THE DILEMMA BETWEEN SPECIFIC AND DIFFUSE


This dimension concerns the degree of involvement in relationships-the degree to which we engage others in specific areas of life and single levels of personality, or diffusely in multiple areas of our lives and at several levels at the same time.

Here we must determine what the customer's degree of involvement is. Do we see the customer as a punter, someone from whom we can make a fast buck, or is a customer the basis for an ongoing series of relationships over time?

In some cultures salespeople have to develop a relationship with potential customers before they can sell them anything. In France, for example, because the salesperson's relationship with the customer is personalized, that customer is more loyal to the salesperson than to the product. Consequently if the salesperson were to leave and to work for another company, customers would follow. In the US, in contrast, a salesperson's relationship with a customer is generally specific to their business dealings. Therefore anyone who has a convincing sales pitch will be an effective salesperson; because the US is a low context culture, the message is more important than the source of the communication. For this reason many American companies invest a lot of money in training. Sales training in the US generally emphasizes developing a strong sales pitch and dealing with the potential customer's considerations or objections.

This dimension can also be described as distinguishing between low and high context, which refers to the amount you must know about a culture or person before effective communication can take place. The context includes the amount of shared knowledge taken for granted by people when conversing , and the amount of reference to common ground. Figure 2.5 shows the relative orientation of a number of countries along this dimension.

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Figure 2.5: Relative degree of specific-diffuse orientation for a number of selected countries

Not What was Said but the Way it Was Said

In comparing American with Japanese responses to television commercials, research has found that Americans paid most attention to the specific message itself, to what was communicated about the product. Japanese viewers were far more interested in the way the presenter spoke and the sincerity of the communication. They were influenced more by the overall feeling they experienced when they saw the commercial, valuing the diffuse aspects of the message.

The Role of the Sales Representative

Since relationships are specific in the Netherlands, the role of the sales representative is to establish good business relations with wholesalers and retailers. Provisional contracts, price policies, promotional materials, and advertising policies are all designed with a focus on building specific business relationships. Therefore if you expect a more diffuse type of business relationship in the Netherlands you may be disappointed. Nevertheless, if the Dutch can be convinced that financial gain is contingent upon establishing a more diffuse relationship, they will make an effort to do so.

Soft Selling

High-context cultures like Japan, with a great amount of shared information, tend to practice the "soft sell." However, Americans and Europeans in Japan frequently complain that they do not know what commercials are actually selling; the appeal is so indirect that only a fully informed member of the culture understands the connotation.

High-context communication can only really be illustrated by an example familiar to Americans... One day a king was returning to his palace with his hunting party when he saw a huge pair of yellow hands extended on either side of the narrow pass. If he rode between them, would they suddenly close? So he tapped a page boy on the shoulder. "Go between those hands," he said. The boy passed safely, as did the whole hunting party, and the moral of the story is: "Let your pages do the walking through the Yellow Fingers." To understand such a message you must already be aware of the original slogan : "Let your fingers do the walking through the Yellow Pages."

Japanese communications are between insiders. Department stores have rear projection films of waves, clouds, and seashores; products are not mentioned. The mood of beauty is enough.

Implicit is Better Than Explicit

Up front, "in-your-face" advertising does not work well in Ireland. The message or joke should not be immediately obvious. Irish consumers like to be entertained and kept guessing; they like to work out the message for themselves . A direct, forceful approach will not work as well as an indirect, understated, clever approach. Commercials work well when they appeal to the intelligence of the consumer to decipher the meaning but are not too obscure for people to figure out.

The Smirnoff vodka commercials are especially popular, as they cleverly combine humor, a sense of danger, surprise, excitement, and fantasy. There is always an innocuous scene, but the camera rolling in front of a clear Smirnoff bottle reveals an element of wildness or danger seen through it. For example, in one poster there is a flock of innocent-looking sheep, and in their midst, seen through the Smirnoff bottle, one of them is revealed as a wolf. Another Smirnoff poster shows a group of American warplanes flying in the sky with their noses painted to look like sharks. One plane, seen through the bottle, is seen to be really shark-like, as it has bitten the tail off the plane in front of it. A TV commercial shows a group of well-dressed people on a ship who, when seen through the Smirnoff bottle, turn out to be quite different: The smooth gentleman becomes a rough, sleazy-looking character, the prim lady becomes a vamp, and people who are running after each other become samurai warriors wielding meat cleavers. The commercials impress because they are technically clever, incorporate black humor, and include an element of surprise.

