Marketing communication: principles and practice

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BOX 6.1CULTURE, LANGUAGE, AND COMMUNICATION
Cultural background, language, and ways of communicating differ among people. This
problem is complex because language influences culture and culture influences
language. Language creates categories in our thinking, which influence what we judge
to be similar and what should be differentiated. Our way of observing, describing,
interacting with and constructing reality are thus determined. Also, vocabulary has its
own capacities and limits. 

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among cultures. Perceived risk differs among cultures, as does cognitive style,
i.e. how consumers reach decisions and are influenced by their environment. 
Basic cultural assumptions have been identified in a number of studies:
• what constitutes personal and what does not
• patterns of time
• attitude to action, and the significance of information
• self-concept and concept of others
• individuality and collectivity
• basis of reality
Multiculturalism is not only a global characteristic. Within many countries
(for example, Japan), there is considerable homogeneity, while in others
multicultural markets (North America, for example) are found. Thus, even
corporations operating locally, regionally, or nationally will have to deal
with differences in at least kinship and family patterns, religion, education
systems, time-related organization patterns, valuation of the individual and
the group, friendship patterns, criteria of aesthetic appreciation, and work
and leisure expectations and habits.
The cross-cultural analysis of consumer behaviour is essential to a growing
number of marketing managers, especially as they are increasingly required
to operate within global business strategies. Engel 
et al
. (1993) suggest six
specific tasks in seeking to understand differences and similarities in the
behavioural aspects of cultures, from the point of view of what consumers
think in the particular consumer/buyer group (Figure 6.3).
A qualified understanding of consumption behaviour, marketing, and
management at a global level is far more important than knowledge of selling