Mooij - Consumer behavior and culture: consequences for global marketing and advertising

2nd Edition

Consumer Behavior
and CULTURE

2nd Edition

Consumer Behavior
and CULTURE

Consequences for Global Marketing and Advertising

Marieke de Mooij

Copyright 2011 by SAGE Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Consumer behavior and culture : consequences for global marketing and advertising/editor, Marieke de Mooij.2nd ed.

p. cm.

Rev. ed. of: Consumer behavior and culture / Marieke de Mooij. c2004. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4129-7990-0 (pbk.)

1. Consumer behaviorCross-cultural studies. 2. ConsumersPsychology. 3. Marketing. I. Mooij, Marieke K. de, 1943- II. Mooij, Marieke K. de, 1943- Consumer behavior and culture.

HF5415.32.M66 2011

658.8342dc22 2010019234

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

10 11 12 13 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Preface

I t has been seven years since the first edition of this book. Since then, increased research results have become available to support the understanding of cultures influence on consumer behavior. In these seven years also the Internet has become integrated in peoples lives worldwide, and differences in usage have become manifest. Increasing spending power of consumers worldwide runs parallel to increasing choice. Most consumers, wherever they live, are not rational in their choice behavior. With increased wealth, peoples values become manifest in the decision-making process and these values vary across cultures. Western marketing managers are driven by the need for consistency, which is an innate need of their own culture, but they shouldnt project this need to other cultures where it isnt relevant. It is the fundamental error of consistency that makes Western marketing managers develop consistent brand identities and universal advertising campaigns for the rest of the world, where they dont apply or are not understood and thus are less effective.

This book is written for those who have understood that markets are people and that people are not the same everywhere. The focus of this book is consumption and consumer behavior; it is about peoplewhat they buy, why they buy, and how they buy. The basic message is that there are no global consumers, and consumer behavior is not converging across countries. As a result, understanding the differences in behavior across countries is of utmost importance.

To provide evidence of how culture explains variance of consumption, I have collected and analyzed recent and past data on consumption. What I learned from these data is the importance of history. Consumer behavior appears very stable, and habits of the past often can best explain current and future behavior. Behavior that is considered new is often only a new format of old behavior.

In many models of consumer behavior, culture is viewed as an environmental factor, whereas it is in the heads of consumers. This book goes to the roots of cultures influence, the mind of the consumer. I have structured the various elements of consumer behavior in anto users of U.S. consumer behavior textbooksunusual way, using a model that integrates culture in all aspects of the human being, in the self, in personality, and in peoples relationships with others. I could do this thanks to the increasing evidence of how culture influences the self gained from cross-cultural psychology. Much of this work has not yet been used for explaining consumer behavior across cultures; little has reached the academic world and marketing professionals.

explains the concept of culture. This chapter compares several cultural models that are most used in theory and practice and explains my choice of the Hofstede model.

deals with my findings of convergence and divergence of consumption and consumer behavior. It also reviews national income and sociodemographic variables that tend to be used to analyze cross-country differences.

deals with the self in the social environment. In a large part of the world, the context in which the self operates defines the self, which is very different from what Western psychology teaches.

describes mental processes, such as perception, learning, language, and information processing. There is increased evidence that around the world people process information in different ways. How these processes vary is of great importance for marketing communications.

of the previous edition. Part of it is new and covers differences in media usage, both the classic media and the new electronic media.

includes most statistical evidence of how culture influences product ownership and usage. In addition, it covers consumer behavior domains such as complaining behavior, brand loyalty, shopping and buying behavior, including Internet shopping.

Some of the practical implications in the first edition were moved to different chapters where applicable.

Many explanations of my findings are based on my own analysis and practical experience, statistical analysis of a growing database, and increased research results as found in literature. I hope this book, like the first edition, will be a challenge for academics and researchers to do further research. Although availability of data from Latin America and Asia is improving, most data are still from the European Union. There is no other area that provides so many data that are also available in the public domain.

For this new edition, SAGE has provided a companion website and will provide instructor-specific materials, such as presentations, illustration material, and student activity at http://www.sagepub.com/demooij2einstr.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am greatly indebted to Geert Hofstede who again supported me. Also to the reviewers: Georgiana Craciun, Sujata Ramnarayan, Jose Rojas Mndez, Vassilis Dalakas, Ute Jamrozy, Silvia Hodges, Stephen Marshall, and Kenneth Yang. I also thank those who helped explain various cultural phenomena and those who provided literature and data: Carlo Praet at Otaru University in Japan; Vivek Gupta at IMRB International, Bangalore, India; Michael Minkov, Sofia University, Bulgaria; Angel Arrese and Charo Sdaba at the University of Navarra, Spain; Reinier Schaper of Synovate in Amsterdam and Clare Lui of Synovate in Hong-Kong; Jonathan Fletcher at Amsterdam Worldwide, Leo van Deutekom at Sara Lee/DE, and Gerard Foekema who provided photographs. I thank several users of the first edition who gave me feedback, students in the various countries where I have been teaching, who provided their own examples. I also acknowledge the support from SAGE, specifically Lisa Shaw, Deya Saoud Jacob, and Astrid Virding. The most important supporter was again my husband, Anne vant Haaff.