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Chapter 4

Cultural Dynamics

in Assessing

Global Markets

Learning Objectives

LO1 The importance of culture to an international marketer

LO2 The origins of culture

LO3 The elements of culture

LO4 The impact of cultural borrowing

LO5 The strategy of planned change and its consequences

Culture’s Pervasive Impact

Culture affects every part of our lives

How we spend money

How we consume

How we sleep

Culture is a very important part of international marketing, it affects us from the time we wake up in the morning till we go to bed and even while we sleep the products we use are impacted by culture.

Culture and Birthrates

The birthrate tables in Exhibit 4.1 show the gradual decline beginning in the 1960s.

Birthrate spikes in Singapore in 1976 and 1988 are not a matter of random fluctuation.

In Chinese cultures, being born in the Year of the Dragon is considered good luck.

A sudden and substantial decline in fertility in Japan in 1966 reflects abstinence, abortions, and birth certificate fudging.

The Japanese believe that women born in the Year of the Fire Horse will lead unhappy lives and perhaps murder their husbands.

Almost everywhere, smaller families are becoming favored. This cultural change now leads experts to predict that the planet’s population may actually begin to decline after the middle of the century unless major breakthroughs in longevity intervene, as some predict.

Exhibit 4.1 Birthrates (per 1000 women)

Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators by International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2012. Copyright © 2012 by World Bank. Reproduced with permission of World Bank via Copyright Clearance Center.

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As countries move from agricultural to industrial to services economies, birthrates decline. Immediate causes may be government policies and birth control technologies, but a global change in values is also occurring. Birthrate spikes have implications for sellers of diapers, toys, schools, and colleges. However, culture-based superstitions have an even stronger influence on the birthrates in Japan.

Culture and Consumption

Exhibit 4.2 illustrates culture’s influence on consumption patterns

The Dutch are the champion consumers of cut flowers.

The Germans and British love their chocolates.

The Japanese and Spaniards prefer seafood.

The Italians love pasta.

The French and Italians consume wine.

The Japanese are the highest consumers of tobacco.

Different types of food are consumed in different cultures (Exhibit 4.2). In hot, tropical countries, spicy food is eaten as spices preserve the food even without refrigeration. The geography of the country also shapes food habits--the Japanese eat a lot of fish and seafood since that is a primary source of food for an island country. The French are famous for wines and champagne because the weather and soil are conducive for grape farming. Diseases also follow food habits such as lung cancer in Spain due to excessive smoking, and liver disease in Germany due to consumption of fatty foods (Exhibit 4.3).

Exhibit 4.2 Patterns of Consumption (annual per capita)

Country	Cut Flowers (€)	Chocolate (kg)	Fish and Seafood (kg)	Dried Pasta (kg)	Wine (liters)	Tobacco (sticks)
France	42	4.3	5.2	9.2	37.9	682
Germany	48	8.1	8.6	9.0	24.6	980
Italy	45	2.5	8.3	24.7	35.1	1147
Netherlands	49	4.9	4.8	3.7	25.7	659
Spain	23	2.1	28.2	5.2	19.5	911
United Kingdom	38	8.0	11.3	4.7	21.2	568
Japan	46	1.1	32.1	8.0	7.2	1490
United States	32	4.4	5.0	2.2	9.9	874

Source: CBI Marketing Information Data Base, “CBI Tradewatch for Cut Flowers and Foliage,” http://www.cbi.eu, 2012; and 2015. EuroMonitor International

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Culture also influences the laws, age limits, and such related to alcohol. The legal environment also has implications for the consumption of cigarettes. Although expenditures on tobacco generally are rising in these countries because of increasing taxes, the amount consumed is declining universally. The dramatic decline of tobacco consumption in Spain represents a huge cultural shift that the world seldom sees.

Culture and Disease

Exhibit 4.3 shows the consequence of consumption patterns across the countries listed.

The Germans have some of the highest consumption levels of flowers, candy, and wine, but the lowest birthrate among the six European countries.

Perhaps the Japanese diet’s emphasis on fish yields them the longest life expectancy.

The diabetes mellitus death rates have declined in five of the countries.

Japan shows a high incidence of stomach cancer.

How people die varies substantially across the countries. The influence of fish versus red meat consumption on the incidence of heart problems is easy to see. Because stomach cancer in Japan is so prevalent, the Japanese have developed the most advanced treatment of the disease, that is, both procedures and instruments. This demonstrates that culture not only affects consumption; it also affects production.

