Cross-Cultural Marketing
Rafael Capurro
Hochschule der Medien (HdM)
Sommersemester 2006
Source: Marc Hermeking: Culture and Internet Consumption1
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/hermeking.html
Introduction
 Culture-free products: like ICT
 Culture-bound products: like food
(difficult/non difficult to standardize)
-> The latter notion needs to be revised
because tecnical systems are subject
to cultural influences.
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1. Cultural Differences in the
Consumtion of the Internet
 The Internet as a product of ICT is a
marketable good.
 The Internet is a new channel of
communication through which
marketing communication can be
spread.
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1. Cultural differences…
 Consumption research is an essential
precondition for appropriate product
design.
 Try to uncover how much, by whom,
where, at what time, for what
purpose, and according to whose
preferences the Internet is used and
how it is used
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1. Cultural differences…
 The Worldwide Disparity
 2000: most Internet users in USA (147
Mio), followed by Europe (91 Mio) and
Asia Pacific Basin (75 Mio).
 2005: USA (48%), Canada & Australia
(46%), Germany (36%)…-> Digital
Divide.
 Cultures with low Uncertainty Avoidance
are more open to the Internet as new
medium of communication.
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1. Cultural differences…
 The correlation with low Uncertainty
Avoidance was weakened by high
rates of literacy and international
trade – but not by a high economic
development.
 Individualism as a (positive)
correlation for Internet use.
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1. Cultural differences…
 Role of Cultural Communication Styles:
 Individualistic cultures (egalitarian, democratic
nature of the Internet)
 High/low-context communication (Hall):
shared vs. transmitted information
 High Individualism -> low-context (explicit,
direct, formal, written) (Swiss, Germans,
Scandinavians, Anglo-Americans, English)
 Collectivism -> high-context (implicit, informal,
symbolic, pictures) (Japanese, Arabs, Latin
American, Italian-Spanish, French)
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1. Cultural Differences…
 High-context cultures: Indirect and
transformational advertising
messages creating emotions through
pictures and entertainment (France,
Japan)
 Low-context cultures: direct and
rational advertising messages
providing product information
(Germany, USA)
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2. Implied Cultural Concepts
 Cateora‘s model of the international
marketing environment
 „uncontrollables“ (legislation, politics,
economy, topographic facts,
infrastructure, standards of technology…)
 „controllables“ (marketing strategies and
instruments)
But: this model is based on the concept of
national culture (as Hofstede‘s)
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2. Implied…
 Hofstede‘s model is based on five
cultural dimensions (80 countries):





Hierarchy
Group orientation (Individualism)
Gender Roles (Masculinity)
Trust
Risk-taking (Uncertainty Avoidance)
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2. Implied…
 Hall‘s model (only a few countries are
mentioned):
 High- vs. Low Context (shared vs.
Transmitted information)
 Explicit vs. Indirect communication style
(formal/informal, written/symbolic)
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3. Cultural Influences on Website
Design
 Site Quality (usability)
 Establishment of trust
 Creation of positive effect during
website use
-> more trust correlates to culturallyfamiliar communication style
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3. Cultural influences…
 Culture-related design criteria:
 Correlation between content appeal and
layout:
 Layout: written text -> information/rational
i.e. low-context communication
 Layout: visual picture ->
entertainment/emotional, i.e. high-context
communication
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3. Cultural influences…
 Structural design criteria:








Content appeal
Layout
Length of pages
Multimedia presentation
Interactivity
Structure of content
Total volume of website
Degree of navigation support
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4. Some general findings
 Websites of global companies tend to be
 strongly standardized
 dominated by rational content appeals
 text-heavy layout presenting small pictures
only
 Low multimedia presentation
 High interactivity
 Large website volume
 Deeply structured content
 Intensive navigation support
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4. Some general…
 Amazon Homepages:
 High-context: France www.amazon.fr
 Low-context: Germany www.amazon.de
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4. Some general
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4. Some general…
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4. Some general…
 In the Old Economy, websites of
companies representig industrial
goods and primarily adressing
business users (B2B) tend to be
standardized to a similar degree.
 ABB UK and ABB France
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4. Some general…
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4. Some general…
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4. Some general…
 The general nature of these websites
corresponds to
 Low-context (explicit) communication
 Monochronic (linear) time orientation
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4. Some general…
 Websites that address consumers
(B2C) reveal different tendencies:
 High-interest (durble) products: modest
standardization
 High-context (indirect) cultures exhibit a
higher degree of cultural adaptation,
more colored backgrounds, larger
pictures, animated illustrations
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4. Some general…
 Multimodality tends to be higher in highcontext (symbolic) cultures
 Navigation support tends to be less
intensive in high-context (symbolic)
cultures (frequent use of icons)
-> for instance: Sony USA (low-context) vs.
Sony Japan (high-context)
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4. Some general…
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4. Some general…
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4. Some general…
 Websites representing global brands
of non-durable, low-interest products
reveal a higher degree of cultural
adaptation.
 -> Coca Cola USA / Coca Cola Italy
 See Okazaki (2005): Analysis of 206
homages of US companies in four
European countries (durable/nondurable products)
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4. Some general…
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4. Some general…
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4. Some general…
 Local websites of global consumer
brands occasionally seem to be more
standardized worldwide.
 See
 websites of French food brand (tend to
represent high-context (implicit) style
 Websites of German car brand (tend to
represent low-context (explicit) style
(Mercedes-Benz in Italy, Lancia in
Germany)
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4. Some general…
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4. Some general…
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4. Some general…
 The „country-of-origin“ effect is
difficult to achieve successfully: it
works only in case the images of the
product are positively related in the
targeted countries (otherwise trust is
created by culture-specific
adaptations)
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4. Some results…
 Verbal headlines or slogans differ
quite the same respect
 Other linguistic aspects (like the use
of „we“, logical styles, forms of
rational expression…) could provide
for additional cues for cultural
adaptation.
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4. Some results…
 Degree of website adaptation with
respect to the represented product:
 B2B: low-context (explicit, written): ABB
(industrial goods)
 B2C: high(er) adaptation: durables
(Sony), non-durables (Coca-Cola)
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4. Some results…
 Too many websites are still
characterized by a dominant lowcontext (rational, text-heavy) style
 A country‘s low rate of Internet
consumption could be considered as a
general indicator for low quota of
culturally appropriate websites.
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