The Article written by Saikat Mandal, from IIM Ranchi is the third prize winner of the July 2012 Article Writing Contest.
Couple of week prior to the release of “The Dark Knight Rises” some hard core batman fans from IIM Ranchi were planning to go to Kolkata to watch the original version as in Ranchi it was coming in Hindi version. According to the demand estimation, the only multiplex of Ranchi were planning for only Hindi version because they have done the same thing in recent past just to meet the local culture.
Later after continuous request from IIM Ranchi students, they agreed to release screen the original English version also. The box office result is that the English show was running houseful since the release till date and there was crisis of tickets in first couple of days. However for the Hindi version situation was not so good. From this simple real life fact what I can analyze is that the multiplex was planning according to the local culture. They knew that in Ranchi Hindi version will be better fit rather than English version.
But what they failed to understand that the premiumness of the product will be compromised due to the customization. Culture is obviously very important factor for marketing a product or to understand consumer behaviour. But with the concept of globalization all the companies are trying to establish a unified brand perception across the globe. In this case culture is becoming less important factor for some global brands. Hence the big question comes into mind whether culture is important or not or if it is important then to what extend it is important?
Culture differentiate target value system
The impact of culture on customer’s buying pattern, consumption related attributes and values are so natural that it is taken for granted. People do certain things because they think that it is write to do so. This judgemental system or decision making process comes from our underlying cultural values which ultimately drives our behaviour. More specifically, our environment, religion, ethnic, social groups, national, professionals attributes defines our value system and drive our practices.
These practices and other personality traits lead to cognitive beliefs. These cognitive beliefs and our practices shape our attitude and underlying values helps to shape social norms. These attitude and social norms decide our behavioural intentions which finally drive our behaviour. In other word culture setup some standard and rules to satisfy our personal, physiological and social needs. Behind every purchase decision, there is some target value system associated with it. Culture plays a major role to create the differentiation in the target value system. (Schiffman, kanuk, & Kumar, 2011)
Marketing implications
Culture changes with time and place and cultural implications are very tough to understand because it is near to impossible to quantify such things. Although Hofstede distinguished five different dimensions of natural culture as power distance (PDI), Individualism/collectivism (IDV), masculinity/femininity (MAS), Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) and Long term vs Short term Orientation (LTO). (Hofstede & Mooij, 2002)These parameters vary widely across the globe. The first way to understand the customer’s need is to understand their culture first. Now every product have some attributes which comes from the country of origin. But if these attributes fails to generate enough synergy with the target market, there will be certain problem regarding communication mismatch.
So to successfully launch a product or to market a product, marketers should be well educated on the cultural implications of the target market. Also there exists a scope of competitive advantage how well a company can synchronized with the customer need. Acceptance of a certain product is purely dependent on the cultural synergy between product makers and customers. Also there is a scope of customization of certain specific products to attract some niche segment. For example Spiderman was released in Bhojpuri version just to attract a huge customer base from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Here are some example how culture play a big role for the success of a product.
Some contrary view points
One of the major aspects of globalization is the convergence of test, media, technology and many other things. This convergence ultimately leads to unified or homogeneous tests or needs. For example cross border music channel like MTV or sport channel like ESPN or TEN SPORT have a global demand not any specific cultural demand. Here are some contrary view points where culture hardly matters.
Conclusion
The effectiveness of the marketing increases with adapting to cultural values of the target customer. Cultural mismatch may results in drastic bad performance. Another important point is that culture is not usually static in nature and market dynamics changes with the continuous change of culture. So marketers should be well prepared for all the cultural changes. For a foreign brand one solution to adopt the culture of consumers is to customise their product offerings according to local needs. But sometimes lot of customization end up with hampering the premiumness of the product. So company also have to keep this factor in mind. In recommendation, multinational companies should first try to understand the latent demand of the target customer and accordingly design their product offerings. The promotion programme should be culture bound to the target customer’s interest.
This article has been authored by Saikat Mandal from IIM Ranchi.
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