1. Chapter 16 Global Consumer Culture
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, 9e Michael R. Solomon
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2. Chapter Objectives
When you finish this chapter, you should understand why:
Styles act as a mirror to reflect underlying cultural conditions.
We distinguish between high and low culture.
Many modern marketers are reality engineers.
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3. Chapter Objectives (continued)
New products, services, and ideas spread through a population. Different types of people are more or less likely to adopt them.
Many people and organizations play a role in the fashion system that creates and communicates symbolic meaning to consumers.
Fashions follow cycles.
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4. Chapter Objectives (continued)
Products that succeed in one culture may fail in another if marketers fail to understand the differences among consumers in each place.
Western (and particularly American) culture has a huge impact around the world, though people in other countries don’t necessarily ascribe the same meanings to products as we do.
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5. Where Does Culture Come From?
Influence of inner-city teens
Hip-hop/black urban culture
Outsider heroes, anti-oppression messages, and alienation of blacks
“Flavor” on the streets
Even though inner-city teens represent only 8% of all people in that age group and have incomes lower than their white suburban counterparts, their influence on young people’s music and fashion tastes is great. Popular culture can arise from many sources and become symbolically connected to others.
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6. Figure 16.1 The Movement of Meaning
Mainstream culture can modify symbols associated with subcultures so they are appealing to larger audiences. This is known as cooptation. It means that outsiders transform the original meanings of the objects.
Cultural meanings can be created from everyday products and these meanings then move through society. Figure 16.1 shows that advertising and fashion play a key role in this process.
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7. Figure 16.2 Culture Production Process
Sometimes we might feel that we have too many choices but really at any point in time we might actually have just a small fraction of the total set of possibilities. Figure 16.2 shows that when we select certain alternatives over others, our choice actually is only the culmination of a complex filtration process that resembles a funnel. Possibilities compete for adoption but then most drop out as they make their way down the path from conception to consumption. This winnowing process is called cultural selection.
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8. Culture Production System
A culture production system is the set of individuals and organizations that create and market a cultural product
It has three major subsystems
Creative
Managerial
Communications
No single person or company can create popular culture. Instead, many people and organizations contribute to each new trend. A culture production system (CPS) is this set of people and organizations who create cultural meaning. The system has three major subsystems. The creative subsystem generates new symbols and products. The managerial subsystem selects, makes, produces, and manages the distribution of new symbols and products. A communications subsystem gives meaning to the new product and provide it with a symbolic set of attributes.
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9. Cultural Gatekeepers
Cultural gatekeepers are responsible for filtering the overflow of information and materials intended for customers
Tastemakers
Throughput sector
Tastemakers have a say in the products we consider. They are cultural gatekeepers who filter information as it flows down the funnel. Gatekeepers include product reviewers, interior designers, retail buyers, and magazine editors. Social scientists call these agents the throughput sector.
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10. High Culture and Popular Culture
An art product is an object we admire for its beauty and our emotional response
A craft product is admired because of the beauty with which it forms a function
Mass culture creates products for a mass market
Though culture can create popularity for high and low art and for arts and crafts, there are some basic distinctions. A piece of art is original, subtle, and valuable and it is typically associated with society’s elite. A craft tends to follow a formula that permits rapid production. Mass culture products seek to please the average taste of the average audience. Many popular art forms follow a sort of formula for success as we discuss further on the next slide.
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11. Table 16.2 Cultural Formulae in Public Art Forms
Art Form/Genre
Western
Family Sitcom
Time
1800s
Anytime
Location
Edge of civilization
Suburbs
Protagonist
Cowboy
Father
Heroine
Schoolmarm
Mother
Villain
Outlaws
Boss, neighbor
Secondary characters
Town folk
Kids, dogs
Plot
Restore law and order
Solve problem
Theme
Justice
Chaos and confusion
Costume
Cowboy hat, boots
Regular clothes
Locomotion
Horse
Station wagon, SUV
Weaponry
Rifle
Insults
This table illustrates that many popular art forms follow a cultural formula. Familiar roles and props occur consistently throughout each respective art form or genre. The complete table in the text provides four examples of cultural formulae but here we show two.
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12. Discussion
Can you identify a cultural formula at work in romance or action movies?
Do you see parallels among the roles different characters play (e.g., the hero, the evildoer, the temptress, etc.)?
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13. Reality Engineering
Many consumer environments have images/characters spawned by marketing campaigns or are “retreads”
Marketers use pop culture as promotional vehicles
“New vintage” (e.g., “used jeans”)
Elements used are both sensory and spatial
Reality engineering occurs when marketers appropriate elements of popular culture and use them as promotional vehicles.
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14. Product Placement and Branded Entertainment
Insertion of specific products and use of brand names in movie/TV scripts
Directors incorporate branded props for realism
Is product placement a positive or negative when it comes to consumer decision-making?
