INTRODUCTION

Culture is the sum total of learned beliefs, values, and customs that serve to direct the consumer
behaviour of members of a particular society. Beliefs consist of the very large number of
mental or verbal statements that reflect a person’s particular knowledge and assessment of
something.

The term consumer behaviour has been defined as the behaviour that consumer display in
searching for, purchasing, using, evaluating and disposing of products and services that they
expect will satisfy their needs. Consumer behaviour deals with the study of buying behaviour
of consumers. Consumer behaviour helps us understand why and why not an individual
purchases goods and services from the market. In other words consumer behaviour relates to
what they buy, why they buy it, when they buy it, where they buy it, how often they buy it,
how often they use it, how they evaluate it after the purchase and the impact of such evaluation
on future purchases and how they dispose of it. A nation‘s culture can be understood at the
macro level, but many countries are divided in sub cultures as well. Sub cultures are generally
formed on the basis of religion and geography. Culture influence consumers' thoughts and
behaviours. Traditions are central to the ways that culture influences consumer behaviour.
For example, in mainstream American culture, turkey is a traditional food for Thanksgiving.
This culturally specific behaviour allows companies that produce poultry, along with the
retailers who sell it, to prepare for increases in demand near the Thanksgiving holiday, but
only in the United States.
IMPACT OF CULTURE ON CONSUMER
BEHAVIOUR
Consumer behaviour is largely dependent on cultural factors consisting of mutually shared
norms, values standard of living, believing, evaluating and communicating.

Cultural factors vary by country but become increasingly complex when people immigrate to
foreign countries that have different cultural dimensions. In these situations, people are
subjected to a wide variety of cultural reference groups that ultimately affect their purchase
behaviour. In addition, reference groups may consist of familial groups or external peer groups
with each group providing specific and often conflicting information that affects purchase and
consumption behaviour.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR MARKETERS TO UNDERSTAND THE

CULTURAL IMPACT ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR?

Culture satisfies needs

Culture exists to satisfy the needs of the people within a society. It offers orders, direction and
guidance in all phases of human problem solving by providing true and tried methods of
satisfying physiological, personal and social needs.

Culture is learned
Unlike innate biological characteristics, culture is learned. The three distinct forms of cultural
learning are formal learning, informal learning and technical learning.

Language and symbols

To communicate effectively with their audiences’ marketers must use appropriate symbols to
convey desired product images or characteristics.

Culture is shared
Various social institutions within a society transmits the elements of culture and make the
sharing of culture a reality. Such institutions are family, educational institutions and most
importantly mass media.
Culture is dynamic
To fulfil the need gratifying role, culture continuously must evolve if it is to function in the
best interest of a society.

Acculturation
Acculturation is an important concept for marketers who plan to sell their products in foreigner
multinational marketers. In such cases marketers must study the specific culture of their
potential target market.

GENDER SUB CULTURE

Gender subculture means communities and culture of people who shared common
background, experience, or interest due to sexual or gender identities. All societies tend to
assign certain roles to women and men. The masculine role for example is that of
aggressiveness and competitiveness whereas the feminine role is that of neatness, gentleness
etc.

Yorkie is a chocolate bar launched by Nestle group. The bar was famous in UK for its
aggressive macho campaigns such as “It’s not for girls”, “Not available in pink”, “King size,
Not Queen size”, “ Don’t feed the birds” in 2002. Later these campaigns became a great
controversy in UK and the company were forced to remove such signs from the packaging in
2012. They replaced it with the slogan “Man fuel for Men stuff”.

Reference : www.businessinsider.com

AGE SUBCULTURE
Age is also another important aspect that the marketeers has to give importance. As age varies,
the way in which the consumers behave also change. An Age group consists of people of
similar ages who have undergone similar experiences. Marketers need to know how to
communicate with members of an age group in their own language. General marketing
strategies often have to be modified to fit specific age groups. Age is a big part of our identity.
We have more things in common with people of our own age.

These are the different generations of people that are categorised according to their year of
birth. All these different generations of people will react in a different way to a particular
product. i.e. the way these groups will behave is different. So, the marketing function has to
see to it that changes are made in both promotion and products in order to attract different age
groups. The era in which a consumer is born creates a cultural bond with the millions of others
born that same period. As we grow older, our needs and preferences change. Marketers must
recognize age changes and figure out how to effectively communicate with each age group.
Infants, kids, teenagers and adolescents, adults and the aged, may all be looked up as distinct
sub-groups. They have different values and beliefs, and all these impacts upon their priorities
in life. Daily lifestyles, activities and interests, fashion and accessories, food and diet, etc.
receive varying priorities across the various sub-groups. For example, an aged person would
prioritize health and go in for nutritious home food as opposed to a young man who would
prioritize work and go in for fast food.

