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According to new research, it may have to do with cultural biases. To be more specific, the instances in which culture matters and the times it does not.

When does culture influence consumer purchasing decisions? Four experiments reported in the current research show that culture-based differences are found when information is processed in a cursory and spontaneous manner. So when you passed that roadside billboard, you were likely to be influenced by advertising that appealed to values held in high regard in your particular culture, but when you had the time to deliberate more, such as an examination of information on the Web, advertisers’ attempts to rely on cultural factors are less likely to be as successful.

For example, in a pilot study, students at a California university with an ethnically diverse population (both Anglo- and Asian Americans) were asked to view advertisements for Welch’s grape juice. Some participants were instructed to give their immediate reactions to the advertisements, and others were told to think more carefully before evaluating the effectiveness of the advertisements. Half of the advertisements were “promotional” in their appeal—that is, they focused on the benefits that could be gained by drinking the juice (e.g., higher energy levels, great tasting and energizing, fun to drink)—and the other advertisements had preventive appeals, highlighting problems that could be avoided by drinking Welch’s (e.g., reduces the risk of some cancers and heart disease, helps keep arteries clear so that blood can flow freely, is healthy to drink).

The results were instructive. When participants gave their immediate reactions to the advertisements, Asian American participants heavily favored the prevention messages. Anglo-Americans had the opposite reaction, rating the promotion messages as more effective. This tallied with the researchers’ theories that Americans, who value achievement, accomplishment, and independent thinking, would focus on the positive consequences of their purchasing decisions. Conversely, it was expected that Chinese participants, who tend to value protection and security and have more interdependent ways of viewing the world, would concentrate on the negative consequences of their actions or decisions. All this bore out when participants gave only a cursory glance at the advertisements.

Yet, importantly, this disparity disappeared when participants engaged in more thoughtful deliberations. There were simply no significant differences in how the two groups rated the effectiveness of the advertising when asked to be more careful in their evaluations.

So what determines whether culture matters? A key factor is the extent to which people draw on cultural versus personal knowledge when making purchasing decisions.

General cultural knowledge includes implicit theories about the world in which people live that are largely shared by the members of society. In addition to this shared set of ideas, people also have personal knowledge that can conflict with accepted, culturally derived practices. For example, a boy growing up in China may accept the importance of his relationships with others in general and therefore seek to keep harmony with family members, but more personal knowledge, such as being exposed to pictures of American cultural icons like Green Day or Madonna, may lead him to sometimes wear clothes that his parents do not like. In other words, when pressured to form a quick judgment, in general people rely on cultural norms as a “default,” but when making a thoughtful deliberation, people are more likely to engage in an internal debate and waver. These results underscore the idea that culture simply does not exert the constant, unwavering effect on consumer judgments as previously believed.

The current research has important implications for brand and global marketing efforts by consumer-oriented companies. After all, notions about cultural differences are often the basis for international marketing communications and global brand management strategies. Indeed, the perceived importance of cultural issues has been increasing, fueled by new technologies that allow marketers to reach consumers across country boundaries. Marketers are spending increasing amounts of time and effort trying to understand subtle cultural differences. Take, for example, the efforts of Nike, IBM, and Google.

However, for a message to be effective, marketers must understand not only how to tailor a message to a particular culture but also when such cultural values–based messages are most effective. For example, the current research suggests that marketing communications that hinge on culture-specific values might work best when advertisements draw brief, focused attention (e.g., online banner advertisements, roadside billboards).

In addition, the finding that culture sometimes guides consumer judgments and behaviors and, at other times, does not broadens the understanding of conflicting findings in extant research. For example, although numerous studies have found that cultural differences matter significantly to consumers, in other studies such differences sometimes fail to appear. Such failures tend to offer uninteresting findings and often remain unpublished. The current research suggests that such null effects may be due to differences in the conditions under which participants provide their responses.

Researchers may also want to consider the distinction between personal and cultural knowledge. When will personal knowledge override sociocultural norms? Answers to such questions will further illuminate the psychology of consumers across cultural contexts and shed light on what types of global marketing efforts may be most effective.

Biography
Donnel A. Briley was born in Southern California, has lived in France and Hong Kong, and now resides in Sydney, Australia, where he is Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Sydney. He has held academic positions at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and at Stanford University. His research focuses primarily on the influence of culture and ethnicity on consumers’ judgments and decisions and is published in both marketing and psychology journals, including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Social Cognition. Donnel completed a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Marketing, both at Stanford University. He received his MBA from University of California, Berkeley, and completed a postgraduate program in Political Economics at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, France.

Jennifer L. Aaker is General Atlantic Professor of Marketing in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Professor Aaker received her BA in Psychology from University of California, Berkeley, and her PhD in Marketing from Stanford University. Professor Aaker’s area of expertise lies in consumer psychology, focusing on how people across distinct cultural contexts feel, think, and experience events in different (and sometimes similar) ways. She also focuses on understanding emotions and the psychology of consumer–brand relationships. Her research has been published in marketing and psychology journals, she has been honored with a number of awards, and she sits on the Editorial Review Boards of Journal of Consumer Research (Associate Editor), Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Psychology.

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