Cultural differences, a challenge to IMC in the context of globalization

1155089311 HUANG, Lei (Lynsey)

Today, in the context of globalization, increasingly fiercer global competition enhances the significance of more effective integrated marketing communication (IMC) strategy, which is applied to better influence the customers in terms of scale and quality. As a matter of fact, when the brands look into media effectiveness, they care a lot about influence in addition to reach, frequency, and efficiency.

However, globalization also means cultural differences and incompatible ones could even result in cultural conflict. In the field of communication study, the influence of social context is always taken into consideration in cross-cultural communication because cultural differences usually add more variations to the communication process. In this way, the effectiveness and quality of communication would be dramatically changed by cultural differences.

Recognizing the effects of cultural difference, scholars also seek to conduct research examining the relationship between communication and societal culture. For example, Leonard, Scotter and Packdil conducted a research on cultural variations and media effectiveness in 2009, and they defined media effectiveness in terms of ‘whether the receiver understands the message as the sender intended’(Leonard, Scotter, & Pakdil, 2009). This is also an important concept which could be applied to analyze some practical cases of IMC.

As it is known, much of the failure or success of the IMC strategy is in relation to cultural differences. Take the Euro Disneyland in Paris for instance, it is universally assumed to be a failure out of unsuccessful cultural adaption. The company treated the target audience in France as a whole without awareness of the multicultural context. But as is indicated, 49% of the visitors are French, 13% are British, 9% are Spanish (Le Parisien, 2011). As a result, the company failed to take care of the specific needs of customers from other European culture. Moreover, it is known that French culture is not that in tune with American culture. But the IMC campaign of Euro Disneyland was conducted in a typical American style which was considered to be a propaganda of American culture. This resulted in negative customer experience and considerable criticism in France. The performance of media effectiveness in this case is unsatisfactory when the customers do not interpret the message in the favorable way as it is intended by the brand.

Therefore, cultural differences could be a vital influencing factor when conducting IMC campaigns. Coco-cola is a successful example with its ‘Share a Coke’ campaign in Australia and ‘Nickname Bottle’ campaign in China. First in 2011, ‘Share a Coke’ campaign was released by Coco-cola aiming to enlarge their previously low market share in Australia. By adding names like Kate, Dave or Anna on the bottle and providing customization service, this IMC campaign enjoyed great success and effectively engaged customers into the campaign.

'Share a Coke' campaign of Coco-cola 

What if the campaign were implanted into Chinese cultural? It is obvious that Chinese names are much more complicated so it is not feasible to have the names on the bottle. Coco-cola came up with another creative idea to meet the expectation of China market, which was launched in the summer of 2013 as the ‘Nickname Bottle’ campaign. In this campaign, many of the prevailing buzzwords were put on the coke bottle, such as 高富帅, 天然呆, and 纯爷们, etc. This campaign was deemed attractive to China’s youth generation and stimulus to its sales performance in China market that year.

'Nickname bottles' of Coco-cola

As a challenge to IMC under globalization, cultural difference could be either obstacles or opportunities for the brands. In global competition, companies must look into the market from a macro perspective on one hand, while they also have to get in deeper touch with customers in guidance of micro insights. But the return is substantial in that international ventures who survive in cross-cultural competition could grasp more resources in global level. All in all, the wisest response to cultural difference may be ‘think global, act local’ (Kunocreative, 2014).

Reference

Leonard, K. M., Scotter, J. R. Van, & Pakdil, F. (2009). Culture and Communication : Cultural Variations and Media Effectiveness. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399709344054

Zimmer, P. (n.d.). Why Eurodisney Failed. Retrieved February 14, 2017 from http://patrickzimmer.com/why_eurodisney_failed.htm

123HelpMe.com (n.d.). The Cultural Barbarism of EuroDisney. Retrieve February 14, 2017 from http://www.123helpme.com/cultural-barbarism-of-eurodisney-view.asp?id=167709

Le Parisien. (2011). Record d’affluence chez Disneyland Paris, mais des comptes dans le rouge. Retrieve February 14, 2017 from http://www.leparisien.fr/flash-actualite-economie/record-d-affluence-chez-disneyland-paris-mais-des-comptes-dans-le-rouge-09-11-2011-1710565.php#xtref=http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_Disney

Zhu, W.J. (2013). Do You Want A Coke with ‘Meow Planet’ or ‘BFF’?. The World of Chinese. Retrieve February 14, 2017 from http://www.theworldofchinese.com/2013/06/do-you-want-a-coke-with-meow-planet-or-bff/

Chen, N. (2014). 【案例】可口可乐：打造本土化的广告营销创意需要微创新！. 黑马网. Retrieve February 14, 2017 from http://www.iheima.com/news/2014/0103/57616.shtml

Kunocreative, (2014). Marketing Localization: What can Big Brands Teach Us?. Retrieve February 14, 2017 from https://www.kunocreative.com/blog/bid/90655/marketing-localization-what-can-big-brands-teach-us