The Creation and Diffusion
of Culture
Chp.15 with Duane Weaver
A look at how our culture creates
meanings and how those meanings move
through society to consumers.
The Movement of Meaning
Instruments of Movement:
Advertising
and Fashion
Systems
Consumption
Rituals
Destinations of Movement:
Cultural
Values
and
Symbols
Consumer
Goods
Individual
Consumer
Cultural Selection
Culture
Production
Systems
Set of individuals and organizations responsible
for creating and marketing a cultural product
High Culture
and
Popular Culture
High vs. Low Art, Cultural Formulae,
and Aesthetic Market Research
Reality
Engineering
Elements of popular culture are appropriated
by marketers and become integrated in strategy
Product
Placement
Obtain exposure for a product by arranging for
it to be inserted into some medium (e.g. TV)
Diffusion of Innovations
CATEGORIES
Innovators
Early Adopters
Early Majority
Late Majority
Laggards
Types of Innovations
• Continuous Innovation
– A minor modification to an existing product
– Evolutionary rather than revolutionary
• Dynamically Continuous Innovation
– A more pronounced changed to an existing product
– Create some behavioural changes
• Discontinuous Innovation
– Creates major changes in the way we live
– Major inventions: car, airplane, personal computer
Prerequisites for Successful
Adoption
compatible with consumer’s lifestyle
Compatibility
low in complexity, easiest to understand is chosen
Trialability
Complexity
more likely to adopt if can experiment with it
Observability
innovations easily observed are more likely to spread
Relative
Advantage
should provide a benefit other products cannot offer
Fashion Cycle
Acceleration
General Acceptance
Decline
Rise
Obsolescence
Innovation
Introduction
stages
Acceptance
stages
Regression
stages
FAD……………….……..FASHION…………………….CLASSIC
Product Meaning Across
Cultures
Etic - commonalities across cultures
vs.
Emic – variations within cultures
Integrate foreign meanings
with local meanings
Standardized
vs. Localized
Strategy
Creolization
(foreign absorbed
and mixed)
Global increase in
consumption homogenizes
differences in
cultural product
preferences
Taboos, favorites…
Cultural Norms
Transfer
Of Product
Globalized
Meaning Global Citizens
Consumption
Ethic
and
Youth
Diffusion of
Pop Culture
Quick to borrow from other
cultures what is admired
Segments with
common world view
Thanks
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