Cracking The Cultural Conundrum

You already know that the Chevr-olet Nova bombed in Spain because no va means it does not go in Spanish. And that a detergent failed in West Asia because the ad agency forgot Arabic is read right to left (the left corner of the billboard showed a dirty shirt being dipped in a bucket of water containing the detergent and the right showed it emerging sparkling clean).

You also know that the famous McDonalds clown scared off more people than he attracted in Japan, where a white face signifies death. You know many more instances of cultural cross-connection. So you dont need another book on the role of culture in marketing, right?

 

Wrong. For, despite overwhelming evidence, too many strategists continue to believe their products can transcend cultural idiosyncrasies. Remember Daminda Dias claim that Kelloggs would change Indians breakfast habits?

Its easy to dismiss such ambition as sheer hubris. But is it really so irrational? As Theodore Levitt said in his celebrated Harvard Business Review article (1983), markets around the world are becoming increasingly standardised. And travel writers like Pico Iyer have described the coming of age of a generation that shares a common idiom and aspirations. From Mumbai to Miami, this generation responds in much the same manner to Tom Cruise, Michael Jordan, Levis, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, the Marlboro man et al.

So why does one-size-fits-all communication continue to come a cropper? The obvious answer would seem to be that the Global Generation hasnt acquired critical mass in individual countries. But such thinking is potentially disastrous for marketing managers, if academic-consultant Mooij is to be believed.

Mooij argues that marketing managers often confuse superficial expressions of culture with the real thing. She draws the analogy of an onion to buttress her argument that symbols, heroes and rituals constitute the external layers of culture, and values its core.

The external layers can and frequently do change, but values are relatively stable. This explains the ease with which young Asians blend tradition and modernity in their lives. It also explains Mooijs objection to that old cliche: think global, act local. As she observes, there may be global products, but there are no truly global people.

At this point, the academic in Mooij steps back, and the consultant takes over. No consultant worth her salt can be long separated from paradigms, and Mooij is no exception. For her, the magic key is the celebrated 5-D model, first developed by Geert Hofstede to explain differences in work-related values. However, Mooij extrapolates Geerts gestalt to consumption-related values and motives. According to the new, improved model, all cultures can be understood in terms of five parameters:

1) Power distance: The extent to which less powerful members of a society accept that power is distributed unequally.

2) Individualism/collectivism: The importance of the individual in relation to society.

3) Masculinity/femininity: Not the most politically correct of classifications, it still offers interesting insights. Thus, the dominant values in a masculine society are achievement and success, while in a feminine society they are caring for others and quality of life.

4) Uncertainty avoidance: The extent to which people feel threatened by uncertainty and ambiguity and try to avoid these situations.

5) Long-term orientation: The extent to which a society exhibits a future-oriented perspective rather than a short-term point of view.

Unfortunately, after having got this far by chapter 4, Mooij misses out on a golden opportunity to cut to the chase. Having established what makes cultures tick, the logical next step would be to tell informed readers how to devise specific strategies for different cultures. Mooij does tackle the issue, but only at the fag end. In between, she dwells on subjects like consumer behaviour and the advertising process. The effect is remarkably like a movie coming to within a shot of the climax, then abruptly lapsing into a lengthy flashback.

Not that the intervening text doesnt have its moments. Mooij comes up with some illuminating analysis, specially in chapters 8 and 11, where she describes how the most successful ads in each country blend perfectly with its cultural values, according to the 5D model.

Convincingly, if a little loosely, argued, this book makes for good reading. The price may pinch, but theres the compensation of having read a thought-provoking work.