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How cultural environment impacts the marketing Culture Culture as described by Herks, M. cited by Rai University (n. d) “culture may be viewed as the sum total of man’s knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, loves, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”. It is the totality way of life for a man. The other definition by Hofstede (1980) cited by Jones, D. & McCarthy, J. (2004) states that “culture as the collective programming of the mind which distinguished the member of one human group from another”.
Culture can be different from one group to another and can distinguish the way of living of the human from such groups. As different societies have different cultures as believes and values, these eventually shapes the people living and growing in that society (Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. 2008). A culture of a certain society for example can shape the way of clothing for that society. People growing and living in that society will have a belief and value on the certain type of clothing.
A Masai tribe from the northern part of Tanzania for example maintains their culture of wearing, where they wear a single peace of red or blue drafted sheet by wrapping it around their whole body. Marketing According to Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (2008) marketing can be defined as “the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return”. Marketing involves identify and satisfying customer needs and hence building strong relationship with such customers. Norris, B. 2006) describe marketing as a process of analyzing and identifying potentials buyers, attracting potential buyers, convincing or persuading them to accept and buy the products. Cultural impact on marketing As already described on the above paragraphs, cultural environment shape the way people do things which in turn has an effect on the marketing activities. Let’s take clothing as a case to analyze the impact of culture on marketing. Culture has a big influence on types of clothing that are used by different societies. The people in India have their specific type of clothing that has been built from their culture.
If as well we look at Muslims societies, Chinese societies, the Masai societies, they all have their type of clothing that they believe in and have been adopting for years which is different from one another. It is imperative that marketers understanding these cultural environment before starting to conduct their marketing activities. According to Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (2008), marketers “needs to predict the cultural shift in order to spot new opportunities or threats”. This implies that there need to be an understanding of the existing culture that can help in predicting the shift.
If for example a company producing shirts and trousers intend to extend its market to the masai region, it will need an intensive effort to persuade the people in masai region to abandon their culture and accept the new product. Marketers in this case may face great criticisms and oppositions from those who are supposed to be the potential buyers. On the hand it would take less effort to market same products in areas where there are cultural shift or no cultural restrictions on types of clothing. Reference: Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (2008) ‘Principal of Marketing’ 12th Edn. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Norris, B. 2006) ‘What is Marketing? ‘ [online] available from: http://www. briannorris. com/whatismarketing. html (accessed June 1, 2008) Jones, D. & McCarthy, J. (2004) ‘A model for Assessing Cultural Impacts on International Buyer-Seller Relationships for Key Accounts of Hotel Companies’ vol 28-425, [online] available from: http://jht. sagepub. com/cgi/reprint/28/4/425 (accessed June 1, 2008). Rai University (n. d), ‘lesson 8: Cultural environment and its Impact on International Marketing’, [online] available from: http://www. rocw. raifoundation. org/management/bba/InternationalMarketing/lecture-notes/lecture-08. pdf (accessed June 1, 2008).