This document discusses how culture and subculture influence consumer behavior. It defines culture as the beliefs, values and customs of a society, while subculture refers to identifiable segments within a larger culture. The document outlines different subcultures like age, ethnicity, region, and examines how they impact consumption patterns. It also looks at how culture is learned, shared and dynamic. Various methods for measuring culture like content analysis, fieldwork and surveys are also summarized.

1. Influence of Culture and Subculture on
Consumer Behavior

2. What is culture and subculture?
 Culture
It is a detailed examination of the character of the total society, including such
factors as language, knowledge, laws, religion, food customs, music, art,
technology, work patterns, products, and other artifacts that give a society its
distinctive flavor. In a sense, culture is a society’s personality.
Culture is the sum total of learned learned beliefs, values, and customs that server
to direct the consumer behavior of members of a particular society.
• Subculture
It is a distinct cultural group that exists as an identifiable segment within a larger,
more complex society.

3. Relationship between culture and subculture
Sub cultural traits Dominan
Of easterners t cultural Sub cultural Traits of
(east of the Traits of
westerners (west of
Mississippi river U.S
Citizens Mississippi River)

4. Influence of culture
 Consumers both view themselves in the context of their culture and
react to their environment based upon the cultural frame work that
they bring to that experience. Each individual perceives the world
through his own cultural lens.
 Culture Satisfies Needs
Culture is also associated with what a society’s members consider to
be a necessity and what they view as a luxury. For instance,55% of
Americans adults consider a microwave to be a necessity and 36%
consider a remote control for a TV or VCR to be necessity.

5. Culture is Learned
 At an early age, we begin to acquire from our social environment a
set of beliefs, values, and customs that make up our culture.
 Anthropologists have identified three distinct forms of cultural
learning:
1. Formal learning: in which adults and older siblings teach a young
family member “How to behave”;
2. Informal learning: in which a child learns primarily by imitating the
behavior of selected others, such as family, friends, or TV stars.
3. Technical Learning: Which teachers instruct the child in an
educational environment about what, how and why it should be done.
Advertising can influence all three types of cultural learning's.

6. Culturally Constituted World
Advertising/Fashion Fashion System
System
Consumer Goods
Possession Grooming
Exchange Rituals Disinvestment
Rituals Rituals Rituals
Individual Consumer

7. Enculturation and Acculturation
 The learning of one’s own culture is known as
enculturation. The learning of a new or foreign
culture is known as acculturation.
Language and Symbols
To communicate effectively with their audiences, marketers
must use appropriate Language and symbols to convey
desired products characteristics.
Symbols
Verbal Non verbal

8. Pepsodent

9. Rituals
A Ritual is a type of symbolic activity consisting
of a series of steps occurring in a fixed sequence
and repeated over time.
The standpoint of marketers is the fact that rituals
tends to replete with ritual artifacts that are
associated with or some how enhance the
performance of the ritual.

10. Week Nights are Rich and Ritual

11. Culture is Shared
 Culture is viewed as group customs that link together the members
of the society. Common language is the critical component that
makes it possible for people to share values, experiences, and
customs.
Social Institutions transmitting the element of culture and sharing of
culture
1. Family : primary agent for enculturation
2. Educational Institutions : imparts learning skills, history, patriotism,
citizenship and technical training.
3. Religious Institutions : Perpetuate religious consciousness, spiritual
guidance, and moral training.
4. Mass Media : wide range of cultural values.

12. Culture is Dynamic
 To fulfill the need gratifying role, culture
continually must evolve if it is to function in the
best interests of a society. The marketers must
carefully monitor the socio culture environment in
order to market an existing product effectively or
to develop promising new products.

13. Measurement of Culture
 Content Analysis
 Consumer Fieldwork
 Value measurement survey instruments
Content Analysis
Conclusion about a society, or specific aspects of a society, or a
comparison of two or more societies sometimes can be drawn from
examining the content of particular messages. Content analysis, as
the name implies, focuses on the content of verbal, written, and
pictorial communications. It can be used as a relatively objective
means of determining what social and cultural changes have occurred
in a specific society.

14. Consumer Fieldwork : In this study the trained researchers,
they are likely to select a small sample of people from a
particular society and carefully observe their behavior.
Based on their observations, researchers draw
conclusion about values, belief, and customs of the
society.
Characteristics of field observation are :
1. It takes place within a natural environment;
2. It is performed sometimes without the subject’s
awareness.
3. It focuses on observation of behavior.

