Culture is often viewed as a “soft” aspect of international marketing. Its importance—thus far—is at best, seen as secondary to other elements of international marketing strategy (Mooij 2000). Even today, many international marketing managers are unclear as to how to balance the cost efficiencies of standardization versus the increased costs of localization for their global products. However, there is general agreement that effective marketing entails identifying and satisfying consumer needs. Are not consumer needs a product of cultural and societal expectations that influence the consumer?

In fact, culture prescribes broad guidelines for acceptable ways of behaving and acting in particular situations (Feather 1990). It influences how we interact and socialize with other members of society (Rokeach 1973), along with the valences that we attach to different situations (Feather 1995). It is a powerful force shaping our motivations, lifestyles, and product choices (Tse, Belk, and Zhou 1989).

The advent of the internet has created a new medium that may be especially sensitive to the values of a particular culture. The need for cultural differences to be understood by multinational corporations and the impact of culture on global business through information technology have been increasingly recognized in information system literature. Studies have found that culturally-sensitive web content enhances usability, accessibility and web site interactivity (Fock 2000; Simon 2001).

Mooij (1998) claims that advertising reflects a society’s values, and that effective advertising and marketing are inseparably linked to the underlying culture of the targeted group. It has been shown that advertising that reflects local cultural values is more powerful and persuasive than culturally insensitive advertising (Mueller 1987; Zandpour et al. 1994). Several researchers, therefore, have emphasized the use and appeal of country-specific cultural values when developing international advertising campaigns and marketingcommunications materials (Albers-Miller and Gelb 1996; Han and Shavitt 1994). It is important that marketers pay close attention to the values of a particular culture, as cultural values determine the modes of conduct and end states of existence for individuals (Pollay 1983).

Given the issues discussed, can businesses afford to ignore culture in the context of designing web sites? The answer is a definite no, and this book offers the background to understanding and implementing cultural customization for web sites.

Web ROI

According to Bryan Eisenberg of www.clickz.com, the web has evolved over four phases:

• the technology phase (with the focus on gopher and bulletin boards),
• the design phase (with the focus on designing attractive sites),
• the marketing phase (a time of unfettered marketing spending with little concern for revenues and profits, leading to the internet bubble),
• and today, the business phase (with the focus on web ROI – return on web investment).

In the context of web ROI, the key issue is conversion rate, i.e., the measure of a web site’s ability to persuade visitors to take the action that marketers want them to take (e.g., to make a purchase). Conversion is the first step to building loyalty, trust and repeat purchase behavior.

If you are a global marketer, the visitors, who must be “persuaded” to take the action you want them to take, are typically drawn from various cultures. The challenge of persuading them is inextricably linked to their respective cultures because the latter impact how they perceive, process and interpret information (Kale 1991; Triandis 1982). Consumers decipher the meanings in the world around them through a systematic mental process that processes, sorts and interprets every bit of information. This mental process, or as Hofstede (1980) calls it, “software of the mind,” is called culture, which is comprised of group-related perceptions, attitudes, values and belief systems (Singer 1998). This cultural effect is so powerful that Hall (1976) says that people cannot act or interact in any meaningful way except through the medium of culture.

Various studies have shown the impact of culture on consumer behavior and how it shapes our motivations. Cross-cultural differences in color preferences, self-perception, field dependence, sex role portrayal and advertising content have been reported in several previous studies. Recent research by various consultancy firms and professional organizations (e.g., Forrester Research, Uniscape, LISA) and academics (Fock 2000; Lynch, Kent, and Srinivasan 2001; Simon 2001) indicate differences in beliefs, perceptions and buying behavior among internet users worldwide. There is good reason for these differences; Singh, Furrer, and Massimilaino (2004) show that the Web is inherently an interactive communication medium, and as such, a cultural document (see Table 2.1 below).

The issue of “flow state” listed as a web characteristic in Table 2.1 is an important one because online consumers must enjoy the experience or “flow” during a visit to a web site. This is achieved when a sufficiently motivated user perceives a balance between his or her skills and challenges of the interaction, together with focused attention (Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre 1989). This optimal experience or “flow” formalizes and extends a sense of playfulness; thus, people find the interactive experience cognitively enjoyable (Csikszentmihalyi 2000). However, when confronted with a different language (or a second language), foreign signs and symbols, and non-local web content that is culturally incongruent, there is more stress on an individual, leading to diminished control over the interaction and loss of focus (Luna, Peracchio, and de Juan 2002). For example, Simon (1999) reports that Westerners prefer navigation aids that make browsing easier, while Asians and Latin Americans seek aids to allow them to change the appearance of the web site and to use animated tools.