The use of branded products in film is an old practice but it has renewed attention as brands pay large sums to be included in popular programming. Sometimes the product placement is free because the director wants to use the branded prop for realism. Other times, the placement comes with a fee. The practice is called branded entertainment sometimes because the brands may sponsor the program (like American Idol). Some researchers claim that product placement helps consumers to make decisions because consumers are then familiar with the brands when they shop. However, others say that placements can be a negative influence on consumer decisions if they are not congruent with the plot. In other words, the placement has to make sense in the minds of consumers in order to be effective.
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15. Advergaming
Advergaming refers to online games merged with interactive advertisements
Advertisers gain many benefits with advergames
Plinking is the act of embedding a product in a video
Many brands have used advergaming including Axe, Burger King, and Mini Cooper. The games keep the attention of players longer than typical advertising. They let marketers target specific types of consumers. Marketers can tailor the nature of the game and the products in it to the profiles of different users. The format gives advertisers a great deal of flexibility. Lastly, the games enable marketers to track exposure to advertising in the games.
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16. The Diffusion of Innovations
Innovation: any product that consumers perceive to be new
New manufacturing technique
New product variation
New way to deliver product
New way to package product
Diffusion of innovation
Successful innovations spread through the population at various rates
The diffusion of innovation refers to the process whereby a new product, service, or idea spreads through a population. An innovation is any product or service that consumers perceive to be new. Marketers may need to encourage adoption of new products.
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17. Figure 16.3 Types of Adopters
Figure 16.3 shows the process of diffusion and the categories of people who adopt at various stages in the process. Innovators and early adopters are quick to adopt products. Laggards are very slow. The early majority and late adopters are in the middle. Early adopters are similar to innovators but they are different in their degree of concern for social acceptance.
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18. Behavioral Demands of Innovations
Three major types of innovations (amount of disruption/change they bring to our lives):
Continuous innovation
Evolutionary rather than revolutionary
Dynamically continuous innovation
More pronounced change to existing product
Discontinuous innovation
Creates major changes in the way we live
We categorize innovations by the degree to which they demand adopters to change their behavior. A continuous innovation is a modification of an existing product such as when Levi’s promotes a new cut of jeans. The company makes a small change to an existing product. Most product innovations are of this type. When a consumer adopts this kind of new product, she only has to make minor changes in her habits. A dynamically continuous innovation is a significant change to an existing product. A discontinuous innovation creates really big changes in the way we live. Major inventions such as the airplane, the car, the computer, and the television all changed modern lifestyles.
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19. Prerequisites for Successful Adoption
Compatibility
Innovation should be compatible with consumers’ lifestyles
Trialability
People are more likely to adopt an innovation if they can experiment with it prior to purchase
Complexity
A product that is easy to understand will be chosen over competitors
Observability
Innovations that are easily observable are more likely to spread
A successful innovation, no matter how much we have to change in order to adopt it, should possess certain attributes. To the extent that the product innovation meets these five criteria, it will be adopted.
Relative
Advantage
Product should offer relative advantage over other alternatives
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20. The Fashion System
The fashion system includes all those people and organizations involved in creating symbolic meanings and transferring these meanings to cultural goods
Fashion is code
Fashion is context-dependent
Fashion is undercoded
Although we might think of fashion as clothing, it really includes all types of cultural phenomena including music, art, architecture, and science. We can think of fashion as a code or a language that helps us to decipher meaning. Unlike language, though, fashion is context-dependent. Different consumers can interpret the same style differently. Fashion products are undercoded too. That means that there is no one precise meaning but rather potentially different meanings for each person perceiving the fashion.
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21. Behavioral Science Perspectives and Models of Fashion
Psychological
Economic
Sociological
Medical
The meanings we give products reflect the underlying cultural categories that correspond to the basic ways we characterize the world. Our culture distinguishes between different times of day, between leisure and work, and between genders.
Fashion is very complex and operates on many levels. It can affect us as a society and as an individual. Psychological factors can help us to explain what motivates us to be fashionable. Economists approach fashion in terms of supply and demand. The sociological perspective focuses on a subculture’s adoption of a fashion. The trickle-down theory states that there are two conflicting forces that drive fashion change. First, subordinate groups adopt the status symbols of the groups above them as they attempt to climb up the ladder of social mobility. Dominant styles originate with the upper classes and trickle down to those below. Meme theory explains how something becomes popular seemingly all of a sudden. A meme is an idea or product that enters the consciousness of people over time. Memes spread among consumers in a geometric progression just as a virus starts off small and steadily infects increasing numbers of people until it becomes an epidemic.
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22. Motives and Psychological Models of Fashion
Conformity
Desire for variety seeking
Need to express personal creativity
Sexual attraction
There are many motives for fashion; some are identified on the slide.
