Cultural Influences on Consumer
Behavior
Chapter 16
16-2
Understanding Culture
• Culture = society’s personality– The accumulation of shared meanings, rituals,
norms, and traditions among members– Discussion: If your culture were a person, how
would you describe its personality traits?
• Culture is the lens through which we view products– “Culture shock”– One’s culture determines product priorities and
mandates a product’s success/failure
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Understanding Culture (Cont’d)
• Products can reflect underlying cultural processes of a particular period:– The TV dinner– Cosmetics made of natural
materials without animal testing– Pastel carrying cases for condoms
• Cultural system function areas:– Ecology– Social structure– Ideology
• Worldview and ethos
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Understanding Culture (Cont’d)
• Dimensions of cultural variability– Power distance– Uncertainty avoidance– Masculinity/femininity– Individualism vs. collectivism
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Understanding Culture (Cont’d)
• Norms– Enacted norms– Crescive norms
• Custom• More• Conventions
– All three crescive norms combine to define a culturally appropriate behavior
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Discussion
• When you go out on a first date, identify the set of crescive norms that are operating– Describe specific behaviors each person
performs that make it clear he or she is on a first date
– What products and services are affected by these norms?
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Myths and Rituals• Every culture develops
stories/practices that help its members to make sense of the world– Other cultures’ myths/rituals
can seem bizarre• “Magical” products and interest
in occult tend to be popular when members of a society feel overwhelmed and powerless
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Myths• A story containing symbolic
elements that represent the shared emotions/ideals of a culture– Conflict between opposing
forces– Outcome serves as moral
guide for people– Reduces anxiety
• Little Red Riding Hood– Cannibalism, incest, and
promiscuity
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Myths (Cont’d)
• Marketers often pattern messages along a mythic structure– McDonald’s golden arches, Ronald McDonald
vs. the Hamburglar, and Hamburger University
• Myths/legends of corporations– Nike: “corporate storytellers”
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Functions and Structure of Myths
• Four functions of myths– Metaphysical– Cosmological– Sociological– Psychological
• Underlying structure of myths– Binary opposition– Mediating figure
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Myths Aboundin Modern Popular Culture
• Myths are often found in comic books, movies, holidays, and commercials– Consumer fairy tales– Monomyths: Spiderman and Superman– Many movies/commercials present characters
and plot structures that follow mythic patterns• Gone With the Wind• E.T.: The Extraterrestrial• Star Trek• La Llorona
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Rituals
• Sets of multiple, symbolic behaviors that occur in a fixed sequence and that tend to be repeated periodically
• Many consumer activities are ritualistic– Trips to Starbucks– “Pulling” the perfect pint of Guinness
• College campus rituals
• Tailgating at college/pro football games
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Table 16.1 (Abridged):Types of Ritual Experience
Primary Behavior Source Ritual Type Examples
Cosmology Religious Baptism, meditation
Cultural Values Rites of passage Cultural
Graduation, holidays, Super Bowl
Group Learning Civic Parades, elections
Group Fraternity initiation, office luncheons
Family Mealtimes, bedtimes, Christmas
Individual aims and emotions
Personal Grooming, household rituals
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Rituals (Cont’d)
• Many businesses supply ritual artifacts to consumers– Wedding rice, birthday candles, diplomas, etc.– Online gift registries
• Consumers often employ a ritual script– Identifies artifacts as well as the sequence in
which they are used and who uses them• Graduation programs, etiquette books
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Grooming Rituals
• Virtually all consumers have private grooming rituals– Sequences of behaviors that aid transition from
private to public self (or back again)– Inspires confidence, cleanses body of dirt– Before-and-after phenomenon
• Private/public and work/leisure personal rituals– Beauty rituals reflect transformation from natural
state to social world or vice versa
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Gift-Giving Rituals• Consumers procure the perfect
object, meticulously remove price tag, carefully wrap it, then deliver it to recipient– Store-bought objects, homemade
items, or services
• Gift giving as form of:– Economic exchange– Symbolic exchange– Social expression
• Exchange-oriented in early relationship stages, then altruistic as relationship develops
• Third-party influence on gift giving
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Gift-Giving Rituals (Cont’d)
• Every culture prescribes certain occasions and ceremonies for giving gifts
• Business gifts = define/maintain professional relationships, improve employee morale, and result in higher sales
• Stages of gift-giving ritual– Gestation
• Structural vs. emergent motivational event
– Presentation– Reformulation
• Appropriateness of gift and reciprocity norm
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Gift-Giving Rituals (Cont’d)
• Japanese gift-giving rituals– Symbolic meaning of gift: duty to others in social
group– Giri: giving is moral imperative– Kosai: reciprocal gift-giving obligations to
relatives/friends
• Self-gifts– Socially acceptable way to reward ourselves– Discussion: Have you ever given yourself a gift?
