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into continuous first hand contact; the original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct. Acculturation is a process in which members of one cultural group adopt the beliefs and behaviours of another group. Although acculturation is usually in the direction of a minority group adopting habits and language patterns of the dominant group, acculturation can be reciprocal--that is, the dominant group also adopts patterns typical of the minority group. Assimilation of one cultural group into another may be evidenced by changes in language preference, adoption of common attitudes and values, members hip in common social groups and institutions, and loss of separate political or ethnic identification. The Acculturation Process Stage 1: The Honeymoon
Stage 2: Rejection
Established behaviours and meanings are now inadequate in the new subculture Development of antagonistic attitudes toward the new subculture Reject key values and meanings in new subculture Cultural conflicts are high Language conflict is high
Stage 3: Tolerance
Cultural interpretation deepens Understand more cultural meanings and behaviours Start appreciating the new subculture Cultural conflict decreases Language proficiency begins
Stage 4: Integration
Adjustment to the new subculture is achieved Subculture is valued for its good qualities
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Along with the development of transportation and communication, modern people have increasingly numerous channels for experiencing foreign culture. Take Taiwan as an example, over 8.1 million persons living in Taiwan travelled abroad for various reasons during 2009. Additionally, thousands of magazines, publication prints, television programs, and movies also provided other channels through which Taiwanese could obtain knowledge of other countries. Even for those who do not read books or watch television, various imported goods are important to daily life and convey information on the place of production. According to the information of the Ministry of Education Taiwan, in 2009, there are approximately 33 thousands Taiwanese participants studying in other countries, over 10% of them in the United Kingdom (UK). Furthermore, numerous Taiwanese stay abroad owing to immigration or business reasons. Since it is impossible for a person to divest himself of their own culture, some changes may occur when he has opportunities to contact with other cultural groups, which also implies that following living in a foreign country for a period of time, individuals inevitably change when they contact with other cultural groups, and thus Taiwanese who live in the UK long-term may be affected by British culture, changing their original cultural values. International cultural exchange is not limited to educational and personal exchanges. Global economic development has also produced numerous cross-cultural marketing efforts. Presently, globalization appears to be the ultimate goal of every corporation, leading to the creation of global brand, products and advertising campaigns. Although global communication campaigns generally contain certain levels of standardization, cultural factors still are important for effective communication. Marketers and advertisers in particular, because of dealing with communicating with people with various cultural backgrounds, are highly aware of the demands associated with understanding different cultures. This situation also reflects on the unending debate on standardizing versus localizing advertising. Nonetheless, cultural factors are clearly essential in marketing communication. If marketers can understand the characteristics of customers from different cultures and with diverse acculturation levels, then acculturation level will provide a useful criterion helping marketers to establish more accurate communication strategies catering to specific customers,
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cultural impacts on marketing (international versus domestic) cross-cultural dimensions of marketing research cross-cultural aspects of marketing mix (products, price, promotion, and distribution) cross-cultural marketing education and professional training cross-cultural practice in electronic marketing
Cross-cultural marketing can be seen as the strategic process of marketing among consumers whose culture differs from that of the marketers own culture at least in one of the fundamental cultural aspects, such as language, religion, social norms and values, education, and the living style. From the anthropological perspective all market behaviours are culture-bound. Therefore, in order to match the marketing mix with consumer preferences, purchasing behaviour, and product-use patterns in a potential market, marketers must have a thorough understanding of the cultural environment of that market. Some Real World Examples for Cross-cultural Marketing To what extent culture of a particular market place has influenced the marketing practices of business corporate can be understood by analysing each element of the marketing mix (4 Ps i.e. product, price, promotion and place).
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(1)Product
1992: Paneer on a pizza! 1997: Paneer on a pizza? 2002: Paneer on a pizza. Same statement, same concept but the noticeable thing is the change in the attitude. It started from absolute disbelief to why not to calm acceptance. It shows how foreign based multinational companies have changed their product according to the taste of the indigenous of a country. In this case one element of the marketing mix, product has been changed to cope up with the existing culturally bound taste of Indians. Pizza Hut and Dominos now serve Tandoori, Paneer and Chettinad toppings which are absolutely new menu for these MNCs but culturally accepted traditional foodstuffs for Indians.
