Global Marketing and Advertising: Understanding Cultural Paradoxes by Marieke de Mooij

Author:Marieke de Mooij
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781483315454
Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Published: 2014-08-03T16:00:00+00:00

Understanding Manifestations of Dimensions

When working with the dimensions, the content of each dimension must be studied carefully before formulating hypotheses or explaining results. Some manifestations of each dimension are more work-related whereas others can be applied to consumer behavior. For example, power distance is about the relationship between bosses and subordinates, but it also is about everyone having his or her rightful place in society versus equality. The latter explains the need for luxury brands as status symbols in high power distance cultures because they can be used to demonstrate one’s place in the hierarchy. In any hierarchy, it is important to display your status through outward appearances of rank and wealth. Collectivism is not about subordinating oneself to the group. This is the typical description from an individualistic view of the person. The group itself is one’s identity, and there is interdependency.

Long-term orientation is not the same as forecasting the future.84 Uncertainty avoidance is not risk avoidance. “Natural” is a motive for high uncertainty avoidance cultures, less a feminine appeal.85 Showing people in relation to others can be a reflection of collectivism but also of affiliation needs of feminine cultures. In content analysis of advertising, the picture of a family is assumed to be a reflection of collectivism, but paradoxically, it can also be a reflection of individualism where people are afraid that family values are disappearing. In individualistic cultures, even more families may be found in advertising, because it is the desirable. Advertisers may feel a lesser need to depict families in advertising in collectivistic cultures because the family is a part of one’s identity; it is not the desirable. Expecting community relations in websites of collectivistic cultures is a similar example.86 These may be expected to be found more in individualistic cultures where one has to make an effort to preserve community relations. To collectivists, this is an automatic process. One has to take into account such value paradoxes when formulating research hypotheses.

The culture of researchers tends to play a role in selecting dimensions for analysis. North American researchers tend to ignore the masculinity dimension, which in their cultures may be problematic because of political correctness standards. It seems to conflict with strongly felt values, and many researchers seem unable to understand the essence.87 For analyzing advertising, the difference between role differentiation and overlapping roles can be a useful observation. Others are overt display of success and the use of strong typography or power words. Female nudity in advertising should not be confused with sex appeal. There is no relationship with masculinity.

One of the most difficult things to overcome for any researcher from any culture is ethnocentrism, that is, the tendency to apply the dimensional frameworks we use and judge the scores obtained from these from one’s own culture’s point of view and value system.88

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