intrernatinal marketing

1. Cultural Environment
Unit 2

2. Learning Objectives
• Define culture and explain the various elements of culture that can
impact global marketing strategies.

3. Culture
• Culture is defined as an integrated system of learned behavior
patterns that are distinguishing characteristics of the members of any
given society. It includes everything that a group thinks, says, does,
and makes—its customs, language, material artifacts, and shared
systems of attitudes and feelings. (p. 4 Czinkota, chapter 3)
• Culture can be defined as “ways of living, built up by a group of
human beings, that are transmitted from one generation to another.”
(Kegan, 2017)

4. Cultural relativism is the ability to understand a culture on its
own terms and not to make judgments using the standards of
one's own culture.

5. Elements of Culture
• Language
• Verbal
• Nonverbal
• Religion
• Values and attitudes
• Manners and customs
• Material Elements
• Aesthetics
• Education
• Social Institutions

6. Language
• A total of 6,912 known living languages exist in the world, with 311
being spoken in the United States, 297 in Mexico, 13 in Finland, and
241 in China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHibFrb5Q0o&feature=emb_logo

7. Language
• Language differences cause many problems for marketers in designing
advertising campaigns and product labels.
• For example, in Canada, labels must be in both English and French. In India,
there are over 200 different dialects, and a similar situation exists in China.
• Chevrolet created a car called the Chevy Nova. This car was very popular in
the United States, but when they tried to sell them in Spanish speaking
countries, they seemed to have problems because NO VA means ‘no go’ so
they thought the car would not move. If companies are going to sell their
products internationally, they need to think about what their name means
in the countries where they want to sell them.

8. Translation Blunders / Meaning differences -
Advertising
• KFC in China "Finger-lickin' good" to "Eat your fingers off."
• Swedish vacuum maker Electrolux in US - "Nothing sucks like an
Electrolux.“
• American beer maker Coors "Turn it loose" campaign to Spain. When
translated into Spanish, the tagline used an expression that's commonly
interpreted as "suffer from diarrhea.“
• “Fly in Leather” by American Airlines…Spanish version which was, “Vuela
en Cuero”, means “Fly naked”
• In German, “Let Hertz Put You in the Driver’s Seat” means “Let Hertz Make
You a Chauffeur”.
• In Cantonese, the Philip Morris name sounded the same as a phrase
meaning no luck.

9. Nonverbal Language
• In many parts of the world, time is flexible and not seen as a limited
commodity
• Contracts may be bound on handshakes
• know one’s business partner on a personal level before transactions can
occur.
• Space between people
• Body language
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_hBK8Ni4yQ
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIdYxMyZZm4
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXIAHhbdeQw

10. Religion
• Religion defines the ideals for life, which in turn are reflected in the
values and attitudes of societies and individuals. Christianity has the
largest following among world religions, with more than 2 billion
people.

11. Religion
• KFC uses Ramadan themed outdoor advertising to encourage
Indonesians to come to the restaurants at buka puasa, the end of
each day’s fast.
• McDonald's serves no beef burgers in India.
• Major holidays are often tied to religion.
• Orthodox Jews don’t own traditional media like TV

12. Values and Attitudes
• Values are shared beliefs or group norms that have been internalized by
individuals.
• buying foreign products is unpatriotic
• guanxi, is a set of exchanges of favors to establish trust. Chinese believe that one
should build the relationship first and, if that is successful, transactions will follow.
• The Japanese, for example, strive to achieve cooperation, consensus, self-denial, and
harmony.
• Subcultures often represent attractive niche marketing opportunities.
• Americans spend large amounts of money on soap, deodorant, and mouthwash
because of the value placed on personal cleanliness. In Italy, salespeople call on
women only if their husbands are at home.
• Germany - being too early is just as detrimental as being late.

14. Manners and Customs
• U.S. executives often interpret inaction and silence as a negative sign.
• Japanese executives tend to expect their U.S. counterparts to lower
prices or sweeten the deal if they just say as little as possible.
• Even a simple agreement may take days to negotiate in the Middle
East, because the Arab party may want to talk about unrelated issues
or do something else for a while.
• in China, gift are given to the recipient using both hands.
• General Foods’ Tang is positioned as a breakfast drink in the United
States; in France, where orange juice is not usually consumed at
breakfast, Tang is positioned as a refreshment.