Exhibit 4.3 Consequences of Consumption

Country	Birthrates (per 1,000)	Life Expectancy	Ischemic Heart Disease	Diabetes Mellitus	Lung Cancer	Stomach Cancer
France	13.1	82.2	58.6	18.3	52.2	7.8
Germany	8.6	81.2	161.3	30.8	56.7	12.6
Italy	8.9	82.6	120.2	35.2	60.6	16.8
Netherlands	10.7	81.3	57.8	16.4	64.8	8.5
Spain	9.5	82.6	77.6	22.4	48.0	12.5
United Kingdom	12.8	81.2	121.0	9.7	56.4	7.7
Japan	7.9	83.3	62.1	11.7	56.5	39.4
United States	12.7	78.9	120.1	22.3	51.6	3.7

Source: EuroMonitor 2015.

Death Rate per 100,000

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It is imperative for foreign marketers to learn to appreciate the intricacies of cultures different from their own if they are to be effective in foreign markets.

The Traditional Definition of Culture

The sum of the values, rituals, symbols, beliefs, and thought processes that are learned and shared by a group of people, then transmitted from generation to generation

Resides in the individual’s mind

Recognizes that large collectives of people can be like-minded

Exhibit 4.4 Origins, Elements, and Consequences of Culture

We as humans and consumers are able to adapt to changing environments through innovation. Individuals can learn culture from social institutions through socialization (where one is raised and how) and acculturation (adjusting to a new culture). We also learn and adapt to a culture through role modeling, or imitation of peers. People also make decisions about consumption and production through application of their cultural-based knowledge.

Origins of Culture: Geography

Includes climate, topography, flora, fauna, and microbiology

Influences history, technology, and economics

Social institutions

Boy-to-girl birth ratio

Ways of thinking

Geographical influences manifest themselves in our deepest cultural values developed through the millennia, and as geography changes, humans can adapt almost immediately.

Origins of Culture: History

The impact of specific events in history can be seen reflected in technology, social institutions, cultural values, and even consumer behavior.

Much of American trade policy has depended on the happenstance of tobacco being the original source of the Virginia colony’s economic survival in the 1600s.

The Declaration of Independence, and thereby Americans’ values and institutions, was fundamentally influenced by the coincident 1776 publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.

The military conflicts in the Middle East in 2003 bred new cola brands as alternatives to Coca-Cola—Mecca Cola, Muslim Up, Arab Cola, and ColaTurka.

Perhaps most important are the ripple effects of World War II. For example, Germany’s long-standing mistrust of propaganda has yielded a variety of unusual limitations on marketing practices. The post-War baby boom still affects consumption patterns around the world.

Origins of Culture: The Political Economy

For most of the 20th century, four approaches to governance competed for world dominance:

Colonialism

Casualty of World War II

Fascism

Fell in 1945

Communism

Crumbled in the 1990s

Democracy/free enterprise

Origins of Culture: Technology

The effect of birth control techniques

Women have careers.

Half the marketing majors in the United States are women.

10 percent of the crews on U.S. Navy ships are women.

Men spend more time with kids.

Jet aircraft, air conditioning, televisions, computers, mobile phones, and the Internet are all technological innovations that have had great impacts on institutions and cultural values in the past 50 years in the United States.

Exhibit 4.5 Comparison of Healthcare Systems

Source: Michelle Andrews, “Health, The Cost of Care,” National Geographic Magazine, December 2009. Oliver Uberti/National Geographic Stock. Reprinted with permission.

Origins of Culture: Social Institutions

Includes family, religion, school, the media, government, and corporations

Aspects that are interpreted differently within each culture:

The positions of men and women in society

The family

Social classes

Group behavior

Age groups

How societies define decency and civility

In cultures in which the social organizations result in close-knit family units, a promotion campaign aimed at the family unit is usually more effective than one aimed at individual family members.

Social Institutions: Family

The technology of birth control has tremendously affected families and reduced family sizes around the world.

Family forms and functions also vary substantially around the world, even around the country.

The ratio of male to female children is affected by culture (as well as latitude).

All these differences lead directly to differences in how children think and behave.

In America, single women are choosing to have children without marriage.

In Asia, the percentages of women aged 35–39 years who have never married has burgeoned to more than 15 percent, up from about 5 percent in 1970.

