Reciprocity of Marketing & Culture
INTRODUCTION
The growing interdependence of global markets has made a more compelling case for culture as an increasingly significant variable in marketing efforts. For one, products and services produced at a global scale find more diverse platforms, particularly across virtual media. The pace, scale and content of products and/or services are, moreover, making an increasing case for more standardized offerings across different marketing contexts. Typically, consumer behavior metrics – including, most notably, conventional market research and more innovative approaches as data analytics platforms and applications – are adopted in order to identify consumer behaviors and needs. This approach to consumer behavior has, admittedly, proven successful, at least in identifying quantifiable consumer behavior patterns. The emergence of culture as a marketing analytical variable has, however, introduced new perceptions into marketing efforts. In a notable paradox to an assumed homogeneity of preferences for products and/or services across markets, decision making process by consumers appear to be increasingly made based on cultural givens in respective markets. Therefore, in contrast to common rationale of marketing products and/or services based on consumer behavior analytics, non-quantifiable aspects of cultures assume more significance in marketing for consumers across different market designs, geographies and sizes. For current purposes, culture is explored as an emerging marketing variable of growing significance in marketing efforts across different markets, particularly ones of distinctive cultures. In performing current investigation, culture is defined in a most broad and common sense as values, behaviors and lifestyles shared by a specific community as distinctive compared to another community. This broad definition of culture serves, accordingly, to offer a useful analytical variable emerging as an increasingly significant marketing, if not a defining, input in current international marketing practice as opposed to conventional, quantifiable methods used to measure consumer behavior patterns. This paper aims, hence, to explore reciprocal relationship between culture and marketing in an international context with culture being a variable increasingly informing marketing efforts and marketing an influence on cultural practices.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
This paper aims to explore reciprocal relationships between culture and marketing in a global context. By highlighting interrelationships between culture and marketing, a historical assumption of primacy of consumer behavior analytics gives way to culture as a new analytic variable adopted in marketing for better understanding of consumer behavior and, for current purposes, an influence on marketing efforts. Conversely, marketing in a global context is examined as an influence on local cultures not in a conventional, behavioral sense but as a contributor to cultural change.
RESEARCH QUESTION
In formulating current, final research question, a set of assumptions has been made. Notably, culture has been assumed to be a holistic concept made up of universal features defining a given community based on shared values, behaviors and lifestyles. For marketing, a fundamental assumption is made of marketing for international markets of distinctive cultural characteristics. During research process, consumer behavior has emerged as a fundamental approach to understanding customer needs. The emergence of culture as an increasingly significant variable influencing marketing practices has, however, refined research focus from one based on a marketing / culture cross-influence dyad into one based on a mutual influence between marketing and culture in which culture is gradually replacing consumer behavior as a defining metric for consumer understanding. The current, final research question has, accordingly, emerged as follows:
Is culture replacing consumer behavior as a new metric by which culture and marketing influence one another at deeper levels?
LITERATURE REVIEW
Culture is not a novelty in international marketing efforts. For decades, marketing function has, more or less, been in contact to "local ways" by which consumers carry on in day-to-day activities. This contact between marketing and culture has been set comparatively apart as products and/or services were marketed for specific, local consumers in mind. This assumption of a limited repertoire of consumption habits has been, however, been under increasing pressure in recent decades. If anything, combined forces of globalization have made marketing efforts much more complex not only because of growing geographical spreads of marketing efforts but also, more significantly, because increasing hybridization of consumer habits, behaviors and preferences. Put differently, in lieu of a semi-linear relationship between marketing and (local) culture based on former's shaping of latter's preferences by offering value for strictly segmentalized customers and latter's offering to marketers data (primarily purchasing habits and lifestyles) for marketing efforts, growing hybridity of preferences – not least because of increased new media communication platforms and cross-border movement – has but problematized interrelationships between marketing and culture. The growing diversity of international markets (Usunier & Lee, 2009) and complexity of culture as an influencer (and hard to capture in just few dimensions) of international marketing efforts (Steenkamp, 2001) is well noted in literature and attests to, if anything, growing awareness among marketing community of increasing interaction between marketing and culture.