• If so, why did you do it and how did you decide what to get?
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Holiday Rituals
• Most holidays are based on a myth with a character at center of story– Consumers perform ritualistic behaviors unique to
those occasions to appeal to their deep-seated needs– Ritual artifacts and scripts
• Marketers find ways to encourage gift giving• Businesses invent new occasions to capitalize
on need for cards/ritual artifacts– Secretaries’ Day and Grandparents’ Day
• Retailers elevate minor holidays to major ones to provide merchandising opportunities– Cinco de Mayo
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Christmas
• Myths/rituals: Santa’s adventures and mistletoe• Began as a publicly rowdy celebration• Santa = champion of materialism
– Appears in stores and shopping malls– Socializes children to expect a reward when they are
good (we get what we deserve)
• Discussion: “Christmas has become just another opportunity to exchange gifts and stimulate the economy.” Do you agree? Why or why not?
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Halloween
• Its rituals are unusual…– Primarily involves nonfamily members– Celebrates evil and death– Encourages threats of “tricks” for treats
• Antifestival: distorts symbols associated with other holidays– Witch = inverted mother figure; resurrection of ghosts;
evil jack-o-lantern– We act out uncharacteristic behaviors and try on new
roles
• Second most popular party night for adults
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Rites of Passage• Special times marked by a change in social
status– Every society sets aside times at which such changes
occur• Puberty, death, divorce, dating, bar/bat mitzvah
• Three phases:– Separation– Liminality– Aggregation
• Practices vary across cultures but are rich in symbolic value– Funeral rituals negotiate social identities of deceased
through expression of material/symbolic wealth
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Discussion
• Describe the three stages of the rite of passage associated with graduating from college
• “Fraternity hazing is just a natural rite of passage that should not be prohibited by universities.” Do you agree?
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Sacred and Profane Consumption
• Sacred (“set apart” objects/events) vs. profane consumption (ordinary)
• Domains of sacred consumption– Sacred places: religious/mystical and country
heritage• Contamination• Theme parks• Home as a particularly sacred place• Discussion: For many Disney is a sacred place.
Do you agree? Why or why not?
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Sacred and Profane Consumption (Cont’d)
• Domains of sacred consumption (cont’d)– Sacred people
• Celebrity autograph
– Sacred events• Public events• Sports• Tourism (“at home” vs. “away”)
– Souvenirs• Local products, pictorial images,
“piece of the rock,” literal representations of the site, markers
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Desacralization
• When a sacred item/symbol is removed from its special place or is duplicated in mass quantities (becomes profane)– Souvenir reproductions
• Religion has somewhat become desacralized– Fashion jewelry– Christmas and Ramadan as secular,
materialistic occasions
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Sacralization• When ordinary objects, events,
and people take on sacred meaning– Super Bowl, Elvis Presley, Dallas
Cowboys• Objectification through
contamination and collections– Ruby slippers from The Wizard of
Oz and phaser from Star Trek– Collecting vs. hoarding
• Collecting as a socially acceptable form of “worship,” as an aesthetic experience, and as extension of self
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