be local. (Kotabe, Helsen, 1998, p 336).

The decisions regarding packaging focus essentially on the shape and on the package structure, its size, color, material culture. The Americans prefer to buy mayonnaise and mustard in jars, while in Germany and Switzerland are preferred the tubes. Also, in the United States usually the beer is packaged in cans, while in Europe is packed in bottles. The size of the package varies depending on the purchase model and the market conditions. In low-income countries, the goods are usually sold by piece and not in packages with more products.

The labeling involves the use of the appropriate language. If the label contains important information for the consumer, usually it must be written in their own language, which implies the existence of labels for each market. Moreover, the symbols on the labels and packages have their explanation in the traditions and customs. In India, for example, elephants, parrots, tigers are used as trade marks on labels and packages. In countries where the percentage of illiterates is high, the labels should be adapted accordingly.

The influence of culture on promotion decisions

The element of the promotional mix the most influenced by the culture is the advertising.

The following aspects of advertising are influenced by culture : media , contents, advertising budget and  the relationship advertising agency-client. Perhaps the most dominant feature of the global advertising is the proliferation of advertising media. Media advertising can be influenced by the material culture which limits the available supports. In developed countries you can find the full range of media: television, radio, newspapers, cinema and billboards.  In the countries which are developing, some of these media - television, newspapers - are missing, especially in rural areas. Even in the countries where these media exist, there are restrictions which limit their availability for advertisement. These restrictions range from a total ban on television advertising (Sweden) to limit it to 15 to 20 minutes a day in lumps of 3 to 5 minutes. Some countries don’t have enough magazines and newspapers to insert all advertisements required and others didn’t introduce yet the satellite television or cable. Even when there is media, it may not be available for advertising. For example, in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia you cannot make radio advertising. In Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Saudi Arabia neither the commercial television is not available for advertising ( Jeannet , Hennessey , 1998, p 476). Advertising content is influenced by material culture, language, religion, education, customs and traditions and norms.

Conclusions

Because the decisions regarding the marketing mix and the policies standardization/adaptation are essential in the international marketing, further research is needed on the impact of cultural variables. Before this, the cultural structures relevant in marketing still need to be identified. This has been achieved so far by using the four cultural dimensions of Hofstede for estimating the cultural differences. However, the dimensions of Hofstede may not correspond to the objectives of international marketing. The samples of Hofstede were selected by sex and age (Usunier, 2000, p 74), not by socioeconomic class, geosocial regions, ethnic backgrounds, etc.. Therefore, further research are necessary regarding the identification of specific models (or commons) of consumption.

References

Adler, N.A. (1997). International Dimensions of Organizational Bahaviour, SW College

Publishing, Cincinnati

Dubois, B. (1987). Culture et marketing, în Recherche et Applications en Marketing, vol. 11-1, pp. 47-64

Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind, McGraw-Hill, London

Kotabe, M., Helsen, K. (1998). Global Marketing Management, John Wiley and Sons, New York

Jeannet, P.R.; Hennessey, H.D. (1998). International Marketing Management, Houghton, Miffin

Company, Boston

Tylor, E.B. (1871). Primitive Culture, John Murray, London

Usunier, J.C. (2000). Marketing Across Culture, Prentice Hall, London

Article by: Lejla Zukic

International Marketing Communication – Cultural Influences

If you would get an offer to study at any University in the world, without tuition fee worries, which University would catch your eye? Would you choose the most expensive education facility or would you make your decision based on other facts?

The world we live in has its beauty as well as its flows. The beauty of the nature, the beauty of the countries, the people who live there and their culture. Each person can be recognized by their face, DNA, fingerprints; their way they look or dress, and in most cases the language they speak will revile the region or the country they are coming from. The way we eat, think, our values and believes are part of us. These personalities are in fact the culture we belong to, or should I say that belongs to us?

Marketing is defined as a social and managerial process designed to meet the needs and requirements through the processes of creating and exchanging products and values. It is the art and science of identifying, creating and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market, making a profit: delivery of satisfaction at a price (Giancarlo Pallavicini, 1959). Culture has a great impact on international marketing. A marketer has the responsibility to thoroughly analyse the local culture before offering a product to them. What every marketing promotion has done is to promote the product i.e. communicating product feature to the customers and influence customers to buy it.

The World Heritage List includes 981 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value. These include 759 cultural, 193 natural and 29 mixed properties in 160 States Parties. As of September 2012, 190 States Parties have ratified the World Heritage Convention. (UNESCO, 2012).

Our culture influences our everyday engagements and culture in general has a great impact on international marketing. The products and services that are on the market need to be sold to encourage the company/organisation to thrive and continue in satisfying their consumers, the source of their success. Choosing the suitable marketing strategy for doing so, the culture of the target group and the priorities of the people need to be taken into consideration.