Escalating Reciprocity

Competitors in Japan and Southeast Asia are so formidable because they tend to develop relationships rather than simply develop themselves. While American suppliers will rarely behave so as to lose money on a specific contract, Japanese suppliers will sacrifice several contracts to build up a diffuse relationship with a customer they believe to be important.

Given norms of reciprocity and obligation in Japan a supplier who overfulfills his contract-or in other words, does more than what is specified in it-can expect to see next month's order doubled or quadrupled, in an attempt to repay his kindness. You are not expected to meet specifications, you are expected to surpass them; the more you do for your customer the more he will do for you, in a system of escalating reciprocity on both sides. Westerners then wonder why it is so hard to break into the Japanese market... It is hard to break into any relationship where A and B have "sacrificed" themselves to each other many times over.

Fantasy Advertising

Research has shown that the French have a tendency to have their products surrounded by dreams and humor (both high context and diffuse) while the Germans and Americans have a strong tendency to show the specifics of the products by informative advertising. For example, in order to show the power of one its top cars (R9), Renault showed it driven through the country at great speed but without a driver. This highly imaginative advertisement had great appeal in France, but failed in some countries where viewers wondered how the car could be driven without a driver and associated it with danger and craziness.

Developing Strategies and Implementing Them

Americans are often stunned by elaborately argued and planned French strategies. The inspiration is positively Napoleonic, the details rich, and the coordination elegant. When risk is involved, planning and calculating tend to escalate until the conceptions are perfect. Yet the problem for any culture that starts with diffuse conceptualization is that the specific actions may be too late and not as well performed. We tend to be victims of our "logical" priorities, and French managers are no exception. Fast to deduce, they are slower to think inductively from specific results back to their formidable plans.

High-Context Advertising in France

French marketing is often highly context-dependent and holistic. Turn the television on, and you may not know what is being advertised even if you understand the words. As in most high-context cultures, advertising in France often involves a context that is meant to trigger associations among French viewers. Many French advertising campaigns are elaborate and attempt to create whole environments. For example, a complete Proven §al village square was created in Harrods to sell French products; L'Or al had portraits commissioned of "Les Dames de Beaut ," beautiful ladies, mostly queens and royal mistresses, who inhabited chateaux on the Loire. The supposed complexion of each beauty was matched to an appropriate line of cosmetics.

Appealing to the General Public

The history of western marketing theory has witnessed a development in which consumers have been dissected in ever smaller segments. A category like "young people" is meaningless in modern western marketing and even " female adolescents between 13 and 15" seems too broad to handle. Marketing is well on its way to personal marketing, in which each individual is a separate market segment. In China, however, where diffuseness and communitarianism converge, a good quality product is one that can be enjoyed by a large number-preferably all consumers. This is especially evident in advertisements for food and beverages. A very common set phrase in food advertisements is that the product is enjoyed by "men and women, old and young alike." TV commercials will substantiate that message by showing a typical extended family, consisting of three generations, all indulging in the food or drink that is being promoted.

Business and Pleasure

"Business before pleasure" is a proverb that collides with Chinese diffuse values. Business can never be successful without a certain amount of pleasure. Business seminars are a good example of this. Seminars are a convenient way to introduce products in China, where traveling can be cumbersome and time consuming. However, Chinese expect a seminar to be a combination of business and a holiday. Seminars are usually held at resort-type places, and the organizers pay special attention to the quality of the meals. The social interaction during breakfast , lunch , and dinner is at least as important as that during the formal seminar sessions and the last day is usually kept open for social activities like sightseeing. For that reason, if a product is to be introduced in a seminar that would normally take two days, this should be extended to three days in China.

Another diffuse aspect of Chinese seminars is that after dinner, business and casual chatting are often intermingled. A good tip for companies that think of organizing seminars in China is to reserve a conference room for the evening as well.

Advertising to Diffuse Customers

This preference for intuition over reasoning can also be observed in the Japanese style of marketing. Their approach to the customer is diffuse. The Japanese take a holistic view of the customer as a person; they don't just see the consumer in the role of customer. Westerners are often amazed by how diffuse Japanese advertising messages are compared to the simple and clear information in western, specific advertising messages, as we've noted. Moreover many Japanese companies have company philosophies that are phrased in lyrical terms and reflect their diffuse orientation. Some examples are "Kyosei-working for the common good" (Canon); "For harmony and strength" (a bank); "The cycle of goodness" (YKK); "Spread joy through music" (Yamaha music). When they invest abroad, these companies find it difficult to explain their philosophies to non-Japanese, specific-oriented staff.