The emergence of culture as a hybrid is, interestingly, documented in international marketing literature. Notably, culture is discussed as no longer a clearly demarcated and distinctive construct, a marginal one as is in conventional consumer behavior measurement methods (as is discussed in further detail later), but one which combines different cross-currents of globalized influences and hence more fluid (Craig & Douglas, 2006). The growing awareness of culture as a distinct analytic construct is combined by a parallel recognition among international marketers of culture as an increasingly salient influencer on consumer behavior and as will be shown later a more viable, if not a mandatory, replace for consumer behavior as an analytic method for better understanding, and for that matter, a more powerful and sustainable influencer of marketing efforts and vice versa (McCort & Malhotra, 2008). Moreover, conceptualization of culture – as an analytic approach adopted by international marketers – remains under-researched in spite of promising efforts in cultural studies in developing broader and more accurate frameworks for cultural analysis and, for current purposes, more reliable measures of consumer habits and behaviors (Yaprak, 2008).
Thus, from an analytic perspective, although admitted as increasingly salient in understanding consumers, particularly in current globalized marketing practice, culture remains a concept in flux both informing and been shaped by international marketing practices.
The growing interest in culture as an analytic and, for that matter, a more sustainable method for better understanding of consumer behavior is marked by parallel recognition among international marketing community of increasingly irrelevance of conventional consumer behavior metrics to understand, let alone predict, consumer habits and, equally significant, limitations of existing conceptualizations and frameworks of culture for more effective international marketing campaigns. Specifically, if existing methods – most notably Hofstede's cultural dimensions – are shown to exhibit limitations in capturing consumer behavior and habits across different markets (Yeniyurt & Townsend, 2003), cultural marketing (i.e. marketing based on using culture as a fundamental analytic method for identifying consumer needs in long range and based on values, attitudes and behaviors underlying face value patterns) is assuming a growing significance in current international marketing practice as a powerful replace of data-based consumer behavior methods (Klepic, 2014).
As noted, globalization has created a false impression of standardized (more specifically Americanized) marketing efforts across cultures as international marketers perform marketing functions across different geographies. This false impression is, in fact, belied by acceptance or rejection of specific products and/or services (marketed on a global scale) in some markets based on local cultural givens. If anything, new media has, paradoxically, reinforced existing cultural patterns instead of standardizing decision-making process in opting for or out of specific products and/or services (De Mooij, 2011). Given more conventional consumer behavior measurement methods, four international marketing orientations are: (1) Ethnocentric Approach, (2) Polycentric Approach, (3) Regiocentric Approach and (4) Geocentric Approach (Paul, 2008). The Ethnocentric Approach emphasizes local markets as primary and relegates international markets as add-ons or secondary in marketing efforts. The Polycentric Approach caters for different needs in multiple markets but does not benefit from economies of scale. The Regiocentric Approach designs marketing efforts based on similarities in regional markets. The Geocentric Approach assumes a unified and standardized global market. There are, of course, merits for each approach. Yet, in all culture remains a secondary variable not accounted for as central in defining marketing efforts. The compartmentalization of markets is, moreover, a further evidence of how international marketing efforts are perceived by international marketers. In an interesting study exploring influence of culture on a marketing manager's marketing efforts in China, Hong Kong, and Canada, findings show a marketing manager's home culture exercises high influence on her efforts beyond her own, native market (Tse, Lee, Vertinsky & Wehrung, 1988). Moreover, Chinese executives from Hong Kong are shown to be influenced by a combination of both Western and Chinese cultural norms (Tse, Lee, Vertinsky & Wehrung). This last finding is particularly interesting and further problematizes international marketing across cultures. Notably, if international marketing is becoming increasingly influenced by culture, international marketers in emerging markets (increasingly receiving Western marketing education) are influenced by not only local cultures but also by cross-cultural influences from Western professional marketing habits and consumer consumption behaviors only to add a further layer of complexity to culture as an analytic method in international marketing.
