Culture 27-3-09

Culture can affect the way in which an individual looks at a product or situation. By understanding different cultural backgrounds, allows for advertisers to use certain techniques when aiming at a specific audience.
“A culture is the configuration of learned behaviour and results of behaviour whose component elements are shared and transmitted by members of a particular society.” Ralph Linton (1945)
By learning the different ways different cultures act and the way in which different activities are undertaken, understanding why the customer acts a certain way becomes clear. Different cultures come from different influences on an individual’s life, family and friends, education, government and religion. All playing a vital rule in the way the consumer looks and understands different subjects.

Culture is made up from different essential components, Beliefs, Values and Customs.
Beliefs – Mental and verbal processes undertaken that reflect an individuals knowledge of a product or service. E.g. Green – environmentally friendly.
Values – the guides in which individuals use for what they believe is appropriate behaviour, often accepted with members of a particular market audience.
Customs – modes of behaviour that are culturally approved in specific situations. E.g. If a policeman shots a terrorist – socially will accept it because of the situation.

Things which seem normal to some cultures are completely different in others. Christmas is a prime example showing the different ways different countries celebrate the same occasion. In Jaclyn Fierman’s book, Christmas shopping around the world, describes the different ways in which Father Christmas arrives to the children. In Italy a witch flies down and drops the presents through the chimney, in Syria he arrives on a camel and in Scandinavia they celebrate him coming with reindeer's like in the UK. What we think its just a simple fact of how Father Christmas arrives changes all over the world.

Geert Hofstede’s theory looks at the way national cultures vary and the way these can be measured. This analysis explained four dimensions to show the variations in culture across national boundaries, Power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity and individualism/collectivism. For England the analysis demonstrates the strong feelings towards individualism and masculinity.Power distance and uncertainty avoidance are ranked lower for England than the first two. Once looking at England, by investigating another country enabled for a comparison of these four factors. Italy showed some of the same factors as the UK but Italy ranked higher in power distance and uncertainty avoidance. Although Italy is seen as individual, the UK is ranked higher, with Italy being only slightly higher on masculinity. While looking at Italy different ways in which their country has their own symbolic references compared to those that the UK has. Stereotypes are used when individuals think about other countries, myself finding it harder to create a stereotype of the UK but a lot easier describing one of Italy.

The advert I chose for culture looked at the relationship between certain animals. Stereotypically cats and dogs fight, with cats trying to eat the fish. This advert shows a change in roles with the use of language. The advert works well as it brakes the normality of a fish, changing the perception of the fish to the audience.