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Unit 12: Sub-culture and Cross-cultural Consumer Behaviour

Cross-cultural Differences in Non-verbal Communications Notes

Whenever we are exposed to a foreign culture, differences in verbal communications (languages)
become immediately noticeable. The meaning assigned to a particular group of letters or sounds
is not inherent in the letters or sounds. A word means what a group of people agree it to mean.
Translating marketing communications from one language to another may pose problems and
result in wrong or ineffective communications.

Example: Arabic language there is no letter to produce the sound of "P" and due to this
reason Pepsi is pronounced as "Bebsi." Ford introduced its car Pinto without name change in
Brazil. It was discovered that Pinto in Brazil is slang for "small male sex organ." The name was
changed to Corcel, which means horse.

Non-verbal communications are mostly influenced by seven factors:

Time

The meaning of time varies between different cultures in terms of perspective and orientation.
Most Western cultures have mono-chronic time perspective and view it as inescapable, linear
and fixed in nature. In most Asian cultures time perspective is different. For instance, Indians
tend to view time as less subject to scheduling. They view being involved in many activities
simultaneously as something natural. This orientation is called poly-chronic time perspective.
Time perspective would have a direct influence on personal selling styles and also on many
advertising themes. If convenience foods are positioned in terms of time saving in poly-chronic
cultures, the strategy will most likely fail because time saving is not part of the cultural thought
process. Contests with deadlines are more likely to be effective in mono-chronic cultures.

Space

The nearest that others can come to individuals during various formal situations in certain
cultures, without making them uncomfortable, is referred to as the personal space. The implication
of this is that people from cultures where personal space is short will tend to advance closer,
such as South Americans and Arabs. However, if the other person happens to be from a culture
where personal space is wider, then she/he would consider the other person as being pushy. The
person from shorter personal space culture would consider the other person to be cold, as she/
he would try to maintain distance. Example, North Americans consider South Americans to be
pushy and aggressive and South Americans view North Americans as cold, snobbish and aloof.

Symbols

The colours of dresses that people wear on different occasions carry a meaning. If a child is
wearing a pink dress, it is quite likely that we would think the child is female. Such assumptions
may be correct in most cultures but not in Holland. Colours, numbers, shapes and animals carry
a different meaning in various cultures. According to N M Murray and S B Murray, even music
has varying meanings across cultures.
In Japan four is a symbol of death, Malaysians associate green with jungle and illness, in some
South-east Asian countries light blue is associated with death and mourning and in China white
is a symbol of death.

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