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23. Figure 16.4 Normal Fashion Life Cycle
Figure 16.4 shows that an item or idea progresses through basic stages from birth to death as it makes its way through the fashion life cycle. The cycle is very similar to the product life cycle.
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24. Fashion Life Cycle Example
Introduction stage: small number of music innovators hear a song
Acceptance stage: song enjoys increased visibility
Regression stage: song reaches stage of social saturation as it becomes overplayed
This slide explains the three stages in the overall fashion life cycle. A classic fashion is one with an extremely long acceptance cycle. A fad is one with a very short cycle.
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25. Figure 16.5 Comparison of Acceptance of Fads, Fashions, and Classics
Figure 16.5 illustrates that fashions begin slowly but if they “make it,” they may diffuse rapidly, peak, and retreat into obscurity. We can identify classes of fashion by the relative length of their acceptance cycles. This is how we differentiate between a fad and a classic.
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26. Discussion
What is and what should be the role of fashion in our society? How important is it for people to be in style? What are the pros and cons of keeping up with the latest fashions?
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27. Figure 16.6 Behavior of Fads
Figure 16.6 illustrates that some types of fads have longer life spans than others. Past fad products have included snap bracelets, pet rocks, and hula hoops.
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28. How Might We Know if a Trend is a Fad?
Does it fit with basic lifestyle changes?
Are there benefits?
Can we personalize it?
Is it a trend or a side effect?
Is it a carryover effect?
Who adopted the change?
This slide lists some questions we can pose and answer to determine whether a trend will be just a fad.
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall

29. Cultural Differences and Marketing
People around the world develop their own unique preferences
Marketers must be aware of a culture’s norms and manage the relationship between brand and culture strategically
Managing the global characteristics of a brand and the culture of the host country is necessary given the importance of global markets to brands.
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30. Think Globally, Act Locally
Adopt a standardized strategy
Adopt a localized strategy
There is a debate on how a company can best meet the needs of a global market and be efficient too. Should an organization develop separate marketing plans for each culture or should it craft a single plan to implement everywhere? Those who support a standardized marketing strategy argue that many cultures, especially those of industrialized countries are so homogenized that the same approach will work throughout the world. Then the company can develop economies of scale because it does not have to incur the time and expense to develop a separate strategy for each culture. This viewpoint represents an etic perspective which focuses on commonalities across cultures. An etic approach reflects the views of culture from the perspective of an outsider.
Others support a localized strategy, learning from those who have struggled with cultural issues like Disney. Disney tried to enforce its culture on its Euro Disney Park and failed. When it opened its Hong Kong location, it instead pursued a localized strategy which was highly successful. Disney’s experience supports an emic perspective, which stresses variations across cultures. This view believes that each culture is unique and therefore marketing strategies must be tailored to the specific culture. Most marketers attempt to find a compromise somewhere in between these two choices such that standardization occurs where it can, but products and strategies are also customized. This ad from Electrolux is a good reminder that most brands are global and will face this issue.
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31. Consumers and Global Brands
Global citizens
Global dreamers
Antiglobals
A large-scale study with consumers in 41 countries identified the characteristics people associate with global brands and measured the relative importance of those dimensions when consumers buy products. The researchers grouped consumers who evaluate global brands in the same way and identified four major segments.
Global citizens are the largest segment, making up 55% of consumers. They use the global success of a company as a signal of quality and innovation. Global dreamers are the second-largest segment. They consists of consumers who see global brands as quality products and readily buy into the myths told. Antiglobals are skeptical that transnational companies can deliver high-quality goods. They don’t trust global companies to behave responsibly. Global agnostics do not base purchase decisions on a brand’s global attributes. They evaluate global products just as they do local products.
Global agnostics
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32. Emerging Consumer Cultures in Transitional Economies
Creolization occurs when foreign influences integrate with local meanings
Peruvian boys carry rocks painted like radios
Chivas Regal wrappers on drums in highland Papua New Guinea
Japanese use Western words for anything new and exciting
“I feel Coke and sound special”
The creolization process sometimes results in bizarre permutations of products and services when locals modify them to be compatible with their customs. This is clear from the examples shown on the slide.
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33. Chapter Summary Styles are like a mirror that reflect culture.
We can distinguish between high and low forms of culture.
Marketers are also reality engineers.
New products spread through the population. Certain characteristics make it more likely that they will be adopted.
We’ve reviewed many concepts in this chapter. The key points are noted on the slide.
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall

34. Chapter Summary
The fashion system creates and communicates symbolic meaning for consumers.
Fashion follows cycles.
Products that succeed in one culture may fail in another due to cultural differences.
Western culture has a huge influence on other cultures.
We’ve reviewed many concepts in this chapter. The key points are noted in the slide.
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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