Maggi in India
Noodles were alright for dinner once in a while and it is accepted in other countries as well but it was unsuccessful in India. Since Indians consider idly, dosa, chappathi, etc. as their dinner menu. Then Maggi wanted another marketing strategy to sell its product and it marketed Maggi as a snack not as a dinner and succeeded in the market. This also reveals how culturally bounded practices impact the marketing strategies. They also went along with curry flavour, tomato flavour, etc. in India.
Swarovski in India
Swarovski is a Czech Republic based crystal venture incorporated in 1895. Swarovski India (Pvt) Ltd faced a difficulty in marketing crystals in India primarily. In the European and Western countries crystal is considered as a valuable gift item and initially they marketed their crystal as in the same manner in India but they struggled to capture the market due to the existing cultural aspects. Indians had a sentiment about gold and silver as ideal gifts for a
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bride or a bridegroom and they are culturally taught that gold and silver are the ideal gift for every occasion. Swarovski there after realized the need for Indianization and came up with an alternative product. They introduced crystal studded sarees firstly and now they are offering a collection of sarees, blouses, odhnis, and salwar kameezes studded with crystals.
Youth of India expects music which is somewhat related to their culture and prefer the styles like bhangra which is a traditional Indian music style. Realizing these desires, western channels like MTV and V channel has included Indian pop, a kind of fusion music of India into their charts. (2)Price
MNCs like KFC and McDonalds are giving their primary concern to the price they charge from Sri Lankans since people in Sri Lanka are more conscious about the prices of product than the quality. Even the displays they use to show their products, specifically display the price of each product. This proves that these MNCs are amending their marketing strategies regarding price to suit Sri Lankan market. (3)Promotion Marketing cross culturally consist advertisements as it foremost part, which directly appeal the target market. Promotions in the sense it mainly includes advertisements and the cultural issues relating to those advertisements should be precisely dealt in order to capture the market through a healthy relationship with the target market. For this purpose most of the MNCs utilize the technique called Advertising Localization. It is not a mere change of designation stemming from computer science vocabulary but a radical change of perspective concerning the real nature and modes of linguistic and cultural transfer from one language into another.
Coca cola uses different celebrities in each region of India to communicate more effectively with the target market by considering their cultural variability. They use Aamir Khan in North India, Vijay in Tamil Nadu, Jyothika in Andhra Pradesh and Aishwarya Rai in rest of India endorsing the same Coca-Cola. This shows the perspective of marketers that the people will feel more comfortable when they see a person from their own cultural background in advertisements and feel positive toward their products. In Sri Lankan context Santhosh and Bathiya endorse Coke and the concept of the advertisement is carefully designed to reflect the local culture in each frame.
Toyota Advertisements
Toyota used a pregnant, naked woman in their advertisements and this was accepted by some countries and where as some countries protested against it and Toyota later withdrew the advertisement. This shows how the cultural believes of people influence the marketing practices of business organizations. (4)Place
Dilmah uses several methods of distribution in several countries. It operates in 93 global markets and it has its own distribution mode through its regional channels in certain countries and where as in other several countries it uses a native prominent goods distributor for their tea. In countries like Australia, USA, and European countries it uses its own distribution channels where the customers believe in manufacturer own brand and distribution. In certain countries like Jordan, UAE, etc. it uses a native goods distributor to distribute their tea since these customers buy the products which comes from their own distributors. Cultural Influences Since culture is a wide spread phenomenon which cannot be separately identified from the group of people who share a set of accepted behaviours, customs, and values, it is obvious that the impact of such shared culture would result in all sorts of decision makings of the human beings. Such impacts can be mainly seen in the following perspectives.
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In the General Point of View: For example; language, body language, punctuation, negotiation styles, gestures, etc. can be given.
In the Human Relationship Point of View: For example; employee relationship, customer relationship, supplier relationship, stakeholder relationship, etc. can be pointed out.
In the Marketing Point of View: The impact that culture would have on the 4Ps.
