1. Chapter 8 Consumer Culture
Babin/Harris
© 2009 South-Western, a division of Cengage Learning.

2. © 2009 South-Western, a division of Cengage Learning.
Learning Outcomes
Understand how culture provides the true meaning of objects and activities.
Use the key dimensions of core societal values to understand the concept of cultural distance.
Define acculturation and enculturation.
List fundamental elements of verbal and nonverbal communication.
Discuss current emerging consumer markets and scan for opportunities.
© 2009 South-Western, a division of Cengage Learning.

3. © 2009 South-Western, a division of Cengage Learning.
What is Culture?
Consumer culture - commonly held societal beliefs that define what is socially gratifying.
Culture is everywhere and ultimately explains the habits and idiosyncrasies of all groups of consumers.
Culture is hierarchical.
Subculture – refers to a culture existing at a lower level than overall culture.
LO1
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4. Culture, Meaning and Value
Culture shapes the value of consumer activities by:
giving meaning to objects,
giving meaning to activities, and
facilitating communication.
LO1
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5. © 2009 South-Western, a division of Cengage Learning.
Cultural Norms
Refer to rules that specify the appropriate behavior in a given situation within a specific culture.
Mostly unwritten and simply understood by members of a cultural group.
LO1
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6. © 2009 South-Western, a division of Cengage Learning.
Cultural Sanctions
Penalties associated with performing a non-gratifying or culturally inconsistent behavior.
Popular culture captures cultural trends and also shapes norms and sanctions within society.
Sex-roles refer to the societal expectations for men and women among members of a cultural group.
LO1
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7. Where Does Culture Come From?
Ecological factors – physical characteristics that describe the physical environment and habitat of a particular place.
Tradition – customs and accepted ways of structuring society.
LO2
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8. Dimensions of Cultural Values
Core societal values (CSV), or cultural values – represent a commonly agreed upon consensus about the most preferable ways of living within a society.
Individualism/collectivism
Masculinity/femininity
Power distance
Uncertainty avoidance
Long-term orientation
LO2
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9. © 2009 South-Western, a division of Cengage Learning.
Cultural Distance
How should a company decide where they should expand internationally?
Geographic distance – look to neighboring countries.
Cultural distance – represents how disparate one nation is from another in terms of their CSVs.
LO2
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10. © 2009 South-Western, a division of Cengage Learning.
How Is Culture Learned?
Socialization – involves learning through observation of and the active processing of information about lived, everyday experience.
Enculturation – represents the way a person learns his/her native culture.
Acculturation – the process by which consumers come to learn a culture other than their natural, native culture.
LO3
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11. © 2009 South-Western, a division of Cengage Learning.
How is Culture Learned?
Quartet of Institutions - responsible for communicating the CSVs through both formal and informal processes from one generation to another:
Family
School
Church
Media
LO3
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12. © 2009 South-Western, a division of Cengage Learning.
How is Culture Learned?
Modeling – a process of imitating others’ behavior.
Shaping – consumers’ behaviors slowly adapt to a culture through a series of rewards and sanctions.
LO3
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13. © 2009 South-Western, a division of Cengage Learning.
Verbal Communication
The transfer of information through either the literal spoken or written word.
Translational equivalence – exists when two phrases share the same precise meaning in two different cultures.
Metric equivalence – the state in which consumers are shown to use numbers to represent quantities the same way across cultures.
LO4
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14. Nonverbal Communication
Information passed through some nonverbal act.
Elements:
Time
Body language
Space
Etiquette/manners
Relationships
Agreement
Symbols
LO4
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15. © 2009 South-Western, a division of Cengage Learning.
Emerging Cultures
BRIC – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – economies that are growing rapidly.
Purchasing power parity (PPP) – gives an idea of the total size of the consumer market in each country in terms of total buying power.
Chindia – refers to the combined market and business potential of China and India.
Glocalization – marketing strategy may be global, but the implementation of that strategy at the marketing tactics level should be local.
LO5
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