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Chapter 15

Cultural Influences on Consumer Behavior

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, 9eMichael R. Solomon

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Chapter Objectives

When you finish this chapter, you should understand why:

• A culture is a society’s personality; it shapes our identities as individuals.

• Myths are stories that express a culture’s values, and in modern times marketing messages convey these values.

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Chapter Objectives (continued)

• Many of our consumption activities including holiday observances, grooming, and gift giving are rituals.

• We describe products as either sacred or profane, and it’s not unusual for some products to move back and forth between the two categories.

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What is Culture?

• Culture is the accumulation of shared meanings, rituals, norms, and traditions

• Culture is a society’s personality

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Discussion

• If your culture were a person, how would you describe its personality traits?

• Now, select another culture you’re familiar with. How would those personality traits differ from your own?

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Understanding Culture

• Products can reflect underlying cultural processes of a particular period:

• The TV dinner for the United States

• Cosmetics made of natural materials without animal testing

• Pastel carrying cases for condoms

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Functional Areas in a Cultural System

Ecology

Social structure

Ideology

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Cultural Dimensions

PowerDistance

UncertaintyAvoidance

MasculineversusFeminine

IndividualismversusCollectivism

Way members perceive differences in power when they form interpersonal relationships

Degree to which people feel threatened by ambiguous situations

Degree to which sex roles are clearly delineated

Extent to which culture values the welfare of the individual versus that of the group

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Norms in Culture

• Enacted norms are specifically chosen

• Crescive norms are discovered as we interact

• Customs: norms handed down from the past that control basic behavior

• Mores: custom with a strong moral overtone

• Conventions: norms regarding the conduct of everyday life

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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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Cultural Stories

• Every culture develops stories and ceremonies that help members make sense of the world

• Lucky rabbit’s foot

• Lucky numbers (e.g., 7)

• Magic remedies

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Myths

• Myths are stories with symbolic elements that represent the shared emotions/ideals of a culture

• Story characteristics

• Conflict between opposing forces

• Outcome is moral guide for people

• Myth reduces anxiety by providing guidelines

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Functions of Myths

Metaphysical

Cosmological

Sociological

Psychological

Help explain origins of existence

Emphasize that all components of the universe are part of a single picture

Maintain social order by authorizing a social code to be followed by members of a culture

Provide models for personal conduct

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Myths Abound in Modern Popular Culture

• Myths are often found in comic books, movies, holidays, and commercials

• Monomyths: a myth that is common to many cultures (e.g., 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

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Rituals

• Rituals are 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

• Sunday brunch

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Rituals and Brands

• Fortress brands are those that have become embedded in our ceremonies

• Consider these rituals:

• Getting ready for bed

• Checking e-mail

• Shaving

• Putting on makeup

• Do you use the same brands every time you perform the ritual?

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Table 15.1 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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Ritual Artifacts

• Weddings

• Birthdays

• Graduations

• Ball games

• Awards ceremonies

• Holidays

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Specific Ritual Types

• Grooming rituals

• Gift-giving rituals

• Holiday rituals

• Rites of passage

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Grooming Rituals

• Transition from private to public self

• Transition from work self to leisure self

• Natural state to social world

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Gift-Giving Rituals

• Consumers procure the perfect object, meticulously remove the price tag, carefully wrap it, then deliver it to recipient

• Gift giving is a form of:

• Economic exchange

• Symbolic exchange

• Social expression

• Every culture prescribes certain occasions and ceremonies for giving gifts

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Stages of the Gift-Giving Ritual

• Gestation: giver is motivated by an event to procure a gift

• Structural event: prescribed by culture (e.g., Christmas)

• Emergent event: more personal

• Presentation: process of gift exchange when recipient responds to gift and donor evaluates response

• Reformulation: giver and receiver adjust the bond between them

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Holiday Rituals

• Holidays are based on a myth with a character at center of story

• Christmas

• St. Patrick’s Day

• Marketers find ways to encourage gift giving

• Secretaries’ Day and Grandparents’ Day

• Retailers elevate minor holidays to major ones to provide merchandising opportunities

• Cinco de Mayo

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Rites of Passage

• Rites of passage: special times marked by a change in social status

Separation

Liminality

Aggregation

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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 consumption: involves objects and events that are set apart from normal activities that are treated with respect or awe

• Profane consumption: involves consumer objects and events that are ordinary and not special

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Sacralization

• Sacralization occurs when ordinary objects, events, and even people take on sacred meaning

• Objectification occurs when we attribute sacred qualities to mundane items, through processes like contamination

• Collecting is the systematic acquisition of a particular object or set of objects

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Domains of Sacred Consumption

• Sacred places: religious/mystical and country heritage, such as Stonehenge, Mecca, Ground Zero in New York City

• Sacred people: celebrities, royalty

• Sacred events: athletic events, religious ceremonies

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Sacred Souvenir Icons

• Local products (e.g., regional wine)

• Pictorial images (e.g., postcards, photos)

• ‘Piece of the rock’ (e.g., seashells)

• Literal representations (e.g., mini icons)

• Markers (e.g., logo-oriented t-shirts)

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Desacralization

• Desacralization: when a sacred item/symbol is removed from its special place or is duplicated in mass quantities (becomes profane)

• Souvenir reproductions (Statue of Liberty)

• Religion has somewhat become desacralized

• Fashion jewelry

• Christmas and Ramadan as secular, materialistic occasions

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Chapter Summary

• A culture is a society’s personality.

• Myths are stories that express a culture’s values.

• Many of our consumption activities include rituals associated with holidays, grooming, rites of passage, and other events.

• Products may be sacred or profane and some may shift between the two categories.