CULTURAL

DYNAMICS
in Assessing Global Markets

BERLIANA. YENTY. ROMI

 ?
why studies
CULTUR
E
? ?
o The Importance of studies Culture

A marketer has to realize that every nation has a different culture.

Since marketing is a people oriented function, this affects the
global marketer powerfully. Culture is a direct determinant of
demand and ways to do business

o “Culture is pervasive in all marketing activities”

Culture is pervasive in all marketing activities because all the

marketer’s effort in pricing, promotion, channels of distribution,
product, packaging and styling are judged in a cultural context for
acceptance, resistance or rejection.
 CULTURE
The human-made part of human
environment-the sum total of knowledge,
beliefs, art, morals, laws, customs, and any
other capabilities and habits acquired by
humans as members of society
 Culture Origin
Cultures come from how the people try to solve their problems and
how they interact to each other in a society

To be more detail, Individuals learn culture from social

institutions through socialization (growing up) and acculturation
(adjusting to a new culture.) Individuals also absorb culture
through role modeling, or imitation of their peers. Finally, people
make decisions about consumptions and production through
application of their culture-based knowledge.
Cultural Elements
Values, Rituals, Symbols, Beliefs, and Thought Processes

Marketers must design products, distribution systems, and promotional

programs, with due consideration of each of the five elements.

Just look when Chinese New Year comes. All Chinese’s welcomed
this day with joyous. It’s an opportunity for the marketer to a major or
selling time for food and clothing. Especially when the marketer sells’
any item that present the icon for that year. For example, if it was a
dragon’s year. It will be better for marketer to decorate the door
hanger with a picture of a dragon or maybe lampion, ang pao, etc.
Language
•Different language means differences in idiom that makes it
difficult of exact translation.

• For example, Tropicana orange juice brand case. Tropicana

brand orange juice was advertised as jugo de China in Puerto

Rico, but when transported to Miami’s Cuban community, it

failed. To the Puerto Rican, China translated into orange, but
to the Cuban it was China the country-and the Cuban were not
in the market for Chinese juice.
Social Institution
The roles and status positions found within a society are
influenced by the dictates of social institution, include one of
them is the government. Government influence thinking and
behavior through the passage, promulgation, promotion and
enforcement of a variety of laws affecting consumption and
marketing behaviors.

For examples, the violent sex scenes in a Japanese game

disappear in the American version, while in Indonesia; it is
prohibited to be distributing.
Be Cultural Sensitivity …
“An awareness of the nuances of culture so that a culture can
be viewed objectively, evaluated, and appreciated; an important
part of foreign marketing”

o Why ?
Being culturally sensitive will reduce conflicts and improve
communications, and thereby increase success in collaborative
relationships

o How ?
To acquire cultural empathy, it’s important to recognize that cultures
are not right or wrong, better or worse. Just because a culture is
different does not make it wrong. Marketers must understand how
their own cultures influence their assumptions about another culture.
Cultural Dynamic …
The degree of resistance to new patterns varies. In some situations
new elements are accepted completely and rapidly; in others,
resistance is so strong that acceptance is never forthcoming. One
studies show that the most important factors in determining what kind
and how much of an innovation will be accepted is the degree of
interest in the particular subject, as well as how drastically the new
will change the old-that is, how disruptive the innovation will be
presently acceptable values and behavior patterns.

For examples, today where the people are time-consciousness; instant

foods, labor-saving devices, and fast foods restaurant that might have
been resisted just a few years ago are rapidly gaining acceptance.
This condition surely increases the quantity of demand for the industry
of fast-food while demand for vegetables or meat (non-instant) will
decrease.
Resistance to Cultural Change…
Resistance to cultural change will affect new product
introduction in the respect that the greatest resistance will
confront products which are farthest from the status quo, but
this resistance can be lowered by gaining public interest.
Lowering resistance in this situation means shortening the
duration of the resistance. Domestic marketing is subject to the
same resistance to change.

Examples of this resistance in the domestic market are the

introduction of contact lenses and using motorcycles as an
acceptable means of recreation.
Cultural Borrowing…
The phenomenon by which societies learn from other cultures'
ways and borrow ideas to solve problems or improve conditions

o Technology and it’s effect…

Internet is invented, many nations welcomed this innovation.
Communication through all over the world seems borderless. It does
really solve the problems for many nations to have an easier way to
communicate wherever and whenever it’s needed. And it does really
change the way of marketer’s efforts; promotions, transaction and
many others
Cultural Analysis
The best procedure for making a cultural analysis for a potential market is to go
through each of the elements of culture and evaluate each on the basis of how it could
possibly affect a proposed marketing program.