Aspects to Consider When Starting a New Business Which is believed to Have Cultural Impacts Even though cross cultural clashes create barriers they also provide challenges for the international businesses where those challenges encourage the business to develop further. All it is required to have a comprehensive knowledge about the impacts of the culture on the international business and prepared with all sorts of precautionary actions to be successive. The followings can be provided as recommendations to be successful in the global business;
Doing a thorough market research Doing internal research to identify the cultural impacts among the employees Adaptation to the differences Developing commonly accepted standards which to be followed by all the stakeholders of the business
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People tend to live within their cultural boundaries; i.e., people have their own cultural values and norms, which influence the way they think, feel and act. People in the same ethnic groups tend to share the language, customs, values, and social views. These shared values (i.e., culture) influence peoples cognitive (beliefs and motives), affective (emotion and attitude) and behavioural (purchase and consumption) processes. Based on this notion of advertising as a mirror, cultural values and standards are implanted in ads in such a way that consumers can see themselves and identify with the characters in the ads and feel affinity with the brands .Thus, cultural diversity affects how ethnic consumers perceive and accept advertising messages. The role of advertising, in the context of consumer acculturation (as well as individual acculturation to the extent that it transmits new social values and norms), is immediately apparent. Media is one of the four socialization agents along with family, peers and institutions. Nowadays, understanding cultural differences is frequently considered a prerequisite for successful international marketing. The reasoning is that consumers grow up in a particular culture and hence become accustomed to the value systems, beliefs, and perception processes of that culture. Consequently consumers respond to marketing messages that are congruent with their culture, rewarding marketer who understand that culture and tailor marketing accordingly. Ethnic consumers have different cultural values than those of the majority group and tend to be more responsive to messages that are reflective of their cultural assets such as personal pride, convenience-oriented, self-fulfilment, self-respect, and accomplishment. They have also been known to exhibit different marketing responses such as product use, shopping orientation, response to promotion, brand loyalty, media usage, attitude toward advertising, purchase decision, etc. For example, consumers with stronger racial attitudes are more likely to respond positively to ads featuring models of their races .More specifically, previous studies show that African Americans respond more favourably to ads featuring a black spokesperson than they do to ads featuring white models. Acculturation is frequently defined as the culture exchange that is initiated by the conjunction of two or more autonomous cultural systems. This definition has since been adopted in numerous cross-cultural studies, and provided the basis for the development of related researches.
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Acculturation to another culture is most compelling in the case of actual migration, but also occurs via other forms of cross-cultural contact. Acculturation is a very complex process that is difficult to understand, and even more important, to use it to create more effective marketing programs is a challenge. Acculturation is different for each person based on their attitudes to embrace the local culture, but at the same time keep their own. Other factors include the education level and the stage in the life cycle. The process of acculturation takes places at all levels of the social interaction and it is important to understand its dynamics and the way these individuals interact communicate and work, for companies to successfully reach this segment. It is essential for a successful marketing campaign to be in tune with a different country culture at all message levels: symbolic, explicit, visual and subliminal. For this reason, marketers who want to reach different cultures should consider the complete range of acculturation, and its ever changing dynamics. Furthermore, globalization has driven this process further based on new telecommunications technologies, (i.e., the Internet, wireless communications, satellite TV, mobile devices such as iPhone and Android based platforms) which accelerates getting ideas and attitudes for the person living in the host nation. Interestingly, these same devices such as Facebook and twitter also help immigrants to stay in touch with their family and friends in their country of origin, sort of a reverse acculturation process. There is no current literature about how this technological change may affect or alter the acculturation process.
For the acculturation process to take place, there are two competing paradigms: 1) a unidimensional model for the immigrant who travels alone and is submerged in the local culture and economy, and in time loses his culture and 2) a multi-dimensional model in which the person embraces the host culture but at the same time keeps many elements (such as language) of his/her own country of origin. The validation of this model has gain tremendous relevancy for the marketing of products and services globally. Integration is the process of adopting elements of the new culture while keeping facets of the old. Assimilation on the other hand, consists of losing ones culture and adopting the one of the host nation. Separation means that people form their own groups within a particular nation, and finally marginalization is to relinquish to both the new and old cultures. Notwithstanding, marketers need to develop value propositions that combine both models in order to be effective, i.e. cultural elements of the country of origin as well as the host nation.