Whereas nepotism is seen as a problem in American organizations, it is more often seen as an organizing principle in Chinese and Mexican firms.

There’s the common practice of high-income folks in Cairo buying an apartment house and filling it up with the extended family—grandparents, married siblings, cousins, and kids.

There’s the American family in California—both parents work to support their cars, closets, and kids in college, all the while worrying about aging grandparents halfway across the country.

In most European countries the ratio is about fifty-fifty.

The gender percentage of boys aged one to six years is 52 in India.

The gender percentage of boys aged one to four years is 55 in China.

Individualism is being taught the first night the American infant is tucked into her own separate bassinette.

Values for egalitarianism are learned the first time Dad washes the dishes in front of the kids or Mom heads off to work.

The toddler learns that both Grandpa and little brother are properly called “you.”

Social Institutions: Religion

The impact of religion on the value systems of a society and the effect of value systems on marketing must not be underestimated.

In most cultures, the first social institution infants are exposed to outside the home takes the form of a church, mosque, shrine, or synagogue.

The influence of religion is often quite strong, so marketers with little or no understanding of a religion may readily offend deeply.

The South African government banned an Axe deodorant advertisement from television, when it portrayed angels tossing their halos—an image that offended Christians there.

The French fashion house of Chanel unwittingly desecrated the Koran by embroidering verses from the sacred book of Islam on several dresses shown in its summer collections.

Religious Pilgrims

Every Muslim is enjoined to make the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, once in his or her lifetime if physically able. Millions of faithful Muslims come from all over the world annually to participate in what is one of the largest ritual meetings on Earth.

Each day at sunrise and sunset, pilgrims crowd the Ghats (steps to the holy river/Mother Ganga/the River Ganges) to immerse themselves in the water and perform puja. The 55-day festival attracts some 60–80 million pilgrims.

Varanasi (also known as Benares or Banaris) is one of the oldest and holiest cities in India. It is believed to be the home of Lord Shiva (Hindu god) and the location of the first sermon by Buddha, so followers of numerous religions flock to Varanasi on a daily basis. On the busiest day of the ritual, estimates are that tens of millions participate (according to Professor Rika Houston). Meanwhile, televised rituals such as the Academy Awards and World Cup soccer draw billions in the form of virtual crowds.

Social Institutions: School

The literacy rate of a country is a potent force in economic development.

According to the World Bank, no country has been successful economically with less than 50 percent literacy.

When countries have invested in education, the economic rewards have been substantial.

Communicating with a literate market is much easier than communicating with one in which the marketer must depend on symbols and pictures.

Children reading books rented from a street vendor

In the United States, kids attend school 180 days per year; in China, they attend 251 days—that’s six days a week. There’s a great thirst for the written word in China.

Social Institutions: The Media

The relative performance of educational systems (Exhibit 4.6) is seen as a leading indicator of economic competitiveness.

Media time (TV and increasingly the Internet and mobile phones) has replaced family time.

American kids spend only 180 days per year in school.

Chinese, Japanese, and German kids spend around 220 days per year in school.

Chinese officials are recognizing the national disadvantages of too much school—narrow minds. Likewise, Americans more and more complain about the detrimental effects of too much media.

Exhibit 4.6 OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) Selected Scores and Rankings for 15-Year-Olds, 2013

Source: OECD, PISA, http://www. economist.com/node/21529014, 2015.

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Social Institutions: Government

Most often governments try to influence the thinking and behaviors of adult citizens for the citizens’ “own good.”

In some countries, the government owns the media and regularly uses propaganda to form “favorable” public opinions.

Other countries prefer no separation of church and state.

Governments also affect ways of thinking indirectly, through their support of religious organizations and schools.

Governments influence thinking and behavior through the passage, promulgation, promotion, and enforcement of a variety of laws affecting consumption and marketing behaviors.

The French government has been urging citizens to procreate since the time of Napoleon. Now the government is offering a new “birth bonus” of $800, given to women in their seventh month of pregnancy. Likewise the Japanese government is spending $225 million to expand day-care facilities toward increasing the falling birthrate and better employing women in the workforce.

Both the Japanese and Chinese governments are currently trying to promote more creative thinking among students through mandated changes in classroom activities and hours.

The Irish government is newly concerned about its citizens’ consumption of Guinness and other alcoholic products.

