Cultural Influences and Social Groups

What is Culture?

• Culture refers to the shared meanings, common affective reactions, typical cognitions, and characteristic patterns of behavior in a social group.
• It encompasses a society's view of the world, including beliefs, attitudes, goals, and values.
• Cultural meanings can be analyzed at different levels, including macro, subcultures, social classes, reference groups, and family influences.

Characteristics of Culture

• Cultural meanings are shared by people in a social group.
• They are created by people and are constantly in motion, subject to rapid changes.
• Social groups differ in the amount of freedom people have to adopt and use cultural meanings.

Cultural Analysis

• The goal of cultural analysis is to understand the cultural meanings of the content of culture from the consumer's perspective.
• Methods include content analysis, ethnographic fieldwork, and measures of values.

Values and Cultural Meanings

• Core values are abstract end goals that are central to a culture.
• Values can change, creating new marketing opportunities and challenges.
• Cultural meanings in products, stores, and brands can vary across different societies.

The Cultural Process

• Cultural meanings are moved into products through marketing strategies, such as advertising, symbols, pricing, design, and distribution.
• Rituals are symbolic actions performed by consumers to create, affirm, evoke, or revise cultural meanings.
• Acquisition, bargaining, possession, product nurturing, personalizing, exchange, grooming, and divestment are examples of cultural meanings in products.

Cultural Meanings in Consumers

• Consumers buy products to acquire cultural meanings to use in establishing self-identities.
• Favorite possessions can hold personal meaning.
• Cultural meanings in consumers are transferred to the broader cultural environment through social behavior.

Marketing Implications

• Managing cultural meaning is crucial for marketers.
• Using celebrity endorsers in ads can help consumers obtain cultural meanings.
• Cross-cultural differences can affect marketing strategies, and adapting to these differences is essential for successful international marketing.

Cross-Cultural Differences

• Consumption culture and self-concept can vary across cultures.
• Materialism is a growing trend globally.
• Developing international marketing strategies requires adapting to cultural differences, standardizing strategy across cultures, and considering global marketing approaches.

Changing Culture

• Marketing can influence cultural change by introducing new cultural meanings and values.