INTERNATIONAL MARKETING

Culture and Consumer Behavior

Culture and consumer behavior

Cultural factors influence all factors of consumer behavior and there is slight variation of these in different parts of the world. This makes it important for a business to develop and implement proper international marketing strategies. For instance, differences in language can change meaning of promotional campaign and the cultural differences may affect the way a product is positioned in the market. A sewing machine may be seen as a useful hobby and in another culture it may be a survival form for the family. Thus, the aim of this research paper is to look at all the factors including social which clearly affect international marketing. Most of the values are transferred to individuals by their families. Children learn about their society, their environment in the early years of their life and that varies from one culture to another. There are some cultures where families are connected and in others there is no great link in families. These cultural factors have a great effect on the personal and psychological processes in the consumer and buyer behavior processes. This plays a major role in understanding the consumer in international markets. The purpose of this research essay is to understand the various consumer beliefs, values and attitudes that influence the behaviors of individuals. The objective is to know what the main factors that influence international marketing and the strategies that should be formulated to affectively tap these consumers. We discuss this paper and understand through the eyes of various researchers and marketers in their field. There are many cultural issues that need to be considered in international markets to target audience in different cultures. Many argue that language stays to be a major concern since a marketing campaign is not done in a simple language. For instance, there are six different language variations in Chinese languages and India has twenty-two. There are certain other features like design, symbolism and aesthetics that also have an effect on international marketing. For example, in Japan the cars have a smiling face from the front. Thus, marketer will have to take different aspects into consideration when producing a product and finally in marketing it. Then in every culture, people dress differently and have different outlook. In Chinese culture a dress is a center of focus in their everyday clothing and it differs to a great extent from their everyday clothing. In a Western environment, the standard dress in a business culture in a collar shirt with tie and sometimes coat, depending on the weather. Therefore, we can successfully link language as an essential in impacting international marketing.

Further, there are other elements that have an effect on the consumer behavior. This is a learning which studies human behavior as a consumer and includes all steps in decision making. This requires observational process and discussion of why a particular purchase occurred. There are many techniques and concepts that a marketing scholar can use to study consumer ...