The case for a paradigm shift in marketing internationally based on cultural givens is made particularly clear by decisions made by marketers to enter a new, foreign market or by engaging customers in more innovative ways addressing deeper cultural needs and practices. By exploring learning experiences applied by international marketers from introducing new products into specific markets to new markets of similar economic and cultural experiences in 19 multinationals, findings show "cultural distance" does not influence international marketing decisions (Mitra & Golder, 2002). This finding emphasizes distinction of culture as a "signature" variable which cannot be replicated as easily as conventional customer behavior metrics across cultures. The campaigns by Red Bull and Dove, Stratos and Real Beauty respectively, reflect, if anything, a paradigm shift in marketing campaigns as international marketers engage customers more aggressively now at a deeper cultural level (Fields, 2014). Thus, culture appears to gradually replace conventional customer behavior metrics in identifying customer needs across cultures, a shift which is made all too clear by successful campaigns such as Stratos and Real Beauty but also, more significantly, by increasing participation by consumers – made more immediate by new media – in international marketing campaign design and delivery.
RESEARCH DESIGN & METHODOLOGY
The current research effort is based on secondary resource literature survey. The surveyed literature falls into four main categories: (1) peer-reviewed papers, (2) syndicated marketing association publications, (3) business publications and (4) popular press. The peer-reviewed papers offer conceptual frameworks for literature review based on empirical and broad literature survey. The syndicated marketing association publications – including, for example, publications by American Marketing Association – offer practical examples on challenges faced by international marketers in performing international marketing efforts. The business publications – including, for example, Forbes – offer insights and practical examples by industry experts on changing role of culture as an analytic variable in marketing products and/or services across cultures. The popular press category offers insights into concepts assuming firmer hold in mainstream international marketing, more specifically cultural marketing.
The selection of resources is based on current effort's primary research question: Is culture replacing consumer behavior as a new metric by which culture and marketing influence one another at deeper levels? As noted above, initial inquiry has been narrowed down from a broad inquiry of interrelationships between culture and marketing into replacement of consumer behavior by culture as an increasingly viable and, for that matter, integral variable in international marketing efforts. The review process advances from a broad discussion of growing impact of cultural influences on international marketing efforts, through a critical analysis of culture as a more viable replacement of consumer behavior analytics and limitations of existing cultural methods to capture a more holistic picture of consumer needs to a brief discussion of international marketing education and practical examples of successful cultural marketing strategies.
TIME SCALE
This research effort is justified by a primary rationale of culture as a growing influence in international marketing efforts. Given how current consumer behavior measurement methods fail to capture "black swan" effects of successful projects, products or services, culture has come to assume greater significance as an analytic method for more accurate and individualized consumer understanding. This proposal, based exclusively on secondary research survey, has lasted for a one month period span.
CONCLUSION & DISCUSSION
The growing influence of culture as an analytic method in lieu of conventional customer behavior metrics is changing approach to international marketing. By addressing deeper values, assumptions, attitudes and behaviors, international marketers are capable of engaging consumers in innovative ways inexperienced by former breeds of international marketers given to mathematical assumptions about consumers across different, global markets. Further, although culture is increasingly recognized as a significant analytic method for better understanding of consumer behavior, limitations remain. If anything, Hofstede's cultural dimensions – one most notable cultural analysis method – fail to capture full spectrum of cultural variations in different international markets based on a limited set of cultural dimensions. This is a problematic which requires further research and, for that matter, aggressive engagement in order to better capture consumer needs and, not least, underlying values in more holistic and accurate ways.
The question of international marketing education is no less important. Indeed, given how international markets are educated, formally and informally, differently, applying international marketing campaigns should be approached more carefully. That is, if international marketers are shown to be influenced by home culture in developing international marketing campaigns, follow-up reviews / audits should be made in order to ensure cultural biases are avoided. This can be performed by sharing international marketing campaigns across as many stakeholders as possible – including, of course, consumers – in order to ensure an international marketer's initial assumptions are adjusted.
Needless to emphasize, social media is assuming a particularly significant role in marketing efforts. This is more applicable in international marketing campaigns which, when implemented over digital platforms, are born global. There should be even more carefulness in adopting global digital campaigns across multiple channels compared to offline campaigns. Indeed, if culture is apt to be misunderstood in offline settings – and, for that matter, on conventional marketing and advertising channels including, most notably, TV – advertising messages are even more susceptible to misunderstanding if delivered across digital channels. Therefore, in a fashion similar to audits performed for conventional international marketing efforts, international digital campaigns should be delivered in phased or, at least, bet formats in order to ensure biases are avoided. This area of international marketing, one adding further complexity to cultural analysis of international marketing campaigns, requires further research for better understanding of consumer behavior dynamics across digital platforms.
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