(10 minute read)

AN OVERVIEW: SETTING THE SCENE

We are now examining cultural perspectives in consumer behaviour and exploring the role of culture in a consumption society.

Culture is perceived as a collective system of mental programming involved shared sets of values, norms, codes, and beliefs that influence communication, understanding, life, work, and consumption. The works of people such as Hofstede and Edward Hall is very important for understanding the role of culture.

GLOBALISATION AND CULTURE

Our understanding of culture has been dramatically impacted by the phenomenon of globalisation. Although there has been some form of global movement throughout the history of mankind, the term ‘globalisation’ is typically used in modern parlance as a global phenomenon of increasing interchange and integration of products, ideas, and all aspects of culture.

Rapid developments in technology, transport, telecommunications are seen as factors of globalisation which involvement mass movement and ‘flows’ of capital, investment, technology, money, people, knowledge, and ideas around the world.

Throughout the millennia, dominant political powers have spread their influence and culture around the world through trade and movements of people – e.g. influences of Viking, Anglo-Saxon, Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, Roman, Greek civilisations. In modern times, the influence of the British, French, Dutch, Belgian, Spanish, and Portuguese Empires, the dominance of American culture in the 20^th century and the growing influence of China are seen as factors in globalisation.

This usually involves ‘soft power’ through the use of cultural symbols in the form of products and brands.

GLOBALISATION AND BUSINESS

The spread of investment, technology, trade, ideas, and people around the world has dramatically impacted all industries. The outsourcing of manufacturing to cheaper locations overseas, the development of high-tech and service economies in the West, and the emergence of new economic superpowers such as China and India as well as several other emergent markets around the world influences business management practices and in particular marketing.

Internationalisation is now a critical aspect of business strategy and businesses invest time and effort in understanding consumer markets globally and tailoring their products.

GLOBALISATION AND MARKETING

Many historians and thinkers have written about the impact of globalisation on business. Notable is Theodore Levitt’s 1983 paper in the Harvard Business Review where he argued that as the world becomes more globalised, consumer tastes will become homogenous and companies should treat the entire world as if it were one large market, ignoring superficial regional and national differences.

Opposing viewpoints have argued that in some products, consumers will become more insular in the face of globalisation, and resist foreign-made products, making it imperative for marketers to develop culture-specific products for different markets around the world.

Different arguments have shaped internalisation business strategies which include standardisation – adopting similar business practices, branding, and marketing for products around the world; localisation – developing tailor-made culture-specific products and services; and glocalisation – a hybrid of both strategies.

Globalisation also is related to the ideas of ethnocentrism – where consumers prefer products rooted in their own cultural taste and display an aversion for foreign made – and xenocentrism – the opposite tendency where consumers prefer foreign made goods over local ones.

GLOBALISATION AND THE CONSUMER

Consumers are seen to react and respond to the influences of globalisation in many ways irrespective of whether they reside in their own country or migrate elsewhere or travel overseas. This process of adjusting to other cultural influences is called acculturation and can work across a range of responses from rejection, separation, alienation, and marginalisation to assimilation, bi- or multi-culturalism, or even hyper-culturalism.

The degree to which consumers adapt to global cultural influences depends on a number of socio-demographic factors, contexts, and role of acculturation agents in both origin and host societies.

GLOBALISATION AND THE MARKETPLACE

The influence of multiple cultures often results in rapid disruptions to the marketplace. On the one hand Levitt’s arguments become reality as many global brands increasingly standardise the marketplace and adopt similar marketing strategies around the world. On the other, there is a growing demand for culture-specific products and services tailor-made for the needs of minority cultures which also offer business opportunities for migrant enterprises. Some products such as food, fashion, and entertainment disperse quickly compared to some others. The forces of technology, travel, media and communication, and advertising all help this process along.

GLOBALISATION AND CONSUMER SUB-CULTURES

Globalisation results in the paradox that in some instances consumers display homogenous tastes and the markets for some products and brands are fairly standardised. On the other hand globalisation also results in niche micro-markets grouped around sub-cultural affiliations often associated with ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds.

This means that both ends of the market can borrow ideas, symbols, and resources from each other, the global brands often adopting specific cultural symbols to appeal to global markets while niche sub-cultural brands borrowing standardised marketing practices from global brands.

Globalised cultures and sub-cultural marketplaces exist side by side, often creating opportunities but also immense amount of challenges for marketing.

For big corporations, the fragmentation of the market into niche sub-cultures creates challenges in terms of economies of scale while also risking reputational damage for inadvertent cultural insensitivities. For niche, sub-cultural brands, the challenge will be scaling up operations as the market size becomes bigger, developing access to consumer markets, and introducing professionalism into operations.

SUB-CULTURAL MARKETS AND CONSUMERS

Sub-cultural consumer segments are typically divided along lines of ethnicity, race, and religion. Straightforward demand for niche products and services will include areas of food, fashion, cosmetics, and personal services as these are easy to develop and market. The more challenging markets will be for areas such as media, entertainment, communication, finance, and logistics, eventually influencing B2B marketplaces and large scale logistics and supply chains, as well as becoming more mainstream.