Business Across Cultures Culture for Business Series_10 potx

Global products are no issue either; you just extend theresearch findings you found in the country where the product origi-nated.. ADVERTISING AND PROMOTIONS ACROSS CULTURES The use of a

individuals of a particular culture Therefore, when attemptingresearch at the holistic edge of products, suddenly all functionalcharacteristics acquire a different meaning In some cultures forexample, safety is very much linked to the color of the car, while inother cultures safety has much to do with the performance of the carand its reliability More drivers of red cars than green cars areinvolved in accidents in many western cultures; this may beexplained by drivers who are more “adventurous” seeking a surro-gate Ferrari as the family car The color red has meaning over andabove the functional aspect of the color.

To achieve a successful international launch of a product, both thefunctional and holistic aspects need to be reconciled If a product isperceived purely as an accumulation of functional characteristics inone culture while in another the feel of the whole is more dominant,international advertising becomes a nightmare Consider a watch Inthe US it needs to be functional, while in Italy it adds to or confirmsthe status or lifestyle of the person wearing it And you just need tolook at the tremendous success of Swatch to see that a reconciliation

of both (thanks also to the introduction of quartz technology) canlead to international success Would you have imagined that Volvocould have international success with a convertible version of its car,knowing that its status was derived only from safety? Let’s repre-sent what these have reconciled graphically (Figure 6.7)

The market researcher needs to be aware that both aspects need to

be critically evaluated as a basis from which reconciliation is ble For the more technical aspects of achieving functional andholistic aspects of market research we refer the reader to Usunier(1996) and de Mooij (1997)

possi-The emic–etic dilemma

This dilemma was elicited by Sapir in 1929 and refers fundamentally

to the degree to which cultures are unique or not

The “emic” approach assumes that the attitude and behavior areunique to any culture In its extreme, it suggests that comparativeresearch is impossible The “etic” approach tries to look for univer-sal similarities These assumptions will obviously significantlyinfluence the research design If one assumes the uniqueness of anyparticular culture, then measurement instruments need to be partic-ularized to the local environment These instruments have theadvantage of a high reliability within that culture; the disadvantage

is obviously that one cannot use them in other cultures The mostobvious ones are the use of language and the researchers them-selves They are all local But the type of instruments will also be

The beautiful watch that is 20 minutes out

Focusing on the whole concept

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The ugly, well-performing

local So questionnaires that might be used in the low-context US arenot used in Burkina Faso because face-to-face interviews revealbetter information in high-context cultures Even the use of Likertscales – ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree – are ofteninterpreted differently across cultures.

Again, our purpose here doesn’t permit us to go into further detail

so we focus on the conceptual dilemmas that researchers will face.The issue becomes one of dealing with the tension of trying to beunique in gathering data versus the need to secure robust general-izations It is crucial for transnational marketing that these arereconciled The launch of multi-local products doesn’t provoke anyfield problems You do research locally and market the productlocally Global products are no issue either; you just extend theresearch findings you found in the country where the product origi-nated However, for truly trans-national products you need marketresearch that reconciles the emic and etic propositions

A very fruitful approach is to take the tool developed in the homecountry and try to get similar results through alternative researchtechniques abroad If, for example, an online questionnaire workswell in the US, you might ask the same questions (etic) in anotherformat such as face-to-face-interviewing (emic) in Burkina Faso Inthe adjustment of your instruments, however, it is crucial that bothfunctional and conceptual equivalence is reached through these dif-ferent approaches Crucial to this process is that the marketingresearch team consists of a mirror image of the countries involved

By discussing the dilemmas they face together, they can realizeequivalence of meaning in order that the optimum research plansare executed The dilemma appears as shown in Figure 6.8

A good example of this reconciliation of emic and etic marketresearch was the launch of a new Heineken advertising campaign in

Europe Heineken uses a universal advertising message as part of itsmarketing strategy: a Heineken turns a stressful situation into arelaxing one A commercial that has been particularly successful inthe Netherlands shows a young woman getting ready to go out withher boyfriend She stands in front of her wardrobe and is desper-ately looking for a dress to put on for a formal evening out Herboyfriend, already dressed in a dinner jacket, is looking at her He isobviously amused by her distress He leaves the room and comesback dressed in casual clothing – jeans and a leather jacket He handsher a pair of her own jeans The pressure is off, and so is the plan forthe formal evening They go to a pub with a relaxing atmosphere – a

typical Dutch bruine kroeg – where they can be themselves This was

interpreted as showing that the young people did not care aboutstatus, and preferred to be natural: modest, but cosmopolitan,Heineken drinkers

This same commercial which had been so successful in the

Nether-Archipelagos of meaning

Focusing on the unique cultural characteristics

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One size fits all

A universal meaning through thousands

of unique characteristics

Figure 6.8 The emic–etic dilemma

lands failed when pre-tested in Greece There it was interpreted asmeaning that the young couple was unable to go to the formal eventand had to settle for a less exciting way of spending the evening.Heineken was perceived in this context as being just an ordinarybeer for ordinary times and ordinary people.

