Culture is Pervasive in All Marketing Activities

Coca Cola Website designed for Italian customers reflecting colorful advertisement and visual media (reflection to the outward personality of Italian customer)

Coca Cola Website designed for Japanese customer base. Tidier, fonts and layout more restricted. Clean and simple pictures. "Cute mascot" is present on website as a Japanese custom.

(1) The manner in which people satisfy their needs and wants are functions of their culture and it affects every part of our lives. I agree that culture is as pervasive as competition in international marketing and not understanding cultural differences may lead to ineffectiveness or failure of marketing activities. For example if we have a clear vision of cultural patterns (Muslim countries do not eat pork), we can position our product and design our advertisement more successfully (avoid any pork content in a product and references to pigs in advertisement).

As an extreme example let’s take the Internet that is perceived to eliminate cultural differences and promote culture free products. If we look at the cross-cultural marketing and advertising research findings, we will quickly see that culture has broad influence even on this new marketing medium. Culture specific communication preferences and hard factors like political, economical and technical preferences have influence on Internet.

For example a study on the use of internet in South Korea reveals that (2) the family functions (are) as just such a mediating factor and wields a significant influence on the course of diffusion in the case of South Korean society, where communalism takes precedence over individualism. As a result, the decision to use the Internet is likely to be influenced by behavioral pressures from social groups such as the family rather than by spontaneous behavior based on calculation of individual costs and benefits. Another study (3) to determine if American and Mexican Web pages differed in their depiction of cultural values, revealed that since USA has highest individualism-collectivism score while Mexico ranks lower and is more collectivist in orientation (Hofstede, 1980), local Mexican Web pages will reflect a higher level of collectivism than the Mexican Web pages of American companies.

Same study suggested and proved that countries like Greece, Japan, and Mexico rank high on uncertainty avoidance, and their people are relatively more risk averse, need security, and look for direction than United States and therefore Mexican Web pages will reflect a higher level of uncertainty avoidance than American Web pages.

These studies goes to prove that (4) “in spite of their ostensible universality and important role as engines of globalization, the Internet and its Web neither eliminate cultural differences nor are they culture-free products” and let alone direct marketing, even to e-market a product over international borders (using internet), companies should look out for cultural cues and culture related design criteria like content appeal, layout, length of pages and multimedia presentation.

(1) Cateora, International Marketing, Chapter 4 Introduction
(2) Rhee, K. Y., & Kim, W. B. (2004). The adoption and use of the Internet in South Korea. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 9 http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol9/issue4/rhee.html
(3) Singh, N., & Baack, D.W. (2004). Web site adaptation: A cross-cultural comparison of U.S. and Mexican web sites. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication,9
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol9/issue4/singh_baack.html
(4) Hermeking, M. (2005). Culture and Internet consumption: Contributions from cross-cultural marketing and advertising research. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), article 10. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/hermeking.html

Turkey: More than You Know

Today I will share with you a brilliant video composed to advertise the market potential of Turkey as a country. The video is calling everyone to invest in Turkey by depicting the potential for production, demand and consumption. Everything aside it is one of the best promotoions of the country by far and English should be thanked for. Company that put this video together is inviting UK exporters to market their products in Turkey.

Increased export to one country is another way to improve host country’s economy. This improvement can present itself in various forms; increased job opportunities, consumption of local resources (thereby creating more revenue for the host country), licensing to host firms, undertaking the FDI causing constant cash flow, etc. Furthermore, local trade unions allow host country to export without tariffs or quotas, thereby enriching the economy. I think Turkey can always benefit from more investment, more trade and more import of foreign goods as long as the balance of payments looks optimistic. Investment and export go hand in hand; as a result politically stable countries like Turkey come in the top of the list when foreign investment is looking for reliable grounds.

I myself had been running my own "Invest in Turkey" campaign at work. Below you can see the brochure outside my office. It talks about Turkey being on both Asia and Europe, is easily accessible by all countries who would like to trade in middle east. The strategic location and fast growing , young work force is called into attention to pinpoint the value of the investment, one should consider.

At this time Turkey is not a member of the EU. Whether the reason is vast cultural differences between European countries and Turkey, or Turkey so conveniently playing the buffer zone between Europe and Middle East or simply Europe's not so positive religious preferences on admitting a Muslim country into their union, Turkey is not going to be admitted in EU anytime soon. Even though, Turkish politicians are making all the reforms asked from Turkey on economic, political and environmental platforms, it seems like it is never enough for EU. There is always this one more "thing", one more adjustment to be taken care of. Personally I don't believe Turkey needs EU, more than EU needs Turkey. With the growth pace, invaluable local resources, easygoing politicians and unprecedented stability, Turkey is like the chicken that lays golden eggs for foreign economy.