Global Marketing 3

Bab 3
Social & Cultural Environment

Introduction :
• The chapter focuses on social & cultural forces that shape and affect individual and corporate behavior in the market. Because the world’s cultures are characterized by both differences and similarities, the task of the global marketer is twofold.
• First, marketer must study and understand the country cultures in which they will doing business.
• Second, this understanding must be incorporated into the marketing planning process.

Society, culture, and global consumer culture :
• Culture can be define as:
“ways of living, built up by a group of human beings, that are transmitted from one generation to another”
A culture acts out its ways of living in the context of social institutions, including family, educational, religious, governmental, and business institutions. Those institutions in turn, function to reinforce cultural norms.
• Consumption has become a hallmark of postmodern society. As cultural information and imagery flow ever more freely via satellite TV, internet, and similar communication channels, new global consumers culture are emerging . Persons who identify with these cultural share meaningful sets of consumption-related symbols.
Some of these cultures are associated with specific product categories:
- fast food culture, credit card culture, pub culture,
coffee culture.

Attitudes, beliefs and values :
Geert Hofstede, anthropologist, said about culture as:
“the collective programming of the mind that differentiate the members of one category of people from those of another”
So then, we have to learn about culture by studying the attitudes, beliefs and values shared by a specific group of people.
• Attitudes is a learned tendency to respond in a consistent way to a given object or entity.
• Beliefs is an organized pattern of knowledge that an individual holds to be true about the world.
Attitudes and beliefs , in turn are closely related to value. A value can be defined as an continuing beliefs or feeling that a specific mode of conduct its personally or socially preferable to another mode of conduct.
Examples:
-Japanese , strive to achieve cooperation consensus, self denial, and harmony. Because these all represent feelings about modes of conduct, they are values. Japanese young people belief the West is a source of important fashion trends. >>>
have a favorable attitudes toward American brands.

Aesthetics :
• Aesthetics is concerning the appreciation of beauty or good taste:
• Global marketers must understand the important of visual aesthetics personified in the color or shape of a product, label, or package. Various degree of complexity are perceived differently in differently part of the world.
Aesthetics elements that are deemed attractive, appealing, and in a good taste in one country may be perceived differently in another country.
• There is nothing “good” or “bad” about any color of , all association and perceptions regarding color arise from culture.
• Red is a popular color in the world >> represent blood, tied to centuries old traditions of winemaking. Also associate with active, hot, and vibrant, emotional and sharp
• Blue associate with sky and water, has an elemental connotation with undertones of dependability, constancy and eternity.
• White is purity and cleanliness in the West, but it is associate with death in part of Asia.
• Example:
GM was trying for the right to build sedan in China:
The company executive gave Chinese officials gift from upscale Tiffany & Company an a jewelry’s signature of blue box. They replaced the white ribbon on the blue box with red ones, since red consider a lucky color, and white has a negative connotations.>> they won the proposal
Music also an aesthetics component of all cultures.
-Bossanova is associate with Argentina, Samba with Brazil, Salsa with Cuba, Reggae with Jamaica, rap with America, dangdut with Indonesia

Dietary Preference :
• Cultural influences are also quite apparent in food preparation and consumption pattern and habits.
-Russian, eat caviar, Japan eat Rice and grilled fish for breakfast. Hindu in India served them self with right hand rather than utensils., spicy and hotness.
Examples:
-US company failures introduce fluffy frosted cake to UK..>>cake is eaten when tea time with the finger than eat a dessert with a fork.
-Instant fast food, microwave food, >> potatoes coach
Shorter lunch hours, and tighter budget are forcing workers to grab a quick, cheap bite before returning to work.

Language and Communication :
The diversity of cultures around the world is also reflected in language.
Linguistic have divided the study of spoken / verbal, include
-syntax: rules of sentence formation
-semantic: system of meaning
-phonology : system of sound pattern
-morphology: word formation
Unspoken / non verbal, includes:
-gesture, touching, and other form of body language that supplement spoken communications.
In global marketing, language is a crucial tool for communicating
With customers, channel intermediaries, and others.
Phonology can also come into play: Colgate discovered that in Spanish, Colgate is a command that means “go hang yourself”.
• Technology is providing interesting new opportunities for exploiting linguistic in the name of marketing. Young people throughout the world using mobile phones to send text messages; its turn out that certain numbers in Korea have meaning in particular languages:
- 8282 means hurry up
- 7170 sound like “close friend”
- 4 5683 968 on key pads can be interpreted as “I love You
- Nonverbal communications are perhaps even more dreadful.
- >> Westerners doing business in Middle East must be careful not to reveal the soles of their shoes, or pass the document with a left hands
- >> In Japan bowing is an important form on nonverbal communication


Marketing’s impact on culture :
• Universal aspects of the cultural environment represent opportunities for global marketers to standardize some or all elements of a marketing program.
• The cultural change and the globalization of culture have been capitalized upon, even significantly accelerated, by companies that have seize/grab opportunities to find customers around the world. However, the impact of marketing and, more generally, of global capitalism on culture can be controversial. >>
McDonaldization of culture ----breakdown cultural barriers while expanding into new markets with their products.


Training in cross-cultural competency :
• Personal relationships are an essential ingredients for the international businessperson. Peace Corp volunteers devote one-third of their training to learning how things are done in the host country (particularly personal relationship).
• Samsung, GE, AT&T and other large companies that are globalizing are taking steps to train managers and sensitize them to other ways to thinking, feeling and acting. The goals is to improve their ability to deal effectively with customers, suppliers, bosses and employees on others countries and region.