15. Manners and Customs
• Campbell Soup has targeted China as one of the markets with the strongest
growth potentials for soup. However, homemade soups account for 99
percent of the consumption. With this in mind, Campbell’s prices have
been kept at an attractive level and the product is promoted on
convenience.
• Argentines consume jam at tea time, a custom that does not exist in Brazil.
• Package sizes and labels must be adapted in many countries to suit the
needs of the particular culture. In Mexico, for example, Campbell’s sells
soup in cans large enough to serve four or five because families are
generally large.
• feng shiu

16. Cultural Norms and Misunderstanding
• In Ireland, the evening meal is called tea, not dinner.
• In Asia, when a person bows to you, bow your head forward equal or
lower than theirs. A nod means “no” in Bulgaria and shaking the head
side-to-side means “yes”.
• The number 7 is considered bad luck in Kenya, good luck in the Czech
Republic, and has magical connotations in Benin.
• In Quebec, a canned fish manufacturer tried to promote a product by
showing a woman dressed in shorts, golfing with her husband, and
planning to serve canned fish for dinner. These activities violated
cultural norms.

17. Cultural Norms and Misunderstanding
• Maxwell House advertised itself as the “great American coffee” in
Germany. It found out that Germans have little respect for American
coffee.
• In Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan, triangular shapes have a negative
connotation.
• Offering gifts when you visit a home is expected in Japan, but in the
Soviet Union it may be considered a bribe. In Brazil and Portugal,
business people like to entertain foreigners in their homes.
• In Russia, it is acceptable for men to greet each other with a kiss, but
this custom is not acceptable in the US.

18. Material Elements
• Material culture results from technology and is directly related to the
way a society organizes its economic activity. It is manifested in the
availability and adequacy of the basic economic, social, financial, and
marketing infrastructures.
• infrastructure is often a good indicator of potential demand

19. Aesthetics
• The term aesthetics is used to refer to the concepts of beauty and good
taste. The phrase, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is a very
appropriate description of the differences in aesthetics that exist between
cultures. or example, Americans believe that suntans are attractive,
youthful, and healthy. However, the Japanese do not.
• Global marketers must understand the importance of visual aesthetics
embodied in the color or shape of a product, label, or package.
• Each culture makes a clear statement concerning good taste, as expressed
in the arts and in the particular symbolism of colors, form, and music.
• Sex in advertising
• Color is often used as a mechanism for brand identification, feature reinforcement,
and differentiation.

20. Aesthetics
• Colours also have different meanings in different cultures. For example, in Egypt,
the country’s national colour of green is considered unacceptable for packaging.
• Black, for instance, is considered the color of mourning in the United States and
Europe, whereas white has the same symbolic value in Japan and most of the Far
East. A British bank interested in expanding its operations to Singapore wanted to
use blue and green as its identification colors. A consulting firm was quick to tell
the client that green is associated with death there.
• Red is a popular color in most parts of the world but is poorly
received in some African countries. Red is a positive color in
Denmark, but represents witchcraft and death in many African
countries.

21. Education
• Education, either formal or informal, plays a major role in the passing
on and sharing of culture.
• Educational levels will have an impact on various business functions.

22. Social Institutions
• Social institutions affect the ways in which people relate to each
other. The family unit, which in Western industrialized countries
consists of parents and children, in a number of cultures is extended
to include grandparents and other relatives. This will have an impact
on consumption patterns and must be taken into account, for
example, when conducting market research.

23. Sources of Cultural Knowledge
• The concept of cultural knowledge is broad and multifaceted.
• Cultural knowledge can be defined by the way it is acquired.
• Objective or factual information is obtained from others through
communication, research, and education.
• Experiential knowledge, on the other hand, can be acquired only by being
involved in a culture other than one’s own.
• Both factual and experiential information can be general or country-
specific.
• Eurodisney Case Study

24. Hofstede's cultural dimensions

25. Cultural Dimensions
• https://www.hofstede-insights.com/product/compare-countries/

26. High- and low-context cultures
• Low-context cultures rely on spoken and written language for
meaning. Senders of messages encode their messages, expecting that
the receivers will accurately decode the words used to gain a good
understanding of the intended message.
• High-context cultures use and interpret more of the elements
surrounding the message to develop their understanding of the
message. In high-context cultures the social importance and
knowledge of the person and the social setting add extra information,
and will be perceived by the message receiver.

31. • Kitchens in the US (left) tend to be larger than in China, so the
amount of floor space was reduced in the 2017

32. • In Ikea's 2011 catalogue,
the woman pictured in
the UK version (left) was
removed from the Saudi
Arabian issue (right), and
the marketing text was
changed

33. • The same Saudi Arabian issue
(bottom) did away with models
altogether in some sections

34. • http://guide.culturecrossing.net/index.php