Culture and Consumer Behaviour

Culture and Consumer Behaviour

1. Culture is Dynamic

   • Products reflect underlying cultural processes of a particular period.
   • Social Structures - Single Parent Families
   • Ideology - May share principles about what is ethical.

2. Functional Areas in a Cultural System

   • ECOLOGY - The way in which a system is adapted to its habitat. The area is shaped by the technology used to obtain and distribute resources. E.g. (Industrialised societies vs. less affluent countries.
   • SOCIAL STRUCTURE - The way in which orderly social life in maintained. This areas includes the domestic and political groups that are dominant within the cultures. E.g. The importance of the nuclear family vs the extended family, different gender roles and degrees of male and female dominance in areas of life.
   • IDEOLOGY - The mental characteristics of people and the way in which they relate to their environment and social groups. It resolves around the belief that members of a society posses a common worldview. They share certain ideas about principles of order and fairness. They also share an ethos, or set of moral and aesthetic principles.

3. Cultural Dimensions

   • POWER DISTANCE - Way members perceive differences in power when they form interpersonal relationships.
   • UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE - Degree to which people feel threatened by ambiguous situations.
   • MASCULINE VS FEMININE - Degree of 'masculine' or 'feminine' values in the society.
   • INDIVIDUALISM VS COLLECTIVISM - Extent to which culture values the welfare of the individual versus that of the group.

4. Norms in Culture

   • VALUES: Very general principles for judging between good and bad goals. They form the core principles of every culture. From these, flow norms, or rules, dictating what is right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable.
   • ENACTED NORMS: Are specifically decided upon. E.G stop at a red traffic light.
   • COERCIVE NORMS: Are embedded in a culture are only discovered through interaction with other members of that culture.
     • CUSTOMS: Norms handed down from the past that controls basic behaviour, such as division of labour in a household or practice of particular ceremonies. E.G offering visitors a small thing to eat or drink.
     • MORES: Customs with a strong moral overtone. Often involve a taboo, or forbidden behaviour such as incest or cannibalism. [We generally don't eat horse or dog meat in the UK].
     • CONVENTIONS: Norms regarding the conduct of everyday life. These rules deal with the subtleties of consumer behaviour, including the 'correct' way to furnish one's house, wear one's clothes, host a dinner party and so on. [Ascot introducing a stricter dress code]

5. MYTHS - Stories with symbolic elements that represent the shared emotions/ideals of a culture

   • Conflict between Opposing forces. Myths reduce anxiety by providing guidelines. E.g. Red Riding Hood - Chanel 5
   • Important to marketers who may pattern their strategy about a mythic structure. E.g. McDonald's golden arches.
   • Corporations have myths and legends in their history. E.g. Nike (A name drawn from Greek Mythology) Senior executives are 'corporate storytellers'
   • FUNCTIONS OF MYTHS
     • METAPHYSICAL - Help explain origins of existence.
     • PSYCHOLOGICAL - Provide models for personal conduct.
     • COSMOLOGICAL - Emphasize that all components of the universe are part of a single picture.
     • SOCIOLOGICAL - Maintain social order by authorizing a social code to be followed by members of a culture.
   • MYTHS IN MODERN POPULAR CULTURE
     • Often in comic books, movies and commercials.
     • MONOMYTHS: A myth that is common to many cultures (Spiderman, Superman).
     • Many movies/commercials presents characters and plot structures that follow mythic patterns.
     • CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS - Myths can be analysed by examining their underlying structure.
       • Many stories involve binary opposition, two opposing ends of some dimensions are represented (Good vs. Evil, Nature vs. Technology).
       • Characters and products often appear in advertisements to be defined by what they are not rather by what they are.
         • Hot food vs Cold food

6. RITUALS: Sets of multiple, symbolic behaviours that occur in a fixed sequence and that tend to be repeated periodically.