Age is a factor that affects the consumer behaviour. Without assessing the consumer behaviour,
the company cannot make and sell their products successfully. Analysing what the market need
is an important function that the marketing department will have to do. So, what different age
group wants and how to attract them should also be studied by the companies. The way each
of this age group behave will be different and they should be approached differently.

GEOGRAPHICAL SUBCULTURE
Just like Religion and gender, there are geographical and regional segmentation too. And these
geographical differences can greatly affect consumer behaviour. The way people lead their
lifestyles vary according to where they live or are from. The culture varies as the geographical
area differs. The regional variations influence the use of particular media, the types of products
used, and the product attributes that are considered important. Differences in region influence
the type of products used as well the way they are produced and used. For example, in India,
the Hindus of North are homogenous in themselves but Heterogeneous when compared to those
living in the South. Their Language, the clothing, the modernization, their consumption is all
different.
For example, Bacon is not popular among Indians. Chicken is the most preferred one in India.
So, McDonalds came up with two types of product differentiation in two countries. Chicken
Maharaja is a burger they introduced in India whereas, Bacon Burger was introduced in the
U.S. There is no bacon burger in Indian McDonalds menu. It’s because Indians don’t have the
practise of consuming bacon products. This is an example of product differentiation according
to the geography and it’s contrasting cultures.

So, the Marketing Department will have to see the cultural changes prevailing in different
geographical areas before they introduce or promote a product. They have to keep this in check
because the way consumers belonging to different areas behave, will be different. Geographical
Subculture has great impact on the consumer behaviour.

RELEGIOUS INFLUENCE ON CONSUMER

BEHAVIOUR
In a constantly changing and increasingly globalised world, religions still play a significant
role in influencing social and consumer behaviour. It is very important for a business a marketer
must know a regions custom and religion practices before displaying ads on that product.
This is a Nike ad which has been risen for controversies in middle eastern countries. In most
of these countries Muslim women are not allowed to take part in sport because it is deemed to
be un-Islamic. The ad tries to show the empowerment of women, but it has directly affected a
religious belief.

In certain ads marketers have segmented their product according to the religion:
Form the above ads we can see various Matrimonial ads. At first there was only a single
matrimony site but by the segmenting of the marketers they have understood the need and have
brought different matrimonial sites for various religious belief.

RELATIONSHIP CULTURE
As we know, India is the country which value relationships but as the technology grew in our
country, we started spending less time with the family. The culture we used to follow is
spending time with the family and friends every time possible.

Advertisement of Starplus – “Rishta Wahi Soch Nayi”

Male dominated society is what the culture India had, even son of the family was given more
priority than the daughters. Our technology innovations lead to change in thoughts of Indian
relationship culture example- Starplus advertisement which displays Gurdeep Singh &
Daughters whereas Indian trends are XYZ Company & Sons.

Marketers uses these techniques to empower the value and culture as well as grab maximum
attention from the audience. So technological intervention has led to massive improvement on
what culture people followed to a new adaptation to the culture which is relationship culture.
These are widespread through social medias, as well as individuals who share it and post it just
because it created an impact on them.
The most startling truth is we don’t even think our way to logical solutions. We feel our way
to reason. Emotions are the substrate, the base layer of neural circuitry underpinning even
rational deliberation. Emotions don’t hinder decisions. They constitute the foundation on which
they’re made!”

Unruly, which ranks the most viral ads each year, found that the most-shared ads of 2015 relied
heavily on emotional content, specifically friendship, inspiration, warmth, and happiness.

In the past few years, as brands have recognized the popularity of emotional content, more and
more companies have focused on creating inspirational and moving ads.

MetLife Hong Kong produced this heartbreaking ad featuring a daughter who describes all the
things she loves about her dad, yet the story breaks down when she also describes all the ways
he lies to her.

CONCLUSION
Culture involves societies, thoughts, words, their tradition, language, materials attitudes and
feelings. One of the elements that make culture is beliefs. Beliefs of the people in a community
can show similarities.

Another element of culture tradition is related with non-verbal behaviour of individuals. As a

result of learning of cultural properties in the analysis of consumer behaviour has been an
important variable in marketing especially in market segmentation target market and product
positioning.