Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having, and

Being
Thirteenth Edition, Global Edition

Chapter 14

Culture

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Learning Objectives (1 of 2)
14.1 A culture is a society’s personality.
14.2 Myths are stories that express a culture’s values, and
in modern times marketing messages convey these values
to members of the culture.
14.3 We describe products as either sacred or profane and
it’s not unusual for some products to move back and forth
between the two categories.
14.4 New products, services, and ideas spread through a
population over time. Different types of people are more or
less likely to adopt them during this diffusion process.

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Learning Objectives (2 of 2)
14.5 Many people and organizations play a role in the
fashion system that creates and communicates symbolic
meanings to consumers.
14.6 Western (and particularly U.S.) culture has a huge
impact around the world, although people in other countries
don’t necessarily ascribe the same meanings to products as
we do.

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Learning Objective 14.1
A culture is a society’s personality.

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What is Culture?
• Culture is the accumulation of shared meanings, rituals,
norms, and traditions
• Culture is a society’s personality

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Understanding Culture
Products can reflect underlying cultural processes of a
particular period:
• The TV dinner for the United States
• Cosmetics made of natural materials without animal testing
• Pastel carrying cases for condoms

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Functional Areas in a Cultural System
• Ecology
• Social structure
• Ideology

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Figure 14.1 The Movement of Meaning

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Figure 14.2 Culture Production Process

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Culture Production System
A culture production system is the set of individuals and
organizations that create and market a cultural product.
It has three major subsystems:
• Creative
• Managerial
• Communications

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Where Does Culture Come From?
• Influence of inner-city teens
• Hip-hop/black urban culture
• Outsider heroes, anti-oppression messages, and alienation
of blacks
• “Flavor” on the streets

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For Reflection (1 of 7)
• How have cultural values influenced the items that you
feel have value?

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High and Low Culture
• An art product is an object we admire for its beauty and
our emotional response
• A craft product is admired because of the beauty with
which it forms a function
• Mass culture creates products for a mass market

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For Reflection (2 of 7)
• If your culture were a person, how would you describe its
personality traits?
• Now, select another culture you’re familiar with. How would
those personality traits differ from your own?

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Learning Objective 14.2
Myths are stories that express a culture’s values, and in
modern times marketing messages convey these values to
members of the culture.

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Myths
Myths are stories with symbolic elements that represent the
shared emotions/ideals of a culture.
Story characteristics:
• Conflict between opposing forces
• Outcome is moral guide for people
• Myth reduces anxiety by providing guidelines

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Functions of Myths
Metaphysical
• Help explain origins of existence
Cosmological
• Emphasize that all components of the universe are part of
a single picture
Sociological
• Maintain social order by authorizing a social code to be
followed by members of a culture
Psychological
• Provide models for personal conduct
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Myths Abound in Modern Popular
Culture
• Myths are often found in comic books, movies, holidays,
and commercials
• Monomyths: a myth that is common to many cultures
(e.g., Spiderman and Superman)
• Many movies/commercials present characters and plot
structures that follow mythic patterns

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For Reflection (3 of 7)
• Identify modern day myths that corporations create.
• How do they communicate these stories to consumers?

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Rituals
Rituals are sets of multiple, symbolic behaviors that occur in
a fixed sequence and that tend to be repeated periodically.
Many consumer activities are ritualistic.
• Trips to Starbucks
• Sunday brunch

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Common Rituals
• Grooming
• Gift-giving
• Holiday
• Rites of passage

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Gift-Giving Stages
• Gestation
• Presentation
• Reformulation

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Rites of Passage
• Separation
• Liminality
• Aggregation

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Learning Objective 14.3
We describe products as either sacred or profane, and it’s
not unusual for some products to move back and forth
between the two categories.

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Sacred and Profane Consumption
• Sacred consumption: involves objects and events that are
set apart from normal activities that are treated with
respect or awe
• Profane consumption: involves consumer objects and
events that are ordinary and not special

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Sacralization
• Sacralization occurs when ordinary objects, events, and
even people take on sacred meaning
• Objectification occurs when we attribute sacred qualities
to mundane items, through processes like contamination
• Collecting is the systematic acquisition of a particular
object or set of objects

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For Reflection (4 of 7)
• Explain some of your own family holiday traditions. How
do they affect your behavior as consumers?