Singapore Networks

Diffuse societies are often network societies , but Singapore is the ultimate network society. The networking culture gave Singapore a competitive advantage in Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). As an island nation with no natural resources, Singapore is dependent on trade. Singapore realized in the 1980s that new EDI technologies should be used to modernize the network. The implementation of the TradeNet concept was started in 1989. This is an electronic trade documentation system that has helped to cut the processing time on cargo shipments from one day to less than thirty minutes. It coordinates the flow of documentation. The Seaport Authority, the Airport Authority, the Trade Development Board, shipping agents, air cargo agents , customs , freight forwarders, and traders are all in one network. All parties involved can check documents, book facilities, and gain access to arrival and departure information.

Singapore adopts new technology at an incredibly fast rate because of its strong networking orientation. Other examples of such networks in Singapore are MediNet, LawNet ( lawyers can access information and file documents with the court and different registries), and Asia Manufacturing Online (a display of the products of over 15,000 local and regional manufacturing companies).

The Ultimate Service Concept

The most important thing in Singapore is to show that you care about the customer and want to develop a personal relationship. Advertisements in newspapers very often display photos of salespeople or real estate agents and state that they are "at your service with care." Restaurants advertise that they offer simple cuisine but luxurious and courteous service.

Singapore Airlines is the quintessential example of Singaporean ideas about diffuse customer relations. Singapore Airlines began as Malayan Airways Limited in 1937 when Singapore was still part of the Malayan Federation. It became Singapore Airlines in 1972 after the Singapore and Malaysian governments could not agree on the combined airline service. Singapore Airlines seems to have combined the personal service inherited from its Malaysian heritage and good financial planning from its Chinese Singaporean background. It was one of the first two airlines to offer free drinks, choice of meals, personal videos , and in-flight telephone service. It is seen as the benchmark in customer service with regard to cabin comfort and food.

Korean Extras

The diffuse cultural orientation of Koreans makes their expectation of service different from that of most western countries. Koreans believe that a supplier should not profit from service. Even after the sale is completed, the needs of the customer should still be met. Trying to profit from service may damage a company's relationship with its customers. In Korea, the customer always expects to get something extra, in the form of discounts , free gifts, or free help in the event of problems. A supplier who charges for every service rendered is not appreciated. If fees for specific services are not explicitly mentioned in the contract, a Korean customer could well expect to get them for free.

Introducing New Technology

One challenge many organizations face is how the introduction of a new technology will affect their relationships with their customers. The use of the Internet as a marketing tool will be discussed in much more detail in a later chapter. Let's now look at the introduction of the Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) and how it changes the relationship with the customer. One extreme view has been that the ATM would replace the main human- interfaced service of local bank branches. On the contrary is the viewpoint that bank managers held, believing that human trust was the essence of banking, and that this could never be replaced by machines. The human interface was necessary at all costs, in particular for elderly citizens .

Research shows that for many clients in diffuse societies, money serves as a sort of proof of social identity, and the bank is thus a place with which they retain very strong and intimate ties. For many, to some degree, the amount of money they possess lets them know how well they are doing in life in general. So, if the mission of a bank is to contribute to the development of diffuse identities, could the ATM perform that function? Or is banking becoming a specific commodity, along with everything else done by machines?

The dilemma can best be phrased like this: on the one hand, a bank needs to be a loving, caring, non-judgmental entity, a place where you can always have your basic needs fulfilled. On the other hand, it needs to be judgmental and ensure you pay back the loan you took out some years ago. Obviously the bank needs to reconcile these stereotypical "motherly" and "fatherly" aspects and have them feed into each other; both are necessary. Banks should offer "motherly" ATM services to all clients worldwide, not only to their own customers, but the "fatherly" bank could be more selective, respecting the ritual of signing documents in a personalized way, maybe even with imposing wood and leather in the offices to reinforce the effect. Specific technology does not replace diffuse human interaction. At its best, new technology results in more meaningful personal service. The reconciliation integrates high tech with high touch in tough love, and is illustrated in Figure 2.6. The success of ATMs internationally is the proof that it was well reconciled.

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Figure 2.6: The specific-diffuse dilemma

As we have noted before, marketing through reconciliation is therefore, once again, much more than compromise. We cannot stress this enough. It is the craft of trying to define specific areas in order to provide a more personal service to customers and thereby deepen the relationship.




Marketing Across Cultures
Marketing Across Cultures (Culture for Business Series)
ISBN: 1841124710
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 82

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