A Review of International Marketing Article
Article Review
The article, “Culture, cognitive style and consumer response to informational vs. transformational advertising among East Asians: Evidence from the PRC” deals with the cultural differences causing different consumer behavior resulting from an inherent difference in their cognitive levels. The authors refer to the belief and earlier research work that state that the cognitive style of people depends upon the culture of the place they are from and therefore affects their buying decision. As a result, it would make sense for the international companies to keep track of these cognitive styles and advertise to people of different cultures differently. In essence, the authors bring forth the idea that East Asians (specifically Chinese customers in this case) are more susceptible to be influenced by transformational and holistic advertisements that appeal to the senses (the Feelings part of the brand pyramid) while people from the west are more influenced by advertisements that are of an informational nature. As such, the advertisements should appeal to the sense of fair judgment of people from West.
If this view is true, it will provide the advertisers immense opportunities to be more precise in designing their advertising strategies. There is evidence in case of Japan, where content analysis of the advertisements had revealed that a “soft sell” approach created a good mood while a “hard sell” approach created distrust in the customers.
However, the literature review did not conclusively prove that the East Asians only possess holistic cognitive style and not informational. The existence of bi-cognition in all cultures seems practical and probable. At the same time, integrated-marketing techniques have been used by marketers to target both the segments of cognitive processing.
A congruence activation model has been developed in the article to find conclusive evidences for the above mentioned ideas. The congruence activation model refers to the idea
The article, “Culture, cognitive style and consumer response to informational vs. transformational advertising among East Asians: Evidence from the PRC” deals with the cultural differences causing different consumer behavior resulting from an inherent difference in their cognitive levels. The authors refer to the belief and earlier research work that state that the cognitive style of people depends upon the culture of the place they are from and therefore affects their buying decision. As a result, it would make sense for the international companies to keep track of these cognitive styles and advertise to people of different cultures differently. In essence, the authors bring forth the idea that East Asians (specifically Chinese customers in this case) are more susceptible to be influenced by transformational and holistic advertisements that appeal to the senses (the Feelings part of the brand pyramid) while people from the west are more influenced by advertisements that are of an informational nature. As such, the advertisements should appeal to the sense of fair judgment of people from West.
If this view is true, it will provide the advertisers immense opportunities to be more precise in designing their advertising strategies. There is evidence in case of Japan, where content analysis of the advertisements had revealed that a “soft sell” approach created a good mood while a “hard sell” approach created distrust in the customers.
However, the literature review did not conclusively prove that the East Asians only possess holistic cognitive style and not informational. The existence of bi-cognition in all cultures seems practical and probable. At the same time, integrated-marketing techniques have been used by marketers to target both the segments of cognitive processing.
A congruence activation model has been developed in the article to find conclusive evidences for the above mentioned ideas. The congruence activation model refers to the idea
References: 1. Geng Cuia,c*, Hongyan Liub, Xiaoyan Yangc and Haizhong Wangd, 2013, Culture, cognitive style and consumer response to informational vs. transformational advertising among East Asians: Evidence from the PRC 2. Brand Pyramid, Kevin Lane Keller, 2003, Strategic Brand Management (Irwin McGraw-Hill) 3. Sample size calculator, retrieved April 2013 from http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm 4. China population, retrieved April 2013 from http://countrymeters.info/en/China