ch13 cultural influences

Chapter 13: Cultural Influences on Consumer Behaviour

Chapter Objectives

  • Understanding the fundamental aspects of culture and its influence on consumer behaviour:

    • 13.1 A culture serves as a society’s distinct personality.

    • 13.2 Myths and rituals vary across cultures, with marketers leveraging these differences.

    • 13.3 Marketers must consider cultural tastes, language, and symbols in cross-cultural campaigns.

    • 13.4 Cultural production is the process through which certain styles, products, and trends are adopted or rejected by popular culture.

    • 13.5 Both individuals and organizations contribute to the fashion system, creating and communicating symbolic meanings to consumers.

    • 13.6 The diffusion of innovation refers to how new products, services, or ideas spread through a population.

Understanding Culture

  • Definition of Culture:

    • Abstract ideas and material objects/services that represent society’s personality.

    • Comprised of shared meanings, rituals, and traditions.

    • Functioning as a lens for viewing products, dictating success and priorities in market preferences.

Dimensions of Culture

  • Major aspects:

    • Ecology: How culture adapts to its environment.

    • Social Structure: The organizational aspects of society that create orderly social life.

    • Ideology: Collective beliefs and realities of a culture, encompassing morals and aesthetic principles.

Cultural Systems

  • Dynamic Nature of Culture:

    • Ecology adapts to habitat, social structure maintains order, and ideology reflects mental traits related to environment and society—collectively shaping unique cultural narratives.

Cultural Values

  • Shared Beliefs:

    • Values shaped by individual, social, and cultural influences.

    • Some values are universal: family, health, happiness, wisdom.

Norms Across Cultures

  • Types of Norms:

    • Enacted Norms: Explicitly defined rules (e.g., traffic laws).

    • Crescive Norms: Embedded cultural norms:

      • Customs: Tradition-bound norms.

      • Mores: Norms with moral implications.

      • Conventions: Everyday conduct norms.

Cultural Stories and Ceremonies

  • Cultural Practices:

    • Myths and rituals developed to conceptualize existence; can sometimes appear bizarre.

    • "Magical" products and beliefs in the occult emerge in contexts where people feel powerless.

The Role of Myths

  • Definition of Myths:

    • Symbolic narratives embodying shared ideals, guiding moral understanding, and reducing anxiety.

    • Marketers utilize myths for product storytelling and branding.

  • Examples: Myths in entertainment like superhero stories (e.g., Spiderman, Superman) and fairy tales.

Functions of Myths

  • Interrelated Functions:

    • Metaphysical: Explains existence.

    • Cosmological: Connects universe components.

    • Sociological: Reinforces social codes.

    • Psychological: Provides conduct models.

Sacred versus Profane Consumption

  • Sacred Consumption:

    • Ordinary objects/events distinguished from daily routines, can include anything sacred in a culture.

    • Sacralization: Ordinary items gaining sacred significance through processes like objectification and contamination.

Desacralization

  • Definition:

    • Removal of sacred status, often leading to mass reproduction (e.g., souvenirs).

    • Examples: Certain religious practices becoming secularized.

Rituals in Consumer Behavior

  • Definition of Rituals:

    • Sets of symbolic behaviors performed in fixed sequences, often repeated.

    • Common consumer activities are ritualistic (e.g., Starbucks visits).

  • Ritual Artifacts: Products necessary for rituals (e.g., wedding rice, birthday candles).

Gift-Giving Rituals

  • Significance:

    • Involves social, economic, and symbolic exchanges; cultures dictate specific occasions for gifting.

    • Stages of Gift-Giving:

      • Gestation (motivation), Presentation (the act of gifting), Reformulation (post-gift dynamics).

Holiday Rituals

  • Cultural Importance:

    • Holidays serve as communal myths with significant characters and rituals.

    • Businesses often promote gifting through created occasions (e.g., Secretaries' Day).

Rites of Passage

  • Definition:

    • Mark social status changes (e.g., puberty, marriage) through culturally rich practices.

    • Rites have stages: separation, liminality, aggregation.

Language and Symbols

  • Challenges in Marketing:

    • Language barriers can provoke misunderstandings (examples of failed translations).

    • Symbols (gestures, colors) can vary greatly and hold different meanings across cultures.

Marketing Across Cultures

  • Debate:

    • Balancing local cultural integration against standardized global campaigns (e.g., McDonald’s).

  • Standardized Strategy:

    • Global companies, such as Starbucks, streamline marketing strategies while facing local criticism.

Types of Innovations

  • Innovation Types:

    • Continuous: Incremental changes.

    • Dynamically Continuous: More pronounced changes.

    • Discontinuous: Major life changes.

Innovation Adoption**:

  • Diffusion Process:

    • How an innovation spreads in society, affected by various factors like compatibility, trialability, and observability.

  • Type of Adopters: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards.

Cultural Gatekeepers

  • Role:

    • Individuals/organizations that filter information for consumers, affecting what products become popular (e.g., critics, designers).

Cultural Production Systems and Fashion

  • Production Systems:

    • Structure involving individuals/organizations creating marketing cultural products (e.g., creative, managerial, communications subsystems).

  • Fashion Dynamics:

    • Influence of culture on fashion; includes collective selection and trickle-down theories.

Conclusion

  • Understanding cultural dynamics is critical for marketers to successfully navigate consumer behavior contexts across different societies.