Social Institutions: Corporations

Most innovations are introduced to societies by companies, many times by multinational companies.

Multinational companies efficiently distribute new products and services based on new ideas from around the word. As a result:

Cultures change.

New ways of thinking are stimulated.

Corporations get a grip on us early through the media.

Merchants and traders have throughout history been the primary conduit for the diffusion of innovations, whether it be over the Silk Road or via today’s air freight and/or the Internet.

Elements of Culture

The five elements of culture

Values

Rituals

Symbols

Beliefs

Thought processes

International marketers must design products, distribution systems, and promotional programs with due consideration of each of the five elements of culture.

Cultural Values

Hofstede, who studied over 90,000 people in 66 countries, found that the cultures differed along four primary dimensions.

Individualism/Collective Index (IDV), which focuses on self-orientation

Power Distance Index (PDI), which focuses on authority orientation

Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), which focuses on risk orientation

Masculinity/Femininity Index (MAS), which focuses on assertiveness and achievement

Individualism/Collective Index

Refers to the preference for behavior that promotes one’s self-interest

High IDV cultures reflect an “I” mentality and tend to reward and accept individual initiative

Low IDV cultures reflect a “we” mentality and generally subjugate the individual to the group

Individualism pertains to societies in which the ties between individuals are loose. Everyone is expected to look after him- or herself and his or her immediate family.

Collectivism pertains to societies in which people from birth onward are integrated into strong, cohesive groups, which throughout people’s lifetimes continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.

more valued in collectivistic countries: Japan, China, and other Confucian cultures are more collectivistic.

Power Distance Index

Measures the tolerance of social inequality, that is, power inequality between superiors and subordinates within a social system.

High PDI cultures tend to be hierarchical, with members citing social roles, manipulation, and inheritance as sources of power and social status.

Low PDI cultures tend to value equality and cite knowledge and achievement as sources of power.

People from cultures with high PDI scores are more likely to have a general distrust of others (not those in their groups) because power is seen to rest with individuals and is coercive rather than legitimate. High PDI scores tend to indicate a perception of differences between superior and subordinate and a belief that those who hold power are entitled to privileges. A low PDI score reflects more egalitarian views.

Uncertainty Avoidance Index

Measures the tolerance of uncertainty and ambiguity among members of a society

High UAI cultures are highly intolerant of ambiguity, experience anxiety and stress, are concerned with security and rule following, and accord a high level of authority to rules as a means of avoiding risk.

Low UAI cultures are associated with a low level of anxiety and stress, a tolerance of deviance and dissent, and a willingness to take risks.

High UAI cultures tend to be distrustful of new ideas or behaviors. They dogmatically stick to historically tested patterns of behavior, which in the extreme become inviolable rules.

Cultures low in UAI take a more empirical approach to understanding and knowledge, whereas those high in UAI seek absolute truth.

Cultural Values and Consumer Behavior

A variety of studies (Exhibit 4.7) have shown cultural values can predict such consumer behaviors as

word-of-mouth communications

impulsive buying

responses of both surprise and disgust

the propensity to complain

responses to service failures

movie preferences

the influence of perceptions of product creativity

Hofstede’s notions of cultural values might help us predict the speed of diffusion of such new consumer services as equity investments and electronic auctions in Japan and France.

Hofstede’s data on cultural values suggest that the diffusion of innovations will be slower in Japan and France than in the United States. Such predictions are consistent with research findings that cultures scoring higher on individualism and lower on uncertainty avoidance tend to be more innovative.

Cultural values provide useful information for marketers. However, the complexity of human behavior, values, and culture is manifest.

Exhibit 4.7 Hofstede’s Indexes, Language, and Linguistic Distance

Source: Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, and Michael Minkov, Culture and Organizations: Software of the Mind, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011); Joel West and John L. Graham, “A Linguistics-Based Measure of Cultural Distance and Its Relationship to Managerial Values,” Management International Review 44, no.3 (2004), pp. 239–60.

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Rituals

Patterns of behavior and interaction that are learned and repeated

Marriage ceremonies

Funerals

Graduation rituals

Dinner at a restaurant

Visit to a department store

Grooming before heading off to work

Coordinate everyday interactions and special occasions

Let people know what to expect

Walking into a department store in the United States often yields a search for an employee to answer questions. Not so in Japan, where the help bows at the door as you walk in.

