Chapter 5 The Meaning and Nature of Culture

Learning Objectives After completing this chapter, you should be able to: Understand the meaning and nature of culture. Discuss the ideas of cultural blueprints, categories, and principles. Explain why the fact that culture is learned is significant to marketers. Describe the importance of cultural values to consumer behavior and some ways of measuring cultural values.

Learning Objectives (continued) Give some examples of cultural myths and symbols and marketing’s role in reproducing them. Explain and identify some examples of consumer rituals. Explain cultural creolization and the role of marketing in this process.

The Baby Jogger Will it diffuse in other cultural contexts?

Exhibit 5.1 Two Views of Culture and Consumer Behavior

Meaning and Nature of Culture Culture consists of shared blueprints or schemas both for action and for understanding. Cultural categories organize time, space, nature, and the human community Cultural principles values, norms, and beliefs that allow things to be grouped into cultural categories, ranked, and interrelated Marketing challenge: aligning products with cultural blueprints, categories, and principles.

Cultural Values Instrumental values Terminal values Cultural values are those shared broadly across a society, values that are conditioned at the society level and reinforced and augmented at successive subcultural levels. Instrumental values shared beliefs about how people should behave and desired end states. Terminal values desirable life goals

Cultural Values (continued) Value-Attitude-Behavior Hierarchy abstract values affect midrange attitudes that led to specific consumer behaviors Value measures Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) List of Values (LOVs) Consumer ethnocentrism preference for one’s own system of tastes and preferences over those of another cultural group Materialism importance consumer attaches to worldly possessions or consumption-based orientation to happiness seeking

A Comparison Between Brazil and The U.S. on a Few Rokeach Terminal Values Terminal Value Brazil 1988 U.S. 1981 Overall Rank Overall Rank True Friendship 1 10 Mature Love 2 14 Happiness 3 5 Inner Harmony 4 13 Family Security 7 1 A World at Peace 5 2 Freedom (independence) 6 3 Self-Respect 9 4 Source: Wagner A. Kamakura and Jose Afonso Mazzon (1991), “Value Segmentation: A Model for the Measurement of Values and Value Systems,” Journal of Consumer Research, 18 (September), 208-218.

Cultural Myths and Symbols a story containing symbolic elements that express shared emotions and cultural values, maintain social order by authorizing a social code Urban legends stories passed by word of mouth that purport to be nearly first hand accounts of real events, but are fictions Cultural symbols objects that represent beliefs and values Conspicuous consumption acquisition and visibility of “luxury” goods and services to demonstrate one’s ability to afford them

Cultural Rituals Repetitive behavioral sequences Taken-for-granted scripts Exhibit arbitrary patterns Incorporate values Sustain social consensus Integrate interpersonal behaviors Examples include entry, exit, grooming, support, possession, exchange, divestment

Cultural Rituals (continued) behaviors that occur in a relatively fixed sequence, and that tend to be repeated periodically Possession rituals when products move from the marketplace to the home or workplace Grooming rituals private behaviors that aid in the transition from private to public self and back again Divestment rituals occur when consumers relinquish possession of objects

Cultural Rituals (continued) Exchange rituals Holiday gift giving Rites of passage Life cycles of rituals Global consumption of rituals

Chinese Moon Festival moon cake On the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar The custom of paying homage to the fairy and Jade rabbit is gone, but moon cakes are showing improvement every year. There are hundreds of varieties of moon cakes on sale a month before the arrival of the Moon Festival. Some moon cakes are of very high quality and very delicious. An overseas tourist is advised not to miss it if he or she happens to be in China during the Moon Festival. http://www.chinavista.com/experience/moon/moon.html moon cake

Guidelines for Cultural Awareness Culture is an all-encompassing phenomenon. Culture is learned. Enculturation process of learning culture Acculturation process of learning a new or foreign culture through a direct or indirect experience of others Culture is patterned. It is repeated and reinforced throughout the society It is reaffirmed and renewed through ritual consumption experience It tells us what things connect with what other things

Guidelines for Cultural Awareness Diderot effect force that encourages an individual to maintain a cultural consistency in his/her complement of consumer goods Culture is adaptive and dynamic Culture is an open system it influences and is influenced by changes in their environment

1950s U.S. Kitchen Appliances

Traditional English Living Room

Danish Modern Living Room

Plate of Sushi

The Diderot Effect Have you ever bought a pair of shoes…? Moral force that encourages an individual to maintain a cultural consistency in his/her complement of consumer goods.

Diderot Effect: Managerial Implications

Globalization, Consumer Culture, and Cultural Creolization an organized social and economic arrangement in which markets govern the relationship between meaningful ways of life and the symbolic resources on which they depend Characteristics of culture: Global expansion Increasing materialism Parallel changes in personal identity Movement of economic migrants, religious pilgrims, and guest workers between developing world and cosmopolitan

Globalization, Consumer Culture, and Cultural Creolization (continued) Trends: Global spread of brands and consumption practices Creolization consumption patterns that combine elements of local and foreign consumption traditions Nostalgic defense ethnocentric consumer reaction against globalization, rejecting foreign consumption consumption and values Increasing consumption of presumably authentic cultural products from transitional and Third World cultures

Cultural Symbols Cultural symbols are shared symbolic meanings. G.W. Cultural Symbols Taj Mahal Cultural symbols are shared symbolic meanings. Culture is reflected in core symbols. Consumer goods often become core symbols in a culture. Mt. Fuji Danbø

Contemporary Herero Costume, Botswana

Brand Symbols: Bibendum, The Michelin Man

Some Brand Symbols = Cultural Symbols

Goods Become National Symbols

Key Terms acculturation conspicuous consumption consumer ethnocentrism core symbols culture cultural categories cultural principles cultural rituals cultural symbols Diderot effect divestment rituals enculturation exchange rituals grooming rituals Hofstede’s worker values instrumental values List of Values (LOV) materialism myths norms open systems possession rituals

Key Terms (continued) rites of passage Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) terminal values urban legends value-attitude-behavior hierarchy values