Optimising on Culture: An example from CSR research

If you want to optimise your marketing overseas, then you must understand the expectations of local customers relative to the cultural context. The reason I started in global marketing was owing to my infatuation with how cultural orientation impacted perception. This has intrigued me at both within meta-cultures and subcultures, be it national cultures or emerging trends.

To show on how to optimise on culture I will use Corporate Social Responsibility as an example. If you take two populations of people, one Chinese and the other British, and evaluate their attitudes towards supporting socially responsible business, you will find a direct correlation between their awareness that business can do good for society and their willingness to support socially responsible business (this is well documented in academic research in both cohorts).

This demonstrates that both populations have the same outcome when awareness of responsible business practice is increased. However, it doesn’t determine how those populations might differ based on cultural orientation. To understand how to optimise you must understand the expectations of the group, and that can be found in their cultural orientation.

British consumers favour businesses to be ethical in their practice, ethical in this context refers to supporting those in the value chain – e.g. ensuring that farmers are paid well for the coffee beans they grow.

Chinese consumers on the other hand respond better to philanthropic business practice, in this case meaning that business should give first and receive – e.g. donations to charity.

The difference in expectation can be found in the cultural orientation, Britain scoring high in individualism, and China scoring low in the same metric. The British consumer prefers business impact that hosts ethical concerns for the individual’s participation in the supply/value chain, whereas the Chinese consumer takes a more utilitarian stance looking outwards about impacting the wider society.

Optimising your marketing strategy as well as your business practice can lead to significant increase in the effectiveness of your communication. Business must understand the expectations of the consumer in the context of their cultural orientation to maximise returns.