Can the cultural differences and believes have an impact on the final academic results in life; not only in succeeding financially in society, depending of the country that has provided the beauty of education?

For many years, people have debated about the influences that the cultures have on the marketing communication and the final actions in the businesses.  The education has a different value depending on the country and its culture that is offered in. The value of the education can be divided: the (luxurious) financial investments that a student gives a “safeguard” on the future life standards, which will be to paid off with interest and there is also the high value of knowledge and information that in some countries is more appreciated than the level of your class in the society that a diploma eventually will provide.  

In the countries that have a lower economic status the marketing communication regarding the academic development and the possibilities this results are much lower than in the countries with a higher economic status of its citizen. For example the prices in US are extremely higher than in the “low-grade” countries, because the education in US is a large investment as the universities are aware that  a great part of the interested ones are proficient in affording their children this status in the society.

The higher price you pay the better results you will receive!?

Do we believe that the higher price a certain product or service has, the better results we will gain for purchasing the same?

As a former citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina I am aware of the confidence that the people have, that have been created referring the international products, presentations and the way of living in the West. Many people believe that a product or a medicine made in Germany for example has a much bigger value than a medicine from a country in Asia. This even though we are aware of the fact that in a world that is increasingly globalized and interconnected, “developing” countries like China are now poised to become bigger players, and collaboration—across borders, across silos, or co-creating with consumers—is more crucial than ever.

The same assumption of the people of B&H concerns the value of education in their country. Because of the high unemployment rate at this moment, which has kept on rising since the end of the war in 1995, and despite the high enrolments each year, where in the winter semester of the 2008/2009 academic year there were 105 358 students enrolled in 39 higher education institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the people have lost their faith that this education will lead to success. In this case, the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina believe that an international education will open the new and broader doors to a recovering future.

Is it possible to afford yourself to live “The American Dream”, while living in a country that is still recovering from a horrible war, just by following an education offered by the American University in that country, for the price as it is offered in the US?

Even though it is hard for us, the EU citizens, to believe that an American education is on a much higher level than the education we are privileged to participate in at a university in our own country or here in Finland, people in B&H believe otherwise. We need to take into consideration that B&H is not one of the EU countries which barricades the potential students in making the decision where and if to study abroad. Taking the above mentioned facts into consideration we just need to imagine what the reaction of the people would be if an opportunity was given to them by an International University within the national borders. This is what exactly happened in 2007 and this ‘generous’ offer was presented by the American University.

Is that expensive “product” actually worth our money?

Once we understand that the value of the global education should not be displayed in numbers, we will begin to see the answer to the problem which is the high pricing of the future and its foundation: “The knowledge”. If we continue to believe that the higher tuition fee means better future and higher society rate, we'll never understand the logic of life, the fact that every person in this world deserves to gain the knowledge that is obtainable. The international marketing plays a huge role in our everyday lives and the business approaches that the global companies practice. There are ways to discover and present the most successful entrepreneurships, the one with an extraordinary history, the most tasteful kitchen etc. Why shouldn’t we be that country that fights to be the country with the highest and most valued academic rate?

Experiences have shown that the right approach to gain the customers attention and to close that first deal is important but is worthless without a firm strategy, the step two. Referring to the example mentioned earlier where American University decides to share its knowledge in B&H; the results have shown that this approach didn’t present successful results. Even though enrolments were realized, the high tuition fees were paid (5.500 euro/year), the annual number of students decreased rapidly, especially after the first graduation period. The promises were not fulfilled, the opportunities disappeared, and the ‘product’ with a six digits price tag was suddenly worthless.

What can we do to solve this matter that is involving the population of the whole world?

As already mentioned universities in the countries with a lower economic status use a marketing strategy to attract their future students by encourage them to get educated and by doing this “help your country develop with you”.   If the opportunity of affordable education, depending on the living standard of the population, can be shared in the future than we can honestly say that we have played fair. I usually think of public service announcements as a form of education.  Presumably there is a harmful ignorance out there somewhere that can be corrected.  But these contrasts bring into stark relief the fact that public service announcements are not only in combat with unawareness, they are fighting corporations.  The battle isn’t just between misinformation and information, it’s between for-profit and non-profit organizations.

Putting out our target group aside, we can take McDonalds, a global brand, as an example. Here it is clear that the culture influences lead to eventual profit. Where other countries would put the accent on the Happy Meal and the play-dolls that will be offered for the young ones, in Germany the hungry consumers have the possibility to wash their fast-food meal down by ordering a large, cold beer as part of their menu.   This is a great example how much power a countries culture has in combination with a product that tastes exactly the same in each country, city, village and each gas station all over the world.

