L7+Culture

“Culture is the collective programming of the human mind that distinguishes the members of one human group from those of another.” (Hofstede, 1980) Culture is always changing. Culture points the difference between social groups, as it was seen at 4th slide of the powerpoint with the example of 4 countries, Brazil, India, Russia and China. -->//Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group's skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions.
 * Culture defined **

In a broad sense, **cultural meanings** include: 1. Common affective reactions (“we love puppies”) 2. Typical cognitions (“the world WAS created in 7 days”) 3. Characteristic patterns of behaviour (eating habits)
 * CULTURE **= the meanings that are shared by (most) people in a social group (P&O)//

Similar to the ABC model on the previous class

**Importance of culture in consumer behaviour :** Culture is part of the //external// influences that impact the consumer. That is, culture represents influences that are imposed on the consumer by other individuals.
 * Culture can be viewed as the __collective memory__ of a society (shared attitudes, rituals, norms and traditions among members). - from generation to generation.
 * Culture forms __the__ __ lens __ through which people view products and try to make sense of their own and other people’s behaviour (acts as a filter).
 * Consumption choices cannot be understood without considering the __cultural context__ in which they are made.

Two Approaches to CULTURE 1. The **content** of culture (the elements and products of culture) 2. Culture as a **process** (creation and movement of cultural meanings) - somehow, marketing tries to manipulate this process.

Several issues to consider: 1. Cultural meanings can be analyzed at different levels (macro – micro) 2. The concept of __ cultural meaning __ (shared or common meaning) is critical to understanding consumer behaviour 3. Cultural meanings are created by people (although we often experience them as given, because we are constantly doing them) 4. Social groups differ in the amount of freedom people have to adopt and use certain cultural meanings 5. Cultural meanings are constantly in motion and can be subject to rapid changes (e.g., beauty ideals)

Some ads which were taken as great ones in the past, nowadays, due to constant culture changes, they seem not so good anymore, they may even seem horrible.

Culture determines:
 * Consumer behaviour and culture **

• the overall __priorities__ a person attaches to different activities and products (the value system). • the shades of meaning (the lens for interpretation) • ULTIMATELY: __ the success or failure __ of specific products and services (meaningful and meaningless).

The goal of cultural analysis is to understand the cultural meanings from __the point of view of the consumers__ who create and use them.

Cultures modify symbols identified with other cultures and present them to a new audience. These cultural products undergo a process of __cooptation__, where their original meanings are transformed. Culture is the creator of meaning which travel through the society and can me moved and played with by Marketing strategies. Cultural meanings are shaped by rituals and myths which use and mystify certain goods.


 * Spread of fashions in consumption:** the meanings created by some members of a culture are interpreted and produced to mass consumption. Marketing implication – cross-cultural communication.

A cultural system consists of three functional areas. • // Ecology – // the way the system is adapted to its habitat by the technology used to obtain and distribute resources (//eg:// industrialized societies vs. less affluent countries). • // Social structure // //–// they way orderly social life is maintained including domestic and political groups (//eg//: the nuclear family vs. extended family). • // Ideology // //–// the mental characteristics of the people and the way they relate to their environment (people from one society possess usually a common worldview. They share certain ideas about principles of order an fairness. They also share a set of moral and aesthetic principles).
 * Aspects of culture **

• // Collectivist cultures – // where people subordinate their personal goals to those of a stable in-group. • // Individualist cultures // //–// where importance is attached to personal goals and where people are more likely to change memberships when the demands of the group (//eg//: workplace, church, etc) become too costly.
 * Different cultur **** al characteristics **

The **Content** of Culture · The beliefs, attitudes, goals, and values held by most people in a society · The meaning of characteristic behaviours, rules, customs, and norms that most people follow · The meaning of the significant aspects of the social and physical environment (social institutions, typical physical objects used by people)

There are 2 types of norms: Crescive norms are embedded into a culture and are only discovered through interaction with other members of that culture. These norms can include:
 * Enacted norms:** Very specific; written down => easy to follow (e.g. red light, how to write your thesis, rules where you live etc)
 * Crescive norms:** Not written down, not stable, but are still there and conduct individuals => People within the culture know these norms, but outsiders do not.

• // customs // – norms handed down from the past that control basic behaviours (//e.g.:// division of labour in a household or the practice of particular ceremonies). • // mores // – customs with strong moral overtones. Violation of mores often meets with strong censure from other members of a society. (more important or stronger than customs) - (e.g.: involve taboo or a forbidden behaviour) • // conventions // – norms regarding the conduct of everyday life. These deal with the subtleties of consumer behaviour (//eg:// the correct way to furnish one's house, wear one's clothes, etc)

This is important to marketers, because picking the example on the class if you don't know how Christmas works in some cultures you will not sell in December.

