Global Marketing: Understanding Culture & Customs

I am delighted to welcome a new guest blogger, Alexa Ronngren who is a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach and an expert in Global Marketing. This is the first of a three part series looking at Global Understanding.

Over to Alexa.

I spent six months in Malaysia in 2007, as a Brazilian-American, I found the country to share some of the advantages of the United States.  There were malls and supermarkets where I could find whatever I wanted, big movie theatres showing the latest from Hollywood and restaurant chains that are commonly found in the US. 

The people also were friendly and had big open smiles, like you find in Brazil.  Also like Brazilians, Malaysians were very proud of their food and eating was an important event, not to be done at your desk. 

However, perfect strangers asked me questions that seamed so very personal. 

How many kids do I have?  What is my religion?  How much did I pay in rent for my apartment?  When I'd go out to eat lunch with my Chinese-Malaysian co-workers, they couldn't understand why I use a fork to eat rice-based dishes.  It was okay that I was too clumsy to navigate chopsticks, but they insisted that I use a spoon! 

What is culture?

We often hear the word culture tossed around. But what does it really mean?  Why does it even matter? 

Culture is a learned pattern of human behavior. 

It is the socialization we all receive within our respect civilizations.  Specifically, culture is made of collective knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, morals, and customs. 

According to Dr. Dennis O'Neil, professor of Behavioral Sciences Department, Palomar College, San Marcos, California, there are three layers to culture. 

Cultural Traditions

First are the traditions that distinguish a society, such as language, racial and national identities and general beliefs and morals. 

In the United States, our main language is English.  According to the US Census Bureau, Whites make up a majority of people and about 30% who claim other ethnic and racial backgrounds. 

In the world, countries range between individualistic and communitarian.  USA is an individualistic society.  People there believe in the US Constitution, which grants life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to each citizen.  This means they value the rights of individuals more than benefiting the greater good. 

How does this play out in the real world?  Take for example the American sense of individual fairness.  In the US, people will stand in line and wait their turn.  If another person cuts in line, the American is generally offended and feels like his or her rights have been cheated.

Now take a look at Malaysia, which is more communitarian (not to be confused with Socialism or Communism). 

The national languages are Malay and English.  The CIA Factbook states that Malaysians are made up of Malay 50.4%, Chinese 23.7%, indigenous 11%, Indian 7.1%, others 7.8%. 

They believe that religion is an integral part of the Malaysian identity that they even have two court systems, an Islamic court with based on Shariah laws for Muslims, and another one for everyone else. 

Last year, there was a controversial court case in Malaysia.  In Malaysia all people of Malay ethnicity are considered Muslim at birth.  Throughout a person's life there, all legal identification states their religion.  Lina Joy, a Malay lady who had converted to Catholicism, wanted to make her conversion legal so she could marry her Catholic fiancé. 

The Muslim courts refused to grant her request to leave Islam, even after she appealed her case.   Judge Ahmad Fairuz stated that "She cannot simply at her own whims enter or leave her religion.  She must follow rules." 

As in many countries in Asia, the greater good is valued above the needs and desires of the individual. 

The second part of this series of articles will go into greater detail regarding individualism versus collective societies.

Subculture

The second layer of culture is subculture. 

These are heritage, food traditions, and dialects that can be found within a culture. 

In the US, we sometimes talk of subculture as if it is divided along racial lines.  But there is a big difference within the racial divide. 

Take the Hispanics for example; there is a marked difference between the Cuban-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and the Argentinean-Americans.  Each group has its own food heritage, dances, music, art, and dialect of Spanish.

Cultural Universals

The third layer is cultural universals. 

These are behaviors common throughout humanity. 

For example, all peoples of the world communicate with each other in some way.  We all assign roles and classifications to people within our societies.  Behavioral norms are assigned within each society.  All of us have some form of jokes and games.  Each society contains art, music, and dance.  And we all use some form of leadership.  But each society creates its own rules for these cultural universals.

When communicating, we all used a combination of verbal and non-verbal cues.  Speech-communication classes teach that a full 90% of communication is non-verbal. 

So does that mean there is just a 10% different in the way people from different cultures communicate? 

Not at all!  Non-verbal communication differences are found in the intonations we use, our hand gestures, our facial expressions, symbolism within our speech, and even the way we say things. 

Wait a minute - the way we say things? 

Isn't that part of the verbal communications? 

Not exactly - each society uses a certain amount of context within their speaking patterns.  Some societies say exactly what they mean.  In other societies, meaning is heavily implied. 