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Traveling, migration and interaction with other countries and people is a very important factor in acculturation. International traveling has become very easy and convenient with long distance international flights. Cosmopolitanism too plays a very important role in global marketing through acculturation. Cosmopolitanism is about openness to other cultures and differences between cultures. A cosmopolitan is neither a tourist nor a visitor of many countries. It is possible that an individual never leaves his/her local area but respects other cultures and thinks globally. Cosmopolitanism is a mind-set or way of thinking. Hence, physical relocation and visiting many countries do not necessarily affect the level of cosmopolitanism among people. Marketing across cultures worldwide is a thriving business as the world moves closer to a global economy. International companies have been marketing to countries around the world for years and many have had some degree of success without ever taking cultural differences into consideration. Understanding cultural differences is important to achieve success in any market, let alone on the world business stage. While there are national and local cultures to consider, political and business cultures are being address by marketers when developing marketing strategies. Lack of cultural considerations not only can result in a mediocre response to product promotions, but can even impacts the company's international image. Nestl suffered significant international criticism when a breast milk substitute marketed in Africa was deemed to be the cause of malnutrition in babies. While there was nothing wrong with their product, Nestl was at fault because the company didn't consider the possibility that reduced literacy levels in Africa would result in their breast milk substitute being misused. The reason why people from different cultures respond differently to advertising /marketing stimuli could be the assumption that more accommodation results in more favourable responses; i.e., the greater the ethnic accommodation by advertisers, the more favourable the evaluations of ads among ethnic groups. In other words, since ethnic audiences feel more affinity for culturally congruent messages, they tend to appreciate culturally accommodating ad messages (e.g., featuring ethnic spokespersons, culturally sensitive messages, placed in culturally congruent media, etc.) and respond more favourably to the ads.
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Owing to increasing population size and purchasing power of multicultural audiences in the U.S., marketers have already recognized the importance of multicultural marketing, and many marketers are using multicultural segmentation and customized marketing strategies and tactics to appeal to ethnic consumers. Over half of Fortune 500 companies were using some form of multicultural marketing strategies, such as customized advertising, tailored promotional activities, new product lines, customized product packaging, etc. Take another example. During 1980s-1990s, western fastfood giants began to explore the Chinese market in order to attract more Chinese consumers to try some completely different flavours. However, the fast-food industry started relatively late in Chinese Market (Chinas fast-food industry research report, 2008). In April 1987, the U.S fast-food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken established there, and concept of modern fast-food was introduced in China. Nowadays, in urban China, dining out is increasingly popular with consumers which was not a common thing in the past. It has become a big business for western restaurant chains and local entrepreneurs. Fast food restaurants are a flourishing business opportunity and have rapidly become a normal part of urban life. In the 1990s, several global companies (e.g. Coca-Cola, Pepsi Cola, and Miller Brewing Co.) de-emphasized ethnic marketing practices and developed an integrated marketing approach to appeal to all customers, regardless of their cultural. Some marketers took a middle-of-theroad approach, called transcultural marketing programs that attempted to appeal to all ethnic groups at once. However, the majority of multicultural researchers still criticize the standardized approach and advocate ethnically differentiated marketing strategies to appeal to various audiences. Moreover, we are continuously hearing the success stories of multicultural marketing campaigns. For example, a recent campaign by McDonalds targeting Spanish-speaking audiences resulted in a 32 per cent sales increase. One of the problems associated with market segmentation by ethnic origin is that we may overlook diversity within the ethnic group. Each ethnic group is diverse in itself. Therefore, it is important to recognize that people in the same ethnic group might be different, especially in terms of acculturation and cultural affinity. This concept has been widely used to understand the process whereby U.S. immigrants change their behaviour and attitudes toward U.S. society through customs, language, and interpersonal contacts. One study shows that degree of acculturation varies between ethnic groups; i.e., acculturation by Asians was
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significantly lower than any other ethnic. Moreover, degree of acculturation varies within the same ethnic group. That is, acculturation level serves as a variable influencing consumer attitudes and behaviours within the same ethnic group, such as shopping orientation, use of language and media, perceptions of product attributes, attitude toward advertising, and gender roles.