· Myths are __stories__ containing symbolic elements that express the shared emotions and ideals of a culture. (Example: The Creation Myth - God created the earth in 7 days) · Many myths involve some __binary opposition__, where values are defined in terms of what they are and what they are not, e.g. nature versus technology. (Example: A God/A Demon) · Modern myths are transmitted through advertising, films and other media.
 * Myths **

Myths serve four interrelated functions in a culture. • // Metaphysical // – they help to explain the origins of existence (myths of the nation, family or company). • // Cosmological // – they emphasise that all components of the universe are part of a single picture (myths which simplify the world). • // Sociological // – they maintain social order by authorising a social code to be followed by members of a culture (myths which offer hope). • // Psychological // – they provide models for personal conduct (myths which give you an idea what your identity should be like).
 * Functions and structure of myths **

A ritual is a set of multiple, symbolic behaviours, which occur in a fixed sequence and tend to be repeated periodically. Rituals are related to many consumption activities, which occur in popular culture, e.g. holiday observances, gift giving and grooming. They outline an escape from the complicated world. Rituals need to be carried out correctly (the right procedure, with the right artefacts, etc.). Otherwise they don´t work.
 * Rituals **

Four major types are:
 * possession rituals - involve acts in which a person lays claim to, displays or protects possessions; the act of "personalizing" a consumer good, which is "an attempt to transfer meaning from the individual's own world to the newly obtained good"
 * exchange rituals - rituals in which products or services are exchanged among consumers; "the process of choice by which the giver identifies the gift with the cultural meanings they seek to pass along to the recipient"(i.e. Christmas)
 * grooming rituals - an individual's acts to ensure that special, perishable properties resident in clothing, hairstyles, and looks are maintained, e.g. talking to oneself in the mirror, brushing one's hair 100 strokes a day;
 * divestment rituals - rituals performed to erase the meaning associated with the previous owner of a good (e.g., thoroughly cleaning a new home prior to moving in). the act of "freeing up" objects as they are passed from one owner to another

__ 3 stages of role transition   __ **// Separation: //** the person enters the rite of passage while she or he is detaching from her or his original group or status. (i.e. the first-year-university student leaves home) the person is in-between the other two stages (i.e. the new arrives on campus tries to work out what is happening during orientation week) (i.e. the student is coming home for Christmas vacation as a ‘real university student')
 * Rites of passage **
 * A rite of passage is a special kind of ritual, which involves a transition from one role to another.
 * These passages typically entail the need to acquire products and services called ritual artefacts, to facilitate the transition. They are increasingly becoming consumption objects in themselves as well as occasions for consumption.
 * Modern rites of passage include graduations, initiation ceremonies and weddings, and funerals.
 * // Liminality: //** (middle stage)
 * // aggregation: //** the person returns to society after the rite of passage is completed


 * Hofstede’s Dimensions.** //Gert Hofstede//, a Dutch researcher, was able to interview a large number of IBM executives in various countries, and found that cultural differences tended to centre around __four key dimensions__:

· //Individualism vs. collectivism //: To what extent do people believe in individual responsibility and reward rather than having these measures aimed at the larger group?__On the individualist__ side we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. __On the collectivist__ side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. Contrary to the stereotype, Japan actually ranks in the middle of this dimension, while Indonesia and West Africa rank toward the collectivistic side. The U.S., Britain, and the Netherlands rate toward individualism.  · //Power distance //: To what extent is there a strong separation of individuals based on rank? that is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a society's level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. Power and inequality, of course, are extremely fundamental facts of any society and anybody with some international experience will be aware that 'all societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others'. Power distance tends to be particularly high in Arab countries and some Latin American ones, while it is more modest in Northern Europe and the U.S.

· //Masculinity vs //. //femininity// involves a somewhat more nebulous concept. “Masculine”�  values involve competition and “conquering nature by means such as large construction projects, while “feminine values involve harmony and environmental protection. Japan is one of the more masculine countries, while the Netherlands rank relatively low. The U.S. is close to the middle, slightly toward the masculine side. ( The fact that these values are thought of as “masculine or “feminine does __not__ mean that they are consistently held by members of each respective gender—there are very large “within-group  differences. There is, however, often a large correlation of these cultural values with the status of women.)

· //Uncertainty avoidance // involves the extent to which a “structured situation with clear rules is preferred to a more ambiguous one; in general, countries with lower uncertainty avoidance tend to be more tolerant of risk. deals with a society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; it ultimately refers to man's search for Truth. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of such situations by strict laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth; 'there can only be one Truth and we have it'. People in uncertainty avoiding countries are also more emotional, and motivated by inner nervous energy. Japan ranks very high. Few countries are very low in any absolute sense, but relatively speaking, Britain and Hong Kong are lower, and the U.S. is in the lower range of the distribution. Although Hofstede’s original work did not address this, a fifth dimension of //long term vs. short term orientation// has been proposed. In the U.S., managers like to see quick results, while Japanese managers are known for take a long term view, often accepting long periods before profitability is obtained.


 * In-Class Discussion**

The South Park movie showed how culture changes and the need for marketers to position their products in a way that they fit in. The example on Harley-Davidson (HD) was illustrative of how the way marketers try to motivate the purchase of a product can not match the culture in which this product was trying to enter. HD wanted to create an image of manhood, careless people, black sheep that don't care for the society, and that all is shattered in this movie by the association between a HD rider and a "fag". Despite this it the movie can still be incorporated in the spirit of the ad in the sense that they show, at the end, that the difference is their motivation and that they don't care about what others thinks. From a the HD marketers' point of view this movie can be very harmful.

Consumer activities can be divided into sacred and profane domains. Ø  Sacred phenomena are set apart from everyday activities or products People, events or objects can be sacralized. (e.g. people who make holidays—they search for activities that differ from those ones they do at home) - Sacralization occurs when formerly sacred objects or activities become part of the everyday - Desacralization occurs when objects that previously were considered sacred become commercialized, which means profane as a result. (i.e. souvenir reproductions of sacred monuments) Ø  Profane consumption involves consumer objects and events that are ordinary, everyday objects and events that do not have the special attributes of sacred ones. Collecting is one of the most common ways of experiencing sacred consumption in daily life. It refers to the systematic acquisition of a particular object or set of objects. In this context, consumption and passion are most heavily intertwined.
 * Sacred and profane consumption **