This difference in market perception is based on value differences.Informality and “normality” are values that are emphasized in theNetherlands, so much so that what would be considered unsophisti-cated and uncultured by much of the rest of the world is considered

to be the ideal by the Dutch

ADVERTISING AND PROMOTIONS ACROSS CULTURES

The use of advertising and promotions are an important part of themarketing process; that could be defined as the structured process ofcommunication aimed at the support of sales of goods and services.Whilst “advertising” is usually used as a generic term, strictlyspeaking, the word itself refers to a communication where the aim is

to stimulate the total market size (as in alerting the market to a newtype of product that exists), and “promotion,” where the aim is todifferentiate your product or service from what your competitorsoffer Since communication is the exchange of information and infor-mation is the carrier of meaning, advertising and promotions aresignificantly affected by culture

Already we have a fundamental dilemma between seeking salesthrough total market growth or increased market share Of course,this has to relate to market conditions In one culture (or country) themarket may be mature (hence the aim should be increased marketshare through product differentiation) In another newer or imma-ture market (at the beginning of the product life curve), the aimmight be simply to inform the customer that your product exists and

is available You may not even be concerned with branding orimage “Eat more cheese as an alternative to meat” is an advertise-ment to encourage people to eat more healthy foods – including

your cheese product “Eat our cheese because it is a new variety,” in

an existing cheese-consuming culture, is a promotion Reconcilingmarket growth and market share is of course a basic challenge to allmarketers

As with the other basic processes of the marketing activity, thedevelopment of the world economy has drastically changed theneeds and competences of the advertising professionals It is diffi-cult to imagine today that in the early nineties we witnessed the jointlaunch of CNN and other telecommunications services And it wasonly in the early nineties that P&G, Nike and Unilever launchedtheir first worldwide or even European ad campaigns The massmedia has drastically changed the whole business of advertising.Mass media are seen by many as largely responsible for the global-ization of business, marketing, and advertising However, argues deMooij, “while particular television programs may rapidly transit theglobe, this is not to say that the response of those viewing within avariety of cultural contexts and practices will be anything like uni-form.” A wonderful piece of research by Vink (1996) on the effect ofthe Dallas TV soap opera in different cultures revealed that theAmericans looked on it as a wonderful moment to do their vacuumcleaning, the Brazilians took it as a representation of the Americandream, and for the French it was additional evidence for the vulgar-ity of US values Same TV program, but what different meaningswere ascribed to it!

But globalization also means that organizations face different types

of competition and that economies of scale become crucial to

sur-vive In advertising, just as in other functional activities, there are avariety of approaches possible.

The Garucci case obviously has many common points of referencewith any international organization The basic tension is a version of

Case Study: “Garucci”

The Italian designer: global marketing strategy or local campaigns?

The Garucci organization is well known for its designer ing in the casual fashion business Its range of products – jeans,blouses, and fashion T-shirts – are sold in 30 countries, mainlyEuropean, Australian, and American It has manufacturingsites in five countries, four of which are located in Asia It hasdistributors in 28 countries and two distribution organizations

cloth-in Italy and the US that are cloth-in the company structure Garucci isdiscussing how to relaunch its advertising strategy The centralquestion is: what is more beneficial – a global strategy, localcampaigns in each of the countries, or some mixed format such

as a regional approach?

The marketing directors of the largest 15 countries got together

to discuss the following options:

• A centralized approach in which a global ad campaignwould be launched through mass media

• An independent local approach where each country cides upon its own strategy

de-• A regional approach where each region (West and ern Europe, US and Canada, Latin America, and Austra-lia) decides upon its strategy independently

South-• A mix of the above

The firm had just introduced a set of core values which focusedaround integrity, innovation, avant-gardism, and socialresponsibility The 66-year-old CEO and founder of the com-pany Guilio Garucci, former designer but now businessman,emphasized the importance of those values in the ads, what-ever the result of the discussion He also emphasized the greatpossibilities of the Internet An experiment of selling clothes onthe Garucci site and on the Gap Inc site showed very interest-ing results: seven percent of sales came through this newchannel.

Here are some examples of discussion points from the meeting:

“We have always had a local responsibility for launching ourproducts Fashion is a very national thing and we need to con-tinue our approach with this freedom.” (Southern Europe)

“Garucci clothes are very Italian and therefore seen as veryup-to-date and fashionable We need to take advantage ofthat.” (USA and Australia)

“The core values are lived in the product Our ads around theglobe don’t consistently express this new identity.” (Garuccihimself)

“The budget spend for ads is getting more and more sive We need economies of scale and should try to centralize atleast parts of the approaches.”(Netherlands)

expen-“We in Latin America don’t see how we can use the USapproach for our region However, we have many things incommon across Southern America.” (Latin America)

the global–local dilemma we discussed earlier Let’s just cluster thearguments that were floating around during the meeting.