Symbols

Anthropologist Edward T. Hall tells us that culture is communication.

Learning to interpret correctly the symbols that surround us is a key part of socialization.

Aesthetics includes arts, folklore, music, drama, dance, dress, and cosmetics.

Customers everywhere respond to images, myths, and metaphors that help them define their personal and national identities and relationships within a context of culture and product benefits.

Exhibit 4.8 lists the metaphors Martin Gannon identified to represent cultures around the world.

This learning begins immediately after birth.

Hear the language spoken

See the facial expressions

Feel the touch

Taste the milk of our mothers

Language

For some around the world, language is itself thought of as a social institution, often with political importance.

Linguistic distance determines differences in values across countries and the amount of trade between countries and demonstrates a direct influence of language on cultural values, expectations, and even conceptions of time.

Bilingualism: Customers process advertisements differently if heard in their native versus second language.

Biculturalism: Customers can switch identities and perception frames.

The successful international marketer must achieve expert communication, which requires a thorough understanding of the language as well as the ability to speak it.

Advertising copywriters should be concerned less with obvious differences between languages and more with the idiomatic and symbolic meanings expressed.

As linguistic distance from English increases, individualism decreases.

Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese are all classified as Romance languages because of their common roots in Latin. Distances can be measured on these linguistic trees. The notion of linguistic distance appears to hold promise for better understanding and predicting cultural differences in both consumer and management values, expectations, and behaviors.

Exhibit 4.8 Metaphorical Journeys through 23 Nations

The Thai Kingdom	The Traditional British House
The Japanese Garden	The Malaysian Balik Kampung
India: The Dance of Shiva	The Nigerian Marketplace
Bedouin Jewelry and Saudi Arabia	The Israeli Kibbutzim and Moshavim
The Turkish Coffeehouse	The Italian Opera
The Brazilian Samba	Belgian Lace
The Polish Village Church	The Mexican Fiesta
Kimchi and Korea	The Russian Ballet
The German Symphony	The Spanish Bullfight
The Swedish Stuga	The Portuguese Bullfight
Irish Conversations	The Chinese Family Altar
American Football

Source: From Martin J. Gannon, and Rajnandini K. Pillai Understanding Global Cultures, Metaphorical Journeys through 31 Nations, 5th ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2012). Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Inc. via Copyright Clearance Center.

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Beliefs

Beliefs, which mainly stem from religious training, vary from culture to culture.

The western aversion to the number 13

Japanese concern about Year of the Fire Horse

The Chinese practice of Feng Shui

Myths, beliefs, superstitions, or other cultural beliefs are an important part of the cultural fabric of a society and influence all manner of behavior.

What Westerners often call superstition may play quite a large role in a society’s belief system in another part of the world. For example, in parts of Asia, ghosts, fortune telling, palmistry, blood types, head-bump reading, phases of the moon, faith healers, demons, and soothsayers can all be integral elements of society.

Russian Orthodox priests blessing a Niva assembly line

Part of a joint venture between General Motors and AvtoVaz, the Niva is the best-selling SUV in Russia, making a profit for GM.

Thought Processes

Culture seems to matter more in snap judgments than in longer deliberations.

Studies demonstrate a deeper impact of culture on sensory perceptions themselves, particularly aromas.

Newer products and services and more extensive programs involving the entire cycle, from product development through promotion to final selling, require greater consideration of cultural factors.

The difference in perception—focus versus big picture—is associated with a wide variety of differences in values, preferences, and expectations about future events.

Cultural Sensitivity and Tolerance

Successful foreign marketing begins with cultural sensitivity

Being attuned to the nuances of culture

A new culture can be viewed objectively, evaluated, and appreciated

Being culturally sensitive will reduce conflict and improve communications and thereby increase success in collaborative relationships.

Besides knowledge of the origins and elements of cultures, the international marketer also should have an appreciation of how cultures change and accept or reject new ideas. Because the marketer usually is trying to introduce something completely new (such as e-trading) or to improve what is already in use, how cultures change and the manner in which resistance to change occurs should be thoroughly understood.

The Paradox in Cultural Change

Culture is dynamic in nature.

It is a living process.

Culture is conservative and resists change.

Culture is the accumulation of a series of the best solutions to problems faced in common by members of a given society.

Why do societies change?