Material Culture
Technology – the techniques and “know-how” of producing material goods.
Economics – the employment of capabilities and the results.
Social Institutions
Social organizations – family life, status, age.
Education – literacy and intelligence and how informed the public is.
Political structures – control over business.
Man and the Universe
Belief systems – how do these affect product and promotional acceptance?
Aesthetics
Graphic and plastic arts – degree of modernization.
Folklore – superstition, tradition, etc.
Music, drama, and the dance – promotional possibilities.
Marketers Attitude
Towards the Constantly
Change of Markets …

o Adjusting efforts to cultural demands of the market

o Marketers as agents of change

Marketer plays as a change agent when the marketer success to

make the market use of something new in whatever the degree

of acceptance in whatever level of culture.

 Strategy of planned change
A marketing strategy in which a
Cultural Change company deliberately sets out to
change those aspects of a foreign

Strategies… culture resistant to predetermined

marketing goals.

Strategy of cultural congruence

A marketing strategy in which
products are marketed in a way
similar to the marketing of products
already in the market in a manner
as congruent as possible with
existing cultural norms

Strategy of unplanned change

A marketing strategy in which a
company introduces a product
into a market without a plan to
influence the way the market's
culture responds to or resists the
company's marketing message.
‘Similar-but-Different’
Several nationalities can speak the same language doesn’t mean
a product acceptable to the other, or that a promotional
message that succeeds in one country will succeed in the other.

A common language does not guarantee a similar interpretation

of word or phrases. Both British and Americans speak English,
but their cultures are sufficiently different so that a single
phrase has different meaning to each and can be even
completely misunderstood. The movie title The Spy Who
Shagged Me means nothing to most Americans, but it means a
lot to British consumers.
MARKET
Marketer’s efforts - Economic conditions – Culture Elements

Culture elements make how the people behaviors and so on with

the markets needs and wants (lifestyle, etc). So does the
economic condition which involve in market decision what to
buy depend on how theirs own budget condition at that time. In
addition, there are moment where marketer success to make the
market use of something new in whatever the degree of
acceptance in whatever level of culture (agent change)
INNOVATION
Functional VS Dysfunctional

When a processes feeding formula into the diet of

babies in undeveloped countries is being
introduced, the producer think it might bring
functional consequences of better nutrition and
health which would solve protein deficiency
problem in that countries. However, what really
happens is contradictory with the first prediction.
In Nicaragua, where sanitation methods are
inadequate, a substantial increase in dysentery and
diarrhea and a higher infant mortality rate resulted
(dysfunctional).
DYSFUNCTIONAL
Corporate Responsibility???

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It would be difficult to defend this proposition since the
dysfunctional consequences of an innovation may not only
have negative consequences on the social system but may
ultimately impact on the success of the multinational

?
concern. While most multinational companies have not
concerned themselves with the consequences of an
innovation beyond product safety, it appears that in the future
there will be greater concern on the part of host countries in
holding companies responsible for the consequences of their
marketing activities. It would seem that from an enlightened
self-interest viewpoint, companies should attempt to
determine the consequences of their innovations, and should
they prove to be dysfunctional, include in their marketing
strategies attempts to eliminate the negative aspects of the
acceptance of diffusion of their product.
DYSFUNCTIONAL
How to Solve it…………..

Westernized diet has caused many Japanese to

become overweight. To counter this, the
Japanese are buying low-calorie, low fat-foods
to help shed excess weight and are flocking to
health clubs. So then the product still profitably
introduced.
Glossary …
o Social institutions
The methods and systems, including family, religion, school, the
media, government, and corporations, that affect the ways in which
people relate to one another, teach acceptable behavior to succeeding
generations, and govern themselves.

o Cultural values
The system of beliefs and customs held by a population in a given
culture

o Linguistic distance
The measure of difference between languages; an important factor in
determining the amount of trade between nations.
o Aesthetics
The measure of difference between languages; an important factor in
determining the amount of trade between nations

o Factual knowledge
A type of knowledge or understanding of a foreign culture that
encompasses different meanings of color, different tastes, and other
traits of a culture that a marketer can study, anticipate, and absorb

o Interpretive knowledge
An ability to understand and to appreciate fully the nuances of
different cultural traits and patterns
fin…