Differences in cultures Essay

Culture impacts the strategies of marketer for antithetical markets and consumer groups. thither be various factors which impacts culture for instance world(a)ization, internationalization and development in the telecommunication sector. These possess enabled tilt of ideas and views of ane culture to an separate. Hence impacts the populations arawide. mingled markets today atomic get 18 transforming to homogenous marketplace. The oddments in consumer favourences and choices are reducing day by day. Either consumer would ask for totally dissimilar harvest-home or will buy something which is common.The choices of consumer are based on the factors bid his postulate and financials. As said by Williams, People across cultures spate do the equivalent thing for polar reasons or motives, and people in dissimilar countries whitethorn do different things for the same reasons. (Mooij and Marieke K. de, 2004, p. 138) Cultural values variegate with product categories. A m arketer would use those attributes of any product which are heathenly more sure to design its marketing, wandering and advertising strategies. purchasing motives will be different in different cultures.For instance for a particular country having automobile can be a perspective symbol art object in former(a) having environmental friendly fomite can be more all of the essence(predicate)(predicate) issue. Culture impacts the attitude and purpose making capability of the consumer. It impacts the branding, incase and promotions strategies. antithetic strains and shapes have different meanings attached to it. Marketer needs to understand these meanings and factors in order to fix for the marketing mix product, price, place and promotion.The packaging which plays different roles for the marketer and consumer from protect the product to attracting the consumer requires special attention so that it can be accepted within the target consumer groups. Throughout the past two deca des globalization has resulted in saturation of domestic markets which lead companies to become more international. The ideal system in the evolution to the international marketplace would be to produce, package and sell the exact same product that was sold in the domestic market.This model is supported by a variety of researchers (Samli, 1995), who declare that 75% of the world market may be quite alike ethnicly. Yet, this might be an egocentric perspective of the world, ignoring the unique qualities of apiece culture. In quintessence, the remaining 25% of the world is culturally different. (Weber, J. M. et al. , 2002, p. 396) I. i. a. Various Factors Influenced by Culture There are various factors influenced by culture. The reason why people buy breedal product at specific period of tie may be influenced by the cultural setting of the item-by-item.Organizations prior to launching their product or setting any operational determine go through the cultural aspects of the sp ecific market. This helps organizations to serve and operate within that area effectually. Many global standard products, assumed to be culture-free, are brought for different reasons across cultures. precisely there are differences in intellectual certain product attributes and varying buying motives which can be well explained by underlying cultural values that vary by product category.For instance, announce appeals which are effective in one culture may result in different responses when used in another culture such as, in UK beer advertisement uses humorous appeals and German car advertising uses technological appeals. Apart from advertising appeals even in case of basic needs the motives of buying varies as for example, motives for buying a car may vary between safety, status, design, and environmentally friendly, all based on different cultural values. (Mooij and Marieke K. de, 2004) Some of those are discussed below Attitude Ethnocentrism and Ethnic Background. Lifesty le language aestheticalal get it on Purity annotate Perception selective Perception Communication ocular Images Shopping & purchasing Behaviour Attitude Attitude of individuals are steer by their values and beliefs. These factors are also influenced by the culture individual belongs or lives. Attitudes have an impact on behaviour and vice versa. Different culture shows different kind of attitudes on various issues like countries of origin of products, brands, ethical standards and some(prenominal) more within its members. Ethnocentrism and Ethnic Background.When consumers prefer products or brands from their profess country to the products or brands from other countries, this is called Consumer Ethnocentrism (De Mooij, pp. 120). The social identity of the product varies according to its country of origin. The products from western are giveed prestigious and sophisticated while products from china are considered to be low quality products. Lifestyle As mentioned i n the work of Mooij and Marieke K. de, (2004) Lifestyle is specify as the way of living. brisk across the globe is different in different cultures. Language Language is a medium of communication.It can be either in written, speak or even in sign form. Language is an expression or a demonstration of a society and culture. Various elements of culture like thoughts, ideas, values, beliefs are reflected through language. Particular language represents its own cultural framework. Speakers of different languages not only say things differently, they experience things differently. Aesthetic Experience Aesthetic experience refers to the experience of pleasure or displeasure caused by stimuli that are perceived as being beautiful or not beautiful, lovely or un-attractive, and rewarding or unrewarding (Russell et al., 1997. p. 125).The aesthetic value can be created by the optics, shape, language use and others. Particular society may consider particular factor in-chief(postnominal) for instance Visual language is culturally specific in Western cultures. In Asian cultures visuals plays an important role in the imagination. For the Asian designers as centering is meant to be a fundamental principle in visual art in many Asian cultures. There is a big difference on the aesthetic appeals impacting individuals in east or west. In Asian cultures complexity in the designs and visuals is very common. The use of color and shapes will be different.Usually talented work are used in Asian countries which have its own meaning attached to it. Brides usually take over