CULTURAL AFFINITY
A concept that helps to measure the attitudinal dimensions of acculturation is cultural affinity, which denotes that people tend to have higher affinities with those from a similar cultural background. Cultural affinity level also varies within and between ethnic groups. Even after controlling income and social class variables, consumers with high vs. low cultural affinity or identification showed significantly different marketing behaviours, such as advertising responses, media usage patterns, family decision making and information search behaviour
Levels of acculturation and cultural affinity tend to exert a direct impact on consumer acceptance of, and attitude toward, advertisements with or without cultural sensitivity. More specifically, applying acculturation and cultural affinity to cultural acceptability and sensitivity, we can expect that people with high cultural affinity and low acculturation level will respond more favourably to culturally acceptable and sensitive advertising stimuli. Therefore, it is crucial for marketers in multicultural environments to assess acculturation and cultural affinity levels among ethnic audiences and the importance of their cultural values within their lives, segment audiences based on the levels of acculturation or cultural affinity, and measure the effectiveness of advertising messages with different levels of cultural acceptability and sensitivity among different acculturation or cultural affinity groups. If advertising messages are insensitive, unacceptable or even offensive to significant portions of the target audience (e.g., high cultural affinity consumers), the advertising could prove to be ineffective or even detrimental. This is how cultural sensitivity and acceptability of marketing stimuli play important roles for multicultural marketing in various part of the world. Take another example of the Latinos. Latinos living in the U.S. are one of the fastest growing minority groups and will continue to lead as a powerful force in demanding products and
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services. They can no longer be identified as one segment but companies need to understand the differences of the subcultures, especially the country of origin and the level of acculturation, if they want to successfully reach the profit potential of this group. Companies also need to ponder the marketing implications of families for the Latino consumer, especially the implications in attitudes, behaviours and the decision-making process of products and services. The level of acculturation seems to be an important factor in developing marketing strategies for Latinos, hence companies should know the specific characteristics of the target customer they are trying to reach and adapt their strategies correspondingly, e.g. using the Spanish language, Latin music or food, and so forth. The question then may also be whether or not to use Spanish language for a marketing message to the Latinos, and clearly the studies shows that, while it may effectively reach a good number of Latinos, it also could hinder the reception for many others who prefer to use English as their main language. Another aspect that may affect the acculturation process is the internal communication system used by Latinos, both within the family and with other families and friends, and their influence in the purchasing decision of products and services. The word of mouth marketing tends to be more prevalent in Latinos than other ethnic groups.
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when an embarrassed American explain what "touch Woody's pecker" could be interpreted as. 3. The Swedish furniture giant IKEA somehow agreed upon the name "FARTFULL" for one of its new desks. 4. In the late 1970s, Wang, the American computer company could not understand why its British branches were refusing to use its latest motto "Wang Cares". Of course, to British ears this sounds too close to "Wankers" which would not really give a very positive image to any company. 5. There are several examples of companies getting tangled up with bad translations of products due to the word "mist". We had "Irish Mist" (an alcoholic drink), "Mist Stick" (a curling iron from Clairol) and "Silver Mist" (Rolls Royce car) all flopping as "mist" in German means dung/manure. 6. "Traficante" and Italian mineral water found a great reception in Spain's underworld. In Spanish it translates as "drug dealer". 7. In 2002, Umbro the UK sports manufacturer had to withdraw its new trainers (sneakers) called the Zyklon. The firm received complaints from many organisations and individuals as it was the name of the gas used by the Nazi regime to murder millions of Jews in concentration camps. 8. Sharwoods, a UK food manufacturer, spent 6 million on a campaign to launch its new 'Bundh' sauces. It received calls from numerous Punjabi speakers telling them that "bundh" sounded just like the Punjabi word for "arse". 9. Honda introduced their new car "Fitta" into Nordic countries in 2001. If they had taken the time to undertake some cross cultural marketing research they may have discovered that "fitta" was an old word used in vulgar language to refer to a woman's genitals in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. In the end they renamed it "Honda Jazz". 10. A nice cross cultural example of the fact that all pictures or symbols are not interpreted the same across the world: staff at the African port of Stevadores saw the "internationally recognised" symbol for "fragile" (i.e. broken wine glass) and presumed it was a box of broken glass. Rather than waste space they threw all the boxes into the sea.
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CONCLUSION The cultural implications are crucial for marketers if they want to reach their target market effectively, and make sure promotional messages are correctly interpreted and perceived by the receptor. In some occasions in advertising it happens that some concepts and ideas are misinterpreted or lost in translation, and even considered insults or aggravations to certain people and cultures. Consumers behave in a particular way based on their cultural attributes such as values and religion, which could greatly impact their perception and reaction towards buying a product or not. The integral perception of a product or service is always perceived as a result of both the cultural and environmental context. Furthermore, the level of satisfaction based on performance is influenced by the individual's beliefs. Individuals perceive the world through their own cultural lens (Ueltschy et al., 2003). Companies need to include a plethora of tools and symbols when targeting different cultures groups, and entice individuals toward the purchase of the product or service, and do not limit themselves to use only the language as a determining factor for good results. Even after a well advanced level of acculturation, the use of symbols such as family gatherings or values is a powerful tool to entice customers to buy, since it has a strong influence in the perception. Thus acculturation plays a very important role in global marketing.
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