Culture and Consumer Behavior

Culture and Consumer Behavior

• Culture can be defined as the part of the environment made by humans
• Culture is the set of meanings that a group in a time and place come to adopt or develop
• Culture is a complex whole that includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by humans as members of a society
• Culture is comprehensive (broad)
• Culture is acquired
• Culture influences consumer behavior broadly (rather than specifically)
• Culture often evolves over time (dynamic)
• Culture may or may not coincide with geographical boundaries

Understanding Culture

• There's a need to understand culture, it gives meanings to objects
• Culture gives meanings to activities, for example, role expectations
• Culture facilitates communication
• Many preferences as consumers are strongly influenced

Challenges for Marketers

• All of life takes place within culture, it is easy to fail to see that a “cultural lens” exists and instead to think that there is no lens at all, just reality
• Marketing across cultural boundaries is a difficult and challenging task

Learning Culture

• Socialization is learning through observation and the active processing of information about everyday consumer experience
• Enculturation is how a person learns their native culture
• Acculturation is how a person learns a culture other than their native culture

Culture Characteristics

• Ethnic identification is the degree to which consumers feel a sense of belonging to their culture
• Consumer Ethnocentrism is the belief among consumers that the products (and values, systems, etc.) that come from their native land are superior to others

Cultural Factors

• Multiple cultural factors affect consumer behavior, language, demographics, values, and nonverbal communications and these will affect marketing strategy as well

Values

• Cultural values combined with norms and sanctions specify ranges of appropriate behavior

Cultural Values

• Cultural values that differ across cultures and affect consumption include: other-oriented, environment-oriented, and self-oriented

Verbal Communication

• Transfer of information through either the literal spoken or written word
• Examples of dialects: English in the U.S is different from English in the U.K and Spanish and Asian languages
• Translation shares the same precise meaning in two different cultures

Nonverbal Communications

• Include etiquette, time, space, things, agreements, relationships, and symbols
• Examples of Symbols: Colors, animals, shapes, numbers, music, etc have varying meanings across cultures
• Failure to recognize the meaning assigned to a symbol can cause problems
• Etiquette is the generally accepted ways of behaving in social situations
• Behaviors considered rude or obnoxious in one culture may be acceptable in another
• Normal voice tone, pitch, and speed of speech differ between cultures and languages, as do the use of gestures

Cross-Cultural Marketing

• Localization (adaptation) vs Globalization (standardization)
• Searching for the right balance of patriotism/ethnocentrism vs internationalism/cosmopolitanism
• Glocalization the idea that marketing strategy may be global but the implementation at the marketing tactics level should often be local
• For example McDonald's uses the same business model in all countries, however, its menu varies from country to country reflecting the local population's tastes