Another example is the detergent and advertisement of this product in several Arabic countries. As you can see on the picture above, Barak Obama is walking proudly, wearing the Thobe. The point of this advertisement is that the product is so good, brings the true white in the clothes that even Obama would love to ware this outfit.

We must not forget that to gain the most effective communication one must send the message according to the receiver’s culture, customs and learning process. People have failed to notice, that in US the unemployment rate is growing as well. The prices of education in this country are not decreasing; nonetheless the education sector marketers have found the language that will be understandable to the interested and potential students; the scholarships. One of the types of scholarships refers to the athletic talents and presentation. On the other hand we have the education in Finland, where the government has made it possible for students, no matter the age, to enjoy the beauty of education. Are we allowed to say that Finnish degree is less valued than the American one?

Nelson Mandela once said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. So why don’t we use the global population, the potential army, to do so and finally give the current one some break.

 References

M.S. Rosenberg, D.L. Westling & J. McLeskey. 2010. The Impact of Culture on Education. Retrieved on 03.04.2014 http://www.education.com/reference/article/impact-culture-education/

Papers SSM. “Impact of Culture on International Marketing”, Retrieved on 01.04.2014 form http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1267863

Plonski, Patric. 2012. What If We Sent 1 Million Books to The Gambia? Retrieved on 37.03.2014 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-plonski/books-for-africa-gambia_b_2040978.html

Schnalke, Marcel (2012). The influence of culture on marketing communications between South African and German businesses. Retrived on 25.03.2014 from http://ir.dut.ac.za/handle/10321/788

Ortea, J., Valdés, Á. & García-Gómez, J.C. (1996). Revisión de las especies atlánticas de la familia Chromodorididae (Mollusca: Nudibranchia) del grupo cromático azul. Avicennia suplemento 1: 1-165 page(s): 152

Pallavicini, Giancarlo (Italian Economist). 1959. Bank and Market Research. Universal Biographical Encyclopedia, 2007 edition, vol. 14. Retrieved on 30.03.2014 from http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/Giancarlo_Pallavicini

UNESCO-United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. 2012. World Heritage List. Retrieved on 27.4.2014 from  http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/

 

 

Article by: Muhammad Akram

Cultural influence on International Marketing Communication

The literature on marketing communication stresses that for any business to successfully operate either domestically or internationally communication is one of the most important functions to master. A firm’s profitability is in part determined by its marketing communication strategies and skills. Sometime the  negligence by top managers for internationally operating companies about the cultural differences the significance that invisible barriers cultural differences create in marketing communication. Cultural factors play an important role, functioning as invisible barriers (Tian and Borges, 2011).

Culture greatly influence the international marketing. It is very important for the marketing team to study about the local culture in-depth before offering a product. The purpose of every international marketing communication is to promote a product into different cultures in a way that customers are attracted to the product and they are influenced enough to buy it. There are several examples that due to improper consideration of the culture even bigger companies successfully operating in different countries fail in some of the countries. For example Disney land is a name of success in the amusement park business around the globe. They have made great profits and success in USA, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan but when they started their journey in France they faced a tremendous problem and had to bear billions of dollars loss. Disney management started a study and found out that the marketing communication strategy adopted by the American managers hurt the French people and message was not received as it was intended to be. As a result people decided not to be in the Paris Disney Park. Similarly out of every ten US managers eight have to replace from Saudi Arabia within three months of their joining as they fail to cope and understand the Saudi culture and norms.

There are a number of key cultural elements that international marketers need to take into consideration when designing products advertisement, developing promotions and implementing distribution systems in foreign markets. These elements include values, beliefs, thought processes, symbols, traditions, religion and language. The cultural aspects influence international marketing strategy from several angels. It needs careful attention from the marketing people in marketing communication plan, marketing design and marketing plans implementation phase. It is emphasized in the literature that determining the differences in the cultural values should guide the formulation of international marketing communication strategies (Munson and McIntyre, 1979).

The marketing mix strategy of Product, Price, Place and Promotion (4 P’s) varies significantly across the cultures. Even for the homogeneous products with similar price strategy need a different promotion strategy to be placed effectively in different cultures. It is not possible to adopt similar marketing communication strategy in the global market to gain global success.  

The above paragraphs show the importance of the cultural influences on marketing communication strategy. In the following paragraphs I will discuss some points to ponder for international marketing communication strategy in planning, designing and implementation and how it has been adopted by the successful multinationals in global market.