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Domains of Sacred Consumption
• Sacred places: religious/mystical and country heritage,
such as Stonehenge, Mecca, Ground Zero in New York
City
• Sacred people: celebrities, royalty
• Sacred events: athletic events, religious ceremonies

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Sacred Souvenir Icons
• Local products (e.g., regional wine)
• Pictorial images (e.g., postcards, photos)
• ‘Piece of the rock’ (e.g., seashells)
• Literal representations (e.g., mini icons)
• Markers (e.g., logo-oriented t-shirts)

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Desacralization
Desacralization: when a sacred item/symbol is removed
from its special place or is duplicated in mass quantities
(becomes profane).
Religion has somewhat become desacralized; Christmas
and Ramadan celebrated more as secular, materialistic
occasions.

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For Reflection (5 of 7)
• Give examples of items that were once sacred but are now
materialized and marketed. What are the implications in the
shift in reverence to the items in question?

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Learning Objective 14.4
New products, services, and ideas spread through a
population over time. Different types of people are more or
less likely to adopt them during this diffusion process.

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The Diffusion of Innovations
Innovation: any product that consumers perceive to be new
• New manufacturing technique
• New product variation
• New way to deliver product
• New way to package product

Diffusion of innovation
• Successful innovations spread through the population at
various rates

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Figure 14.3 Types of Adopters

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Behavioral Demands of Innovations
• Continuous innovation
– Evolutionary rather than revolutionary
• Dynamically continuous innovation
– More pronounced change to existing product
• Discontinuous innovation
– Creates major changes in the way we live

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Prerequisites for Successful Adoption
Compatibility
• Innovation should be compatible with consumers’ lifestyles
Trialability
• People are more likely to adopt an innovation if they can experiment
with it prior to purchase
Complexity
• A product that is easy to understand will be chosen over competitors
Observability
• Innovations that are easily observable are more likely to spread

Relative Advantage
• Product should offer relative advantage over other alternatives

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For Reflection (6 of 7)
• Name an example of continuous innovation, dynamically
continuous innovation, and discontinuous innovation.

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Learning Objective 14.5
Many people and organizations play a role in the fashion
system that creates and communicates symbolic meanings
to consumers.

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The Fashion System
The fashion system includes all those people and
organizations involved in creating symbolic meanings and
transferring these meanings to cultural goods.
• Fashion is code
• Fashion is context-dependent
• Fashion is undercoded

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Behavioral Science Perspectives and
Models of Fashion
• Psychological
• Economic
• Sociological
• Medical
• Meme3

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Figure 14.4 Comparison of Acceptance
Cycles

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Learning Objective 14.6
Western (and particularly U.S.) culture has a huge impact
around the world, although people in other countries don’t
necessarily ascribe the same meanings to products as we
do.

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Global Consumer Culture
• What drives consumers in other cultures?
• Global consumer culture – unites consumers around the
world by their common devotion to brand-name consumer
goods, movie stars, celebrities, and leisure activities.

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For Reflection (7 of 7)
• What is and what should be the role of fashion in our
society? How important is it for people to be in style?
What are the pros and cons of keeping up with the latest
fashions?

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Adopt a Standardized Strategy
• Emic perspective
• National character
• Consumer style

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Hofstede Dimensions of National
Culture
• Power distance
• Individualism
• Masculinity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Long-term orientation
• Indulgence versus restraint

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Global Marketing
• Global citizens
• Global dreamers
• Antiglobals
• Global agnostics

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For Review (1 of 2)
• A culture is a society’s personality.
• Myths are stories that express a culture’s values, and in
modern times marketing messages convey these values to
members of the culture.
• We describe products as either sacred or profane and it’s
not unusual for some products to move back and forth
between the two categories.
• New products, services, and ideas spread through a
population over time. Different types of people are more or
less likely to adopt them during this diffusion process.

Copyright © 2020 Pearson Education Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

For Review (2 of 2)
• Many people and organizations play a role in the fashion
system that creates and communicates symbolic meanings
to consumers.
• Western (and particularly U.S.) culture has a huge impact
around the world, although people in other countries don’t
necessarily ascribe the same meanings to products as we
do.

Copyright © 2020 Pearson Education Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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