In his 1976 book, Beyond Culture, anthropologist Edward T. Hall explained his method of determining the level to which cultures depend on factors other than direct speech to express the meaning in their communications. 

The United States is considered a low-context society.   Americans generally say what they mean and get to the point directly, unless they are politicians or lawyers.  Yet people are still expected to perform some niceties, such as greeting each other when they meet. 

Brazil, a higher-context society, expects people to go through a longer dance of small talk before getting to the point.  Then, when trying to make a point, it is common for the Brazilian to restate the point in a few different ways. 

In even higher-context cultures, a point may go completely unspoken.  For example, in Tunisia, a person may say "yes, no problem" to a situation that is definitely a problem to resolve.  But the way that "yes" is said, and the body language that accompanies it, lets a native understand that there is indeed a problem.  It would have been considered rude to come out and directly say "no."

In different societies, age and gender roles are set up differently, but we all classify based on marriage and kinship.  We also all tend to raise children in a family stetting of some kind and to divide labor by gender to varying extent. 

In Asian societies, the elders are revered.  It is considered disrespectful to stand up to someone older than you directly.  So, if there is disagreement, the younger party tries to work around it.  If there no other way to find agreement that is acceptable to both parties, the older party wins the debate. 

In some societies, youth is dominant; hence the huge market for beauty products that defy the aging process.  Part two of this series of articles with delve deeper into gender roles.

Classifications and roles are also assigned based on race and color. 

The candidacy of Barak Obama for president in the US, has brought the issue of race out into the open.  At first, Americans were reluctant to talk about his classification as an African-American because it is not socially correct to point it out.  However, this classification is a reality of the society. 

In Brazil, where racial mixing is more common, there is a separate category for mixed color people, "mulatos". 

This brings up the subject of integration.  There are differing levels of integration of various subcultures within societies. 

In Malaysia, for example, the three main racial groups hold on strongly to their heritage and are not strongly integrated into one society. 

In the US, people of immigrant decent are still not considered "full" Americans, for example, Mexican-Americans, Italian-Americans, even African-Americans (whose immigration dates back several generations). 

In Brazil, the divisions are much stronger among social-economic lines than racial lines.  So, a person born in Brazil to foreign parents is a Brazilian.  But the subcultures of well off and poor Brazilians are quite distinct.

Conclusion

Humans are people regardless of where we come from. 

We all laugh and cry, we all live and die. 

But we do have different ways of interpreting the world around us.  We are profoundly influenced by our cultural socialization. 

I was born in Brazil, but moved to the US as a young child.  Americans I talk to sometimes wonder, "When will she ever get to the point?"  Meanwhile, I struggle to remain patient with my Brazilian friends when it takes thirty minutes just to say goodbye. 

Why? 

Because even though I have lived all over the world, I carry my cultural heritage with me.  I continue on with the habits I've acquired in my early childhood.  I blend them with those I've received from my formative years in the US.

Stay tuned for the next article in this series where we will examine the Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions.  The final article of this triage will give advice on how to deal with and overcome cultural challenges.  You can find them all here on The Business Coaching Blog.

Alexa Ronngren is the Global Guerrilla Marketing Coach.  She has almost two decades of experience, a BS in Business Marketing, a certification in Pricing, and is a certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach.  She is currently writing Global Guerrilla Marketing: Crossing borders & leaping over the cultural divide.  In addition, she is a big fan of the Business Coaching Blog!  Check out her website: www.aldeia-marketing.com

Thanks Alexa. This is an excellent introduction to a topic that I haven't covered before.

You are certainly communicating the issues involved with dealing with people from different cultural backgrounds.

This reminds me of a fundamental marketing mistake which is commonly made. It is so easy to find yourself falling into the trap of thinking that your prospective customers think like you do and will act like you would in their situation.

But it's just not true. While there may be some common reasons to buy, the values and beliefs surrounding that decision can be completely different.

The other point that your article brought home to me was that it is easy to think of marketing on a simple domestic/international basis and find yourself thinking "I don't export, I don't need to know about how other cultures think and act."

But in today's multi-cultural society it is nonsense. The cultural issues are very relevant to you and me, both for business and for personal reasons.

Just spell checking the article brought home just how many differences there are between English and American English with the missing "u's" and the "z's" which I tend not to notice when I am reading because I have become socialised in the American spellings.

We take things for granted but it is a mistake. It is a hallmark of guerrilla marketers that were are intentional in what we do. We think about it and do what it takes to succeed.

Both Alexa and I would love to read your comments but watch out for the confirmation box. It is a bit sneaky in Typepad blogs but you do have to prove that you are human and not a computer spam generator.

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