War

Natural disaster

Cultural Borrowing

Cultural borrowing is a responsible effort to learn from others’ cultural ways in the quest for better solutions to a society’s particular problems.

Regardless of how or where solutions are found, once a particular pattern of action is judged acceptable by society, it becomes the approved way and is passed on and taught as part of the group’s cultural heritage.

Culture is learned; societies pass on to succeeding generations solutions to problems, constantly building on and expanding the culture so that a wide range of behavior is possible.

Consider, for example, American (U.S.) culture and a typical U.S. citizen, who begins breakfast with an orange from the eastern Mediterranean, a cantaloupe from Persia, or perhaps a piece of African watermelon. After her fruit and first coffee, she goes on to waffles, cakes made by a Scandinavian technique from wheat domesticated in Asia Minor. Over these she pours maple syrup, invented by the Native Americans of the eastern U.S. woodlands. As a side dish, she may have the eggs of a species of bird domesticated in Indochina or thin strips of the flesh of an animal domesticated in eastern Asia that have been salted and smoked by a process developed in northern Europe. While eating, she reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the ancient Semites upon a material invented in China by a process also invented in China. As she absorbs the accounts of foreign troubles, she will, if she is a good conservative citizen, thank a Hebrew deity in an Indo-European language that she is 100 percent American. Actually, this citizen is correct to assume that she is 100 percent American, because each of the borrowed cultural facets has been adapted to fit her needs, molded into uniquely American habits, foods, and customs. Americans behave as they do because of the dictates of their culture.

Similarities: An Illusion

A common language does not guarantee a similar interpretation of words or phrases.

Americans and British have a harder time understanding each other because of their apparent and assumed cultural similarities.

The growing economic unification of Europe has fostered a tendency to speak of the “European consumer.”

Marketers must assess each country thoroughly in terms of the proposed products or services and never rely on an often-used axiom that if it sells in one country, it will surely sell in another.

As worldwide mass communications and increased economic and social interdependence of countries grow, similarities among countries will increase, and common market behaviors, wants, and needs will continue to develop. As this process occurs, the tendency will be to rely more on apparent similarities when they may not exist. A marketer is wise to remember that a culture borrows and then adapts and customizes to its own needs and idiosyncrasies; thus, what may appear to be the same on the surface may be different in its cultural meaning.

Resistance to Change

Consumers in different cultures display differing resistance.

Observations indicate that those innovations most readily accepted are those holding the greatest interest within the society and those least disruptive.

Historically, most cultural borrowing and the resulting change has occurred without a deliberate plan, but increasingly, changes are occurring in societies as a result of purposeful attempts by some acceptable institution to bring about change, that is, planned change.

An understanding of the process of acceptance of innovations is of crucial importance to the marketer. The marketer cannot wait centuries or even decades for acceptance but must gain acceptance within the limits of financial resources and projected profitability periods. Possible methods and insights are offered by social scientists who are concerned with the concepts of planned social change.

Mom in Mumbai

Culture does change—dress and even names of major cities! Mumbai was formerly called Bombay. However, according to a local resident, everyone still calls it Bombay despite the official alteration.

Planned and Unplanned Cultural Change

The first step in bringing about planned change in a society is to determine which cultural factors conflict with an innovation, thus creating resistance to its acceptance.

The next step is an effort to change those factors from obstacles to acceptance into stimulants for change.

Introducing Innovation

Marketers have two options when introducing an innovation to a culture.

They can wait for changes to occur.

Hopeful waiting for eventual cultural changes that prove their innovations of value to the culture

They can spur change.

Introducing an idea or product and deliberately setting about to overcome resistance and to cause change that accelerates the rate of acceptance

Cultural Congruence

Not all marketing efforts require change to be accepted.

Cultural congruence involves marketing products similar to ones already on the market in a manner as congruent as possible with existing cultural norms, thereby minimizing resistance.

Marketing strategy is judged culturally in terms of acceptance, resistance, or rejection. How marketing efforts interact with a culture determines the degree of success or failure. All too often marketers are not aware of the scope of their impact on a host culture. If a strategy of planned change is implemented, the marketer has some responsibility to determine the consequences of such action.

Summary

Marketers have only limited control over the cultural environment.

New environments influenced by elements unfamiliar and sometimes unrecognizable to the marketer complicate the task of planning marketing strategies.

Of all the tools the foreign marketer must have, those that help generate empathy for another culture are, perhaps, the most valuable.