 

Marketing Communication Plan

A good marketing communications plan requires you to do substantial research. The planners need to have an in-depth understanding of target audiences and the processes involved in buying, selling, and communicating.  Once the required knowledge is achieved by the planners, they can analyze their minimum targets they want to achieve from the marketing activities. They also need to plan the best ways to communicate their message to audience. The ways of communication and the receivers decoding of these messages vary across the cultures. Therefore, it is important to keep the cultural values in mind while laying down the integrated communication plan. Ideally, the marketing plan should outline the communications process step by step for each and every market with specialists feedback about the possible outcome of perceived messages. The marketing plan should not only identify the elements of the culture but also how they affect the marketing practices in the culture.

Design & Implementation

International marketing communication is communication that crosses national boundaries for business purposes. Ferraro (2006) identified that it is some time hard to communicate in proper way amongst the people from same cultures, therefore, communication between people from different cultures from the point of view of language, values, customs, and ways of thinking, will be far more difficult and it is almost impossible to avoid the possibility of miscommunication. Tian and Broges (2011) are of view that “problems in marketing communication conducted cross-culturally often arise when participants from one culture are unable to understand culturally determined differences in communication practices, traditions, and thought-processing in another cultural context.”

The marketing communication gurus stress upon the different advertising contents for the different cultures.  International advertising research has confirmed differences in advertising content between countries. It is observed that advertisements are significantly affected by the individual countries’ social systems, values, norms and characteristics of the local culture (Emery and Tian, 2003).

 

Therefore understanding the importance of cultural values in advertising has great practical value in marketing communication. McCracken (1987) believes that if the business ignore the ‘embedded cultural meaning’ in their advertisements it could result into a misinterpretation of the intended message. This misinterpretation will lead to a miscommunication which may become the main reason for the business to fail in the international market.   

Lin et al. (2012) analyzed the video advertisements from four successful multinational companies (i.e. IKEA, Coca Cola, Mercedes–Benz, Johnson & Johnson) in two different cultures (i.e. USA and China) and found that the United States commercials used hard sell appeals, displayed individualistic values, and exhibited low context culture values, whereas Chinese commercials relied more on soft sell appeals, displayed collectivistic values, and exhibited high context culture values.

Figure 1: Coca Cola's different labels for Asian Countries.

The above example clearly indicate that to be successful in cross cultural marketing communication, not only the marketing communication planning is required to be done in accordance with the cultural values but also the message designing and the way it is transmitted to audience is important.

 Conclusion

In this article I have tried to capture the glimpses of researchers findings about the influences of culture on international marketing communication. It is widely observed that culture largely influence the marketing communication. The awareness of cultural norms while planning, designing and implementing international marketing communication is very important for the marketing professionals. If the cultural aspects are well covered there are high chances for a marketing communication plan to be successful in the target market. That is why the cultural influences have forced even to the companies like Coca Cola and McDonalds to implement different marketing plans and strategies for their relatively  homogeneous products across the globe. They are somehow enforced not only to design different advertisements and labels but also different way of communicating their messages in different cultures.

Therefore, we can conclude that marketing planners have to be very careful that they don’t underestimate the cultural impacts on the buying behavior of the customer. They need to develop an understanding, acceptance and tolerance of the cultural aspects of the market in order to develop effective marketing communication strategy for the company which should give them the competitive advantage to achieve the goals effectively. Failure to understand the cultural aspects may lead to the failure of whole campaign and exercise. If this would happen it may cause a significant damage to company's image for the future in the market. 

 

References

Emery, C. R. & Tian, R. G. (2003). The Effect of Cultural Differences on the Effectiveness of Advertising Appeals: A Comparison between China and the US. Transformations in Business and Economics, 2.1 (3), 48-59.

Ferraro, G. P. (2006). The Cultural Dimension of International Business, (5th ed.) NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Lin, Y., Koroglu, D., Olson, L. (2012).  The Influence Of Cultural Values In Advertising: Examples From China And The United States. International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design, Istanbul–Turkey, 435–441.

McCracken, G. (1987). Advertising: Meaning or Information? In M. Wallendorf and P.F. Anderson (Eds.), Advances in Consumer Research XIV. Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, 121-124.

Munson, J. M. & McIntyre, S. H. (1979). Developing Practical Procedures for the Measurement of Personal Values in Cross-Cultural Marketing. Journal of Marketing Research, 15, 48.

Tian, K., Borges, L. (2011). Cross-Cultural Issues in Marketing Communications: An Anthropological Perspective of International Business. International Journal of China Marketing, 2(1), 110–126.

  

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This is blog from team of Lejla Zukic, Muhammad Akram and Ramona Stanca. Your valuable feedback will help a great to improve our understanding about the topic.

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Team: LAR (Lejla, Akram, Ramona)