   • Many consumer activities are ritualistic. E.G. Trips to starbucks, sunday brunch.
   • RITUALS AND BRANDS - Fortress brands are those that have become embedded in our ceremonies.
     • E.G. Getting ready for bed, checking emails, shaving and putting on make-up.
   • Specific Ritual Types
     • GROOMING RITUALS - Transition from private to public sled. Transition from work self to leisure self. Natural state to social world.
     • GIFT-GIVING RITUALS - [3 stages]
       • GESTATION STAGE (Consumers feel the need to buy presents). - Motives, Nature of the gift, Value of the gift, and search time.
       • PRESENTATION STAGE - Ceremony, timing and surprise elements, Attention to the recipient and Recipients reaction.
       • REFORMULATION STAGE - Relationship bonding, Reciprocation.
     • SELF GIFTS - 'Treat' themselves. Provides socially acceptable way of rewarding themselves for good deeds, consoling themselves after negative events or motivating themselves to accomplish some goal.
     • HOLIDAY RITUALS
       • People on holiday step back from their everyday lives and perform realistic behaviours unique to those times.
       • Holidays are based on a myth with a character at centre of story (Christmas). They are filled with ritual artefacts and scripts

7. RITES OF PASSAGE

   • Special times marked by a change in social status. [Going from college to university]
   • SEPARATION [From former role] - The individual is detached from his or her original group or status.
   • LIMINALITY - Between the two different roles, prior and future]
   • AGGREGATION - Takes place when the person re-enters society after the rite of passage is complete.
   • Sacred and Profane Consumption
     • SACRED CONSUMPTION - Involves objects and events that are set apart from normal activities that are treated with respect or awe [Special - not religious]
     • PROFANE CONSUMPTION - Involves consumer objects and events that are ordinary not special. E.g. Local products (Regional wine), Pictorial Images (postcards).
     • SACRALISATION - occurs when ordinary objects, events, and even people take on sacred meaning to a culture or to specific groups within a culture.
       • E.G. Wimbledon or Princess Diana has become sacralised to some consumers.
       • It can be used to understand more mundane phenomena that such super-events of popular culture heroes.
       • OBJECTIFICATION - Occurs when we attribute sacred qualities to mundane items, through processes like CONTAMINATION, where objects associated with sacred events for people become sacred in their own right. [Fans wanting item belonging to famous people]
       • COLLECTING - Is the systematic acquisition of a particular object or set of objects and this widespread activity can be distinguished from hoarding, which is merely unsystematic collecting.
     • DOMAINS OF SACRED CONSUMPTION
       • SACRED PLACES - Religious/mystical and country heritage, (Stonehenge, Mecca). They have been set apart by society because they have a religious or mytical significance or because they commemorate some aspects of a country's heritage.
       • SACRED EVENTS - Athletic events, religious ceremonies. [Many consumers' activities have taken on a special status. Public events in particular resemble sacred, religious ceremonies, as exemplified by the playing of national anthems before a game. [Olympics]
       • SACRED PEOPLE - Celebrities, Royals. People themselves can be sacred, when they are idolizes and set apart from the masses.
     • 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].

8. The Movement of Meaning

   • DESTINATION OF MOVEMENT
     • Cultural Values and Symbols
       • Consumer Goods
         • Individual Consumer
         • Consumption Rituals
       • Advertising and Fashion Systems
   • Culture Production Process [Look at notes]
     • High Culture and Population Culture
       • We admire art for its beauty and our emotional response. It's aesthetic contemplation without any functional value.
       • Mass Culture, creates products for mass market. [These products aim to please the average taste of an undifferentiated audience and are predictable because they follow certain patterns.
     • Product placement and Branded Entertainment
       • Insertion of specific products and use of brand names in movie/TV scripts.
       • Directors incorporate branded props for realism.
       • Some researchers claim that product placement can aid consumer decision-making because the familiarity of these props creates a sense of cultural belonging while generating feelings of emotional security.
       • Positive: People become aware about of brand. Negative: May not understand why it's there.