red bridal undifferentiated as red is the symbol of prosperity and growth in many cultures. Environment Different cultures deal with the environment in different ways. In the west countries like Britain and US environmental concerns are so full(prenominal) these concerns have impact on the product manufacturing to product packaging strategy. The packaging would vary according to the environmental standards. This is the reason why the use of poly begs have been replaced by the recyclable paper and products for the packaging. PurityPurity is a congenital terms used by the researchers and academicians. Purity is sometimes attached to the cleanliness and sometimes to the soul of people. It varies from culture to culture. In some culture eating solid food from hand may be acceptable while in other it can be unacceptable. The recent controversy on the leading worldly concern show of UK Big brother the aspects of culture and purity come into control where one member refused to eat meal prepared by the other member and would have been one of the issues of content. Colour Perception Colours are known to posses emotional and psychological properties (Hevner 1935 Ward 1995). (Thomas, J. M. et al. , 2000) According to Gunnerod (1991), Japanese consumers prefer white, while consumers from Hong Kong prefer red. Tektronix (1998) found that in India, orange is considered the most consecrated Colou r by Hindus whereas the Ndembo in Zambia do not even consider orange as a separate Colour. In a study a Housewifes were given 3 different packages containing the same detergent of different Colours blue Colour (quiet Colour), the second yellow (it had strong visibility) and yellow with blue stripes. The feed back of consumer was that detergent in Blue did not clean properly.While detergent in color was too strong and Yellow with blue stripes was just blameless. The results can be based on various factors of an individual. In US Colours are associated with certain images. These images are as follows BLUE is associated with Wealth, Trust, and credentials GRAY is associated with Strength, Exclusivity and Success ORANGE denotes cheapness YELLOW, ORANGE, BLUE are machine-accessible with happiness RED, BLACK, brownness are connected with sadness The perception of Colour is different across cultures. In Dutch culture RED is the salient Colour comes to mind whereas in US it is B LUE.Similarly BLACK and BROWN are the two Colours strongly associated with Sad and Stale in various cultures has some additional meaning of Formal in Brazil, Colombia, chinaware and Taiwan. These Colours are considered Masculine in Austria, Hong Kong and US. BLUE, GREEN and WHITE Colours are associated with Peace, Gentle and Calm in almost all the countries. Colours like GOLD, ORANGE and YELLOW which do not posses strong tie-in with any of the Colour meanings and are some how close to one another. In India white Colour is also associated with mourn. People wear white Colour clothes in death ceremony.Widows in Hindu culture wear white dress throughout their life after the death of husband. They are not allowed to use any form of Colour. While in west white is used as a Colour of the bridal dress. Selective Perception Perception of an individual regarding any particular aspect depends on number of factors like values, beliefs, level of education and others. It can be defined as sele ctive observation of reality. Selective observation is distorted understanding and formation of view regarding particular thing. People adjoin what they want to see and how they want to see.They reinforce their perception by seeing certain things and would hardly like to change it. Selective perception is a universal phenomenon. It is strengthen by culture. Communication Communication is a process through which ideas, emotions, conviction belief and actions are transferred to one individual to another. To communicate properly one should have the knowledge of rules of communications, norms and other factors of the related community. One of the most important aspects of proficient communication is knowledge of appropriate words used at a particular point of time. There is a strong kin between culture and language.Each of these factors is functional and mutually complementary to each other. In the process of communication gist is selected and encoded in order to transfer meaning to the receiver. Cultural knowledge provides the basis for interaction. The purpose of communication may also be different across cultures. Visual Images Most of the researches on perception are carried out in Western societies. Since the development of visual perception depends on certain kinds of learning experiences, due to which there are cross-cultural differences in perception. Evidence of a basic cross-cultural difference in perception was reported by Turnbull.Some studies suggest that the integrating of pictorial elements varies cross-culturally. The correct naming of elements of a picture does not estimate ability to correctly perceive their mutual relationships. There are portentous cultural differences in pictorial perception and recognition. As discussed earlier, complex visual images, relying on implicit meaning, can be better processed by members of collectivistic cultures who are more used to deriving meaning from context, than by members of individualistic cultur es who are made used to simple visual images that black market explicit meaning i.e. pictures speak for themselves.A picture that is very significant for the members of one culture because it expresses important values of that culture can be completely meaningless to the members of the other culture. For instance, imagery is a very important element of advertising which has been undervalued in research due to the historical emphasis on verbal communication in US. This has been proved by an advertisement of Benetton in which a black women is nursing a white baby, was been awarded fro its message of unity and equality in Europe.Simultaneously, the same advertisement stirred up controversy in US, since many believed it depicted a black nanny-goat in the subordinate role as a slave. Shopping & Buying Behaviour Shopping & buying behaviour is also to a giving extent affected by the culture of the nation. In low designer surpass cultures more number of women work part-time so it inf luences the number of visits they make to the shop where as in high power distance cultures women mostly work full-time so they have fewer shopping-time.