CH.16 CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Culture: a society’s personality
Aspect of culture
1. Ecology: way a system is adapted to its habitat
2. Social structure: the way social life is maintained
3. Ideology: way people relate to their environment
Dimensions accounting for cultural variability
1. Power distance
2. Uncertainty avoidance
3. Masculinity/femininity
4. Individualism
5. Long-term orientation
Enacted norm: explicitly decided (ex; red light means ‘stop’)
Crescive norm: embedded in a culture and discovered only through interaction
- Custom: norm handed down from the past (ex; division of labor)
- More: custom with a strong moral overtone (ex; incest, cannibalism)
- Convention: norms regarding the conduct of everyday life (way to wear clothes, host a party)
Myth: a story containing symbolic elements that expresses the shared emotions of a culture
- Ex: little red riding hood
- Important to marketers who in some cases pattern their strategies along mythic structures
- Stories often feature some conflict and its outcome serves as a moral guide for people
- Monomyth: a myth that is common to many cultures (a hero wins over evil forces)
Ritual: a set of symbolic behaviors that tend to be repeated periodically (baptism, parade, election, trial,
mealtime, birthday, Christmas, grooming)
Rites of passage: special times marked by a change in social status (puberty, divorce)
Sacred consumption: objects/events that are set apart from normal activities and treated with some
respect (mostly related to religion)
- Sacred people: even mundane items touched/used by sacred people become valuable
- Sacred event: ex; world of sports