Cross-cultural marketing mistakes arise because brands often become so enamoured with their slogans and campaigns that they do not take the time or exercise due diligence to ensure the campaign has sufficient flexibility to cross cultural boundaries.
AVOIDING CROSS-CULTURAL BLUNDERS
Pepsi, Dolce & Gabbana (D&G), Puff Tissues, and Panasonic—along with many other brands—share something in common: cross-cultural marketing blunders.
Pepsi has made two blunders that caught the public’s attention. In 2017, Pepsi ran an ad starring Kendall Jenner, which portrayed people based on racial and cultural stereotypes and appeared to trivialise serious social issues. The ad seemed to imply that serious protests for social justice issues could easily be thwarted with a can of Pepsi, which was an insult to many Black Americans who are disproportionately impacted by the American police and justice system.
The second blunder was when Pepsi expanded into China. They launched with the slogan, “Pepsi brings you back to life”, which translated to “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave”. This blunder demonstrated a level of cultural insensitivity that was unhelpful when trying to build a brand in China.
In 2018, D&G’s attempt at humour also offended many Chinese consumers. The ad campaign showed a Chinese female model attempting to eat Italian food with chopsticks. The campaign was viewed as mocking Chinese culture and offensive to Chinese women.
When Puff Tissues attempted to break into the German market, they found out too late that Puff in German is a colloquial word for Whorehouse.
In 1996, Panasonic developed a touchscreen PC for the home market and decided to market it aggressively in America. At the time, the cartoon character Woody Woodpecker was huge in Japan, and engineers at Panasonic decided to market their touch-screen computer as “the Woody,” not realising that “wood” in American slang has a sexual connotation. They made things worse with the tagline “Touch the woody”.
While the public may laugh off some cultural blunders and use them as memes that themselves become part of the cultural landscape, for many brands, cultural blunders can have profound and devasting consequences.
Before considering how to avoid cultural blunders when marketing cross-culturally, we must consider the difference between culture in a societal context and brand culture. Cross-cultural marketing mistakes arise because brands often become so enamoured with their slogans and campaigns that they do not take the time or exercise due diligence to ensure the campaign has sufficient flexibility to cross cultural boundaries.
What is culture, and what is your brand culture?
Culture refers to a large and diverse set of mostly intangible aspects of a community’s social life. These intangible aspects include values, beliefs, language use, and communication norms when communicating with others. Culture consists of the collective practices that the broader society engages in.
It is important to remember several factors when thinking about the culture of a society.
1. It is intangible
We often talk about culture as if it were a physical thing everyone adhered to and understood. Yet culture is intangible, making it difficult to describe to someone from a different cultural background. People will often fall back into saying, “This is just the way we do things, " when describing aspects of culture.
2. It is fluid
The culture within a society is fluid and changes as people’s beliefs and values change. For example, within Australian society, there has been a shift from the white-dominated, religious society of the 1950s and 60s to an increasingly multicultural and secular society. The other aspect of this fluidity is that there can be sub-cultures within the broader culture that can profoundly impact people’s thoughts, beliefs, and values. Sub-cultures impact and influence the wider culture of a society.
3. It is evolving
Not only is culture fluid, but it is also evolving. This evolution occurs as each generation impacts culture. The best example of this evolution is the impact of social media due to how Millennials, Gen Y, and Gen Z use it. Social media has changed the way we communicate with each other. Communication is now faster and more text-based than voice. A survey found that 7 in 10 millennials prefer texting to talking in person. If one of the aspects of culture is how we communicate, then the change from voice to text-based communication has significant ramifications for how culture evolves and adapts.
What is brand culture?
Brand culture has been defined as the values responsible for governing every brand expression, customer interaction and the core guidelines the company follows to deliver unique experiences to customers.
Another definition is that brand culture is formulated and defined by the company and provides the core values used to solve customers' problems, make strategic decisions, and deliver a high-quality customer experience.
These definitions highlight crucial distinctions between a society's and brand cultures.
Differences between the culture of a society and brand culture
● Brand culture, because it is formulated and defined by the company, is much more tangible than the culture of a society. Most companies define the values that differentiate their brand from other brands and use them to determine how they respond to customers as part of their strategic plan considerations.