15. Value Measurement Survey Instrument :
In this researchers observed the behavior of
members of a specific society and inferred from
such behavior or underlying values of the society.
Researchers use data collection instruments called
value instruments to ask people how they feel
about such basic personal and social concept as
freedom, comfort, national security, and peace.

16. Subcultures . . .
. . . a subdivision of a national culture that is based
on some unifying characteristic.
. . . members share similar patterns of behavior
that are distinct from those of the national culture.

17. Sub Culture
Categories Examples
1. Nationality Jamaican,Vietnamese,French
2. Religion Mormon, Baptist, Catholic
3. Geographic region Northeast, Southwest etc.
4. Race Pacific Islander, Native American,
Caucasian.
5. Age Senior citizen, teenager
6. Gender Female, male
7. Occupation Bus driver, mechanic, engineer.
8. Social class Lower, middle, upper.
9. Ethnicity Similar values and customs.

18. Age Subcultures
Consumers undergo predictable
changes in values, lifestyles,
and consumption patterns as
they move through their life
cycle.
 Four Major Age Trends
 Baby Boomers
 Generation X
 Generation Y
 Elderly

19. The Baby-Boom Generation. . .
. . . are those Americans born
between 1946 and 1964
and share lifestyle
similarities.
. . . number 77 million.

20. The Baby...
Bust Boom Xers Yers
1930s 1940s 1960s 1970s 1980s

21. The Baby Boom Generation
 Roomer chinos are needed
now.
 Their difficulty in finding
good jobs has led to
RYAs and ILYAs.

22. Generation X . . .
. . . is small in number, but possesses $125 billion
of discretionary income
 This group is known for valuing religion, formal
rituals (e.g., proms) and materialism,
 and has more negative attitudes toward work and
getting ahead than the boomers had at their age.

23. Generation Y . . .
 This group, like Xers, is more heterogeneous in
racial and socioeconomic terms than the boomers.
 They are pragmatic, value oriented, weighing
price quality, relation ships, brand embracing.

24. The Elderly
The “Graying of America”
refers to the fourth major age
trend
 By the year 2020 Americans
over 65 will outnumber
teenagers two to one.
 Process information differently.
 Experience motor skill declines
which mean walking, writing,
talking, etc. abilities
deteriorate.

25. Ethnicity . . .
. . . refers to a group bound
together by ties of cultural
homogeneity (i.e., linked
by similar values,
customs, dress, religion,
and language).

26. African-American Subculture
 Represents almost 13
percent of the U.S.
population.
 Income deprivation a
major factor: In the
1990s, 37 % of African-
American households had
incomes of under
$15,000.

27. The Hispanic Subculture
. . . is the second-fastest-growing ethnic sub-
cultural group in the United States and will
become the largest ethnic minority in the U.S. by
the year 2010.
 Commonalities:
– Language (82 % of U.S. Hispanic households speak
primarily Spanish).
– Religion (over 85% of Hispanics are Catholic).
– Tendency to live in metropolitan areas (63%).

28. Hispanic Segmentation
There are at least four distinct segments:
 Mexicans (65.2 % of U.S. Hispanics)
 Cubans (4.3 %)
 Puerto Ricans (9.6 %)
 Central and South Americans (14.3 %)

29. The Asian-American Subculture
. . . is the fastest-growing ethnic subculture in the United
States.
 The percentage of Asian-Americans who graduated from
college is nearly twice that of white Americans
 Asian-American family incomes are significantly higher than
the other ethnic subcultures
 More than Hispanics, Asian-Americans differ in language and
culture of origin

30. Comparing Anglo-, African-American and
Hispanic Buying
 No brand loyalty differences
 No differences in coupon proneness, impulse
buying, or shopping for generic products
 African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely
to shop for bargains

31. Representation in Advertisements
 African-Americans and
Hispanics are slightly
under-represented.
 Asians are slightly over-
represented.

32. Regional Subcultures . . .
. . . have distinct lifestyles
resulting from variations
in climate, culture, and
ethnic mix of people.
 Consequently, different
product preferences exist.

33. Geodemographics . . .
. . . takes as a unit of analysis
the neighborhood (i.e.,
census blocks) and
obtains demographic
information on consumers
within the neighborhood.