Domestic argument (by an Italian marketing professional in Milan)

“What happened to us some 10 years ago was very good Much ofour production has been exported But the excitement should not beexaggerated We are still selling 45 percent of our goods in SouthernEurope We are an Italian company And in view of our core business

it is very good to be an Italian company Exports are OK, but ourmain focus is around the corner Let’s stick to the fact the we are Ital-ian in our advertising campaign What the rest are doing is theirbusiness, but it shouldn’t cost HQ a penny If there is a next step totake in, say, five years time, I think it should be carefully orches-trated from HQ.”

“We showed the latest ad from Italy to our clients in the US.They liked it a lot but were shocked by the sensual pictures atthe very end.” (US)

“Our Italian and French competitors have a scatteredapproach Xavier (Paris) has launched a regional campaign,while Pupi (Rome) has completely decentralized budgetsagain after failing miserably with a global campaign last year.”(HQ, Italy)

On the basis of the above arguments what do you think wouldwork best for Garucci’s future advertising campaign?

Multi-local argument (by the head of US advertising)

“The success we had in many countries including the US and inother major markets like Australia, Japan, and the Netherlandsshows that local people knew their own business The strength ofGarucci is that we are free to order everything from Milan, but theway we distribute, advertise, and sell goods are left to local organi-zations If we’d taken the advertisement developed in Italy wewould have irritated many of our potential buyers The gender rolesare too stereotypical and full of sexy content Much of the subtlehumor would be lost This is also applicable to the impressiveEnglish campaign which is loaded with typical English understate-ments Great for them but it would lose us clients In our ads wefocus on Italy, its culture, its creativity, but we do it in an Americanway That is why we were able increase our market share dramati-cally last year, though partly also through online sales We are sohappy that we have our own site that the customer can pull up whenthey click on the US; even the language is different from the Britishsite And we give much more information about the quality of tex-tures.”

International argument (by Australian head of marketing)

“This could be all very true for large markets like the UK and US We

in Australia would suggest a completely different marketing andadvertising strategy Obviously we are not very densely populated,but mass media asks for lots of budget to get a message across onAustralian Television Add to that the cost of the production of the

ad and we’re unable to do it on our own The Australians love theItalian-based products of Garucci and, believe me, also their ads Wewould like to take advantage of the enormous investments thatMilan has put into that Even the wonderful Italian accents are

appreciated because of the fact that we are selling Italy here ously we have subtitled, and in some regions synchronized, theItalian language People just love it and we pay less On the Internet

Obvi-I propose that we always create two columns, like in some bi-lingualairline magazines In the left column we will speak Italian and in theright one the language of the nationality of the reader We keep thepower of the Italian image and make it accessible in local environ-ments Very importantly, we need to create a feedback loop muchmore than ever We need to see why some products fail in some mar-kets so we can all learn Or at least locally In short, let’s be an Italiancompany with local adaptations.”

Global Argument (by the Italian Senior VP, Marketing)

“I’m listening to what you have to say But don’t forget that we havefound that our main markets around the globe are either from gener-ation X or are internationally traveled customers They live in hotelsand very often take our clothes to work I met representatives ofCanal+, CNN, and Sky last week; because of difficult world eco-nomic conditions, their prices have dropped so much that we canconsider a global advertising campaign It will put Garucci fashionproducts on the map for years to come I have calculated the percountry costs; you will be amazed how affordable it has become.And it gives great opportunities to make one ad where our top of theline products, for all countries, will be shown in all our main linessuch as jeans, shirts, and T-shirts We have a demo tape with us andyou will see that it is done by Al Pacino in English with an Italianaccent Everyone in the world will love it and buy our products Wecan’t carry on locally anymore The world has changed Tastes havebecome similar in our product sectors and standardizing our ads is alogical next step

This should also be the case with our website We have producedone, again in English, for all our customers It has a org address so

we can give up all the country-specific sites It allows us great accesssince we are mentioning the site address in the global advertisingcampaign on Sky and CNN.”

Transnational argument (by Guilio Garucci himself)

“Thank you for all your arguments They all make sense to me fromyour individual perspectives I see that our organization has manyintegrated business systems, like our recently launched IT-drivenordering system and our manufacturing processes around Asia.Also our designs are centralized in Italy with Italian professionals.Our HR and marketing approaches, however, have been kept quitelocal Obviously, fashion is a business where you need local respon-siveness and we largely hire local staff We need to keep that asmuch as possible What worries me is that we have not learned a lotfrom each other over the last five years If I look at all the local adsand the strategies that contextualize them, I am proud to be part ofGarucci and sad that I fell short in linking you together I have alsodrawn some conclusions

We are perhaps too Italian in Milan and too non-Italian abroad So Ipropose the following concerning the future of the advertising strat-egy that binds many of us together First of all I want to invite theseven VPs of marketing of the largest of our countries They willmanage the new Garucci marketing group from New York We willindeed launch a series of global advertising campaigns through themass media, and the ad will be co-produced by our internationaladvertising task force consisting of at least five nationalities fromfive different regions The advertising agency we hired is Dutch, andvery much mirrors our new organization They have many offices