● Organisational culture tends to be fixed rather than fluid. This rigidity becomes apparent when an organisation needs to undergo a change process. Most change management processes fail within organisations because the underlying culture works to maintain the status quo and avoid any change.
● Linked to this is that in most organisations, the culture does not evolve; instead, it reacts to situations.
● The other significant difference is that an organisation's culture is a subculture within the broader cultural context of society. Staff members bring the values and beliefs from the wider cultural context into the workplace. From this mix, the workplace then defines its values and what its culture will be.
Brands often fail to understand and consider the differences between culture of society and brand culture in their cross-cultural marketing. When brands get it wrong, the result can be like the blunders mentioned above.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CULTURE OF A SOCIETY AND BRAND CULTURE
● Brand culture, because it is formulated and defined by the company, is much more tangible than the culture of a society. Most companies define the values that differentiate their brand from other brands and use them to determine how they respond to customers as part of their strategic plan considerations.
● Organisational culture tends to be fixed rather than fluid. This rigidity becomes apparent when an organisation needs to undergo a change process. Most change management processes fail within organisations because the underlying culture works to maintain the status quo and avoid any change.
● Linked to this is that in most organisations, the culture does not evolve; instead, it reacts to situations.
● The other significant difference is that an organisation's culture is a subculture within the broader cultural context of society. Staff members bring the values and beliefs from the wider cultural context into the workplace. From this mix, the workplace then defines its values and what its culture will be.
Brands often fail to understand and consider these differences in their marketing, particularly when marketing cross-culturally. When brands get it wrong, the result can be like the blunders mentioned above.
Marketing cross-culturally – getting it right
There are several issues to consider.
1. Brand Voice – consistency and avoiding getting lost in translation
Having a consistent brand voice is more than words. It is about the tone, style, and personality the brand wishes to convey. For example, whether the brand wishes to convey itself as formal, playful, or collegial. Having a consistent personality is important because often when marketing cross-culturally, the language a company uses to market within their society does not translate easily when marketing cross-culturally.
This is the difference between transcreation and translation. Translation is when words are converted from one language to another. When the translation is inaccurate, or the words have a different meaning in a different culture, the result is often a blunder that harms the brand.
Transcreation goes beyond literal translation to adapting the message, tone, and cultural context so that the message resonates with the target audience in a different cultural context.
This is why having a consistent brand voice or personality is essential: it allows a brand to transcreate its message to a different audience. In this situation, the brand's personality remains the same. However, the words are appropriate to the listeners in the different cultural contexts.
2. It’s language, language, language
Brands that market cross-culturally must become linguists. It is not just about understanding the words being used; it is also about understanding the meaning behind the words.
Language is constantly evolving as it is influenced by different cultures interacting with each other and also by different generations and sub-cultures. For example, the word “sick” has a different meaning when used by a baby boomer than by a Millennial or Gen Z. The term “sick” is used as a compliment to mean something is “awesome.”
Humour is often culturally specific and doesn’t translate well from one culture to another. Word plays or puns, for example, can easily become offensive when they don’t translate cross-culturally.
To avoid cultural mishaps, brands must become familiar with the idioms, connotations, and linguistic nuances of the culture they wish to target.
Closely associated with language is the use of colour, which often has specific meanings for different cultural groups. Failing to consider the impact of colour can lead to failed campaigns.
3. Digital Tribes and sub-groups
While societies may have a dominant culture, it is evolving as it is impacted and influenced by different generations and migration.
Social media has also influenced culture and has created digital tribes that are made up of people who have similar interests but who are from different cultural backgrounds. This means brands that market their products to digital tribes may be marketing across several cultures. This raises the potential for miscommunication and cross-cultural blunders to occur.
This raises the importance of brands understanding their target audiences within a cross-cultural context and then thinking through how to market in culturally appropriate and sensitive ways.
Where brands fail to consider the differences between their culture and the cultures of their customers, brand blunders like Pepsi, D&G, and Panasonic will continue.
To avoid brand blunders, it is essential to have a consistent brand personality and style and then adapt that personality to the cross-cultural marketing campaign.
