CONSUMER AND CULTURAL INFLUENCES

Culture

The culture is related to the comprehensive examination of the factors like the language, religion, knowledge, laws, art, music, work patterns, social customs, festivals and the food etc. of the society, it also determines personality.

It primarily operates in a certain boundaries of the individual boundaries of the society as per the functioning of various institutions like the family, mass media

It is both a mirror of values and possessions of its members and that it is not static and evolve a change over the time e.g. advertizing agencies, fashion design houses, music companies and cinema are all producer of cultures

The main characteristics of culture are that Culture is invented: People invent culture

themselves and shall have an ideological component (values right and wrong); Technological (skills, arts and craft available to them in the environment)

Contd.. Culture is learnt: this means for e.g. belief

in god, belief in god, domination by a husband, being polite to the ladies accepting the families and the joint families is called for as that it is learnt

Culture is shared: it is a combination of groups and can be called for living for a society or a common thing which is like to share the norms, experiences e.g. the American Pop Culture full of the jeans, music , burgers and cinema

Contd.. Culture satisfies need: this Is thought like

the advertizing and is called to change the psychological, social and custom needs

Cultures are not similar/static: there are differences in the consumers, societies, government, religion, states, dancing, music and dynamic with more receptive to changes and growth e.g. that the role of the women in India traditionally is of household

Cultural values Cultural values are enduring belief that a

particular behavior shall serve as the standard across a given situation over the time the values are

> Social> Personal> Terminal (desired end state e.g. comft.

Life)> Instrumental values (correspondingly

Life)

Contd..> Global values like the achievement, security,

self direction, conformity like the obedient, politeness, self controlled etc., enjoyment

>Other oriented values are the following individual/collective e.g. the reactions to advertizing, luxury goods, fast food joints, preferred sources of information

> Youth/ age in culture: this means that such factors are more prominent in the American cultures and the India, china and Korea prefers the age.

Contd.. Extended / limited family: families in

India, china and korea and the eastern countries give an importance to the extended family hence while advertizing to teen agers we need to look for that

Masculine/ feminine: we have attributed different values to men vs women in the world where as in the middle eastern countries they do not portray women at all

Contd.. Competitive/ cooperative: the countries

like the spain, germany, japan put a ban on the comparitive advertizing but is acceptable in India e.g. coke/ pepsi commercial

Diversity/ uniformity: this includes the religion, political beliefs and other important attitudes and behavior

Environment- oriented values

Cleanliness Performance/ status (brand image/ valve/

personality) Tradition/ change (e.g. England is called very

traditional and ¾ population is generally a brand loyal)

Risk taking/ security (new product acceptance)

Problematic/ fatalistic nature (nature, harmony with nature or the

environment

Schwartz ModelShalom Schwartz (1992, 1994) used his 'Schwartz Value Inventory' (SVI)

with a wide survey of over 60,000 people to identify common values that acted as 'guiding principles for one's life'.

He identified ten 'value types' that gather multiple values into a single category.

Power This takes value from social status and prestige. The ability to control

others is important and power will be actively sought through dominance of others and control over resources social authority wealth

Achievement Value here comes from setting goals and then achieving them. The

more challenge, the greater the sense of achievement. When others have achieved the same thing, status is reduced and greater goals are sought i.e. ambitious, capable, successful

Hedonism Hedonists simply enjoy themselves. They seek pleasure above all

things and may, according to the view of others, e.g. seek pleasure, enjoying life.

Contd..Stimulation The need for stimulation is close to hedonism, though the goal is slightly

different. Pleasure here comes more specifically from excitement and thrills and a person with this driver is more likely to be found doing extreme sports than propping up a bar daring, varied life , exciting life.

Self-direction Those who seek self-direction enjoy being independent and outside the control

of others. The prefer freedom and may have a particular creative or artistic bent, which they seek to indulge whenever possible creativity, curious freedom

Universalism The universalist seeks social justice and tolerance for all. They promote peace

and equality and find war anathema except perhaps in pursuit of lasting peace social justice, equality, protecting environment, helpful honest, forgiving

Benevolence Those who tend towards benevolence are very giving, seeking to help others

and provide general welfare. They are the 'earth mothers' who nurture all helpful , honest, forgiving

Contd..Tradition The traditionalist respects that which has gone before, doing

things simply because they are customary. They are conservatives in the original sense, seeking to preserve the world order as is. Any change makes them uncomfortable humble, devout

Conformity The person who values conformity seeks obedience to clear

rules and structures. They gain a sense of control through doing what they are told and conforming to agreed laws and statutes. Politeness, humble , honoring parents

Security Those who seek security seek health and safety to a greater

degree than other people (perhaps because of childhood woes). Though they may worry about the potential of military force, they welcome the comfort that their existence brings.

Contd..

SECURITY, TRADITION, CONFORMITY

ACHIEVEMENT,

POWER,

HEDONISM

UNIVERSILISM,

BENEVOLENCE

STIMULATION, SELF DIRECTION, HEDONISM

SELF ENHANCEMENT(Motivation)

OPENNESS TO CHANGE

SELFTRANSCEDENCE(self improvements)

CONVERSATION

Cultural differences in the non verbal ,communications

Time : Time perspective has a direct influence on the personal selling and the advertizing themes likewise e.g. as in the case of convenience foods for the non time saving cutures e.g. the japan, middle east do not like the insistence of coming on time in Business

Space: the personal space is also important and is the minimum space between people without making them feel uncomfortable and pushy e.g. north americans consider the south american pushy and aggressive and them the south americans feel that the north americans are aloof , cold and sometimes snobbish

Symbols: four is a symbol of death in the japan similarly the malasians consider the green color with the illness and jungalism.

Friendship: japanese negotiate a relationship where the americans negotiate a contract as well in india a personal relationship is considered important for the success in the long run.

Agreements : for the countries like the china, arbs it is the verbal aggrement, for americans it is the written contract

Contd.. Things: in china the gifts should be given

in private but in the arbs it should be given in front of everyone, in India gifts shall be given on the occasion like Diwali

Etiquettes: in india its considered alright to eat with the fingers but the western cultures use the fork similarly nodding head shall be considered as to saying yes in some cultures and no in the other cultures

Cross cultural influences The norms and values of the consumers

in the foreign markets that influence the strategies of the multinational organizations e.g. “thing globally act locally” levi strauss similarly the procter & gamble, pepsi, coca cola, IBM, Gillette, J&J, Kelloggs, colgate palmolive, nestle, canon, epson, honda, Suzuki and many others earn a large revenue abroad even the company Mc Donald’s has adopted a uniformity across the Global Markets.

Contd.. Subcultures: these are the sub or under the

main parts of the society which belongs to a particular culture are different in some or the other way like size e.g. in India subcultures cultures with some other languages which belong to a particular culture there within the constraints like the mother tongue and the local languages are many in the counterparts of india the other factors that are held as an important constraints are the generation, gender factor, regional and religion factors.