According to Luna, Peracchio and de Juan (2002), culturally congruent web content decreases the cognitive effort required to process information on the site and represents an environment where demands are clearer, leading to easier navigation and a favorable attitude toward the site. This is because categorizing, processing and interpreting culturally congruent communication is facilitated by cultural schemas that store information in simple, broad and culturally consistent categories (D’Andrade 1992). Schemas are simple elements or conceptual structures, which serve as prototypes for underlying real world experiences (Casson 1983; D'Andrade 1992; Quinn and Holland 1987; see Singh 2004 for an extended discussion on schemas and cultural models).

The cultural schemas we develop are a result of adaptation to the environment in which we live and the ways in which we have been taught to interpret events in our culture. As such, web users from different countries tend to prefer different web site characteristics depending on their distinct needs in terms of navigation, security, product information, customer service, shopping tools and other features (Fink and Laupase 2000; Luna, Peracchio, and de Juan 2002; Simon 1999, 2001). Thus, in a world where customers are one click away from a competitor’s web site, and the number of competitors keeps multiplying, companies must leverage every edge possible to maximize conversion rates, customer trust, loyalty – and ultimately – their long-term return on web investment. In this context, it would be disastrous to overlook what has been established as a key element in affecting consumer preferences, i.e., culture.

Global Brands and Diverse Customers

Some managers are of the opinion that the power of their global brands is such that they transcend cultural differences among global consumers. In other words, they believe that global brands need not customize their web sites for specific countries or cultures because the brand equity is so strong that a standardized site will suffice to support its global customers. Or, managers feel that they should not customize because any customization effort will detract from the standard, uniform identity of the brand and may actually affect it adversely.

Our research (see study below) indicates that this is not likely to be a sound business strategy, at least not in the case of web sites. The results of our study indicate that customers feel empowered and are more comfortable with even small levels of customization.

Examples of global brands that continue to offer a standardized web site for all of their culturally diverse customers worldwide include Gap, Inc., the American retail powerhouse and Marks and Spencer, the British retailing giant.

Marks and Spencer has one, standardized web site (as of July 2004, www.marksandspencer.com/; see Figures 2.1 and 2.2 below), although it has 541 stores in 30 countries and uses the slogan, “Marks and Spencer is trusted and loved the world over.” Moreover, this retailer boasts of a variety of awards including the following:

World’s Leading Retailer 2004 (Dow Jones Sustainability Index)
High Street Retailer of the Year 2003 (Prima Magazine)
Highest Ranked UK Company; Highest Ranked Retailer in the World (Financial Times)
The Queen’s Award for Enterprise Innovation

However, if a customer in Hong Kong wants to access Marks and Spencer, he or she is forced to log onto the British site and then click through a couple of screens to “find a local store” near him or her. However successful Marks and Spencer is at present, we believe that it is losing an opportunity to be even more successful by customizing its web site for its diverse customer segments worldwide.

Figure 2-1

Figure 2-2

The Study

We studied online customers (Singh, Furrer, and Massimilaino 2004) from Italy, India, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland in an attempt to address the following:

Do online customers view the brand’s “home” web site more favorably than a culturally customized site?

Since there were too few culturally customized web sites to make a valid sample, we did the next best thing: we sampled

(1) Standard Web Sites (the “home” sites of U.S. multinationals, e.g., www.Dell.com),

(2) Adapted Web Sites (web sites of U.S. multinationals that have been specifically designed for a given country, e.g., Dell’s Italian Web site www.dell.it)

and (3) Local Web Sites (a domestic web site in a given country, from the same the industry, e.g., a local Italian company: www.chl.it)

A requirement for including a company’s web site as a Standard Web Site was that the company have no separate sites targeting other countries. The criteria for an Adapted Web Site included country-specific global web templates reflected in country-specific URLs, such as .it (Italy), .in (India), .nl (the Netherlands), .es (Spain) and .ch (Switzerland). A certain degree of localization in the form of country-specific language, time, date, zip code, currency and number formats was also required. To qualify as a Local Web Site, the site had to belong to a domestic company in the same industry, targeting the local consumers of that country.

Each Italian, Spanish, Indian, Swiss and Dutch respondent visited the applicable sites (Standard, Adapted and Local) and was asked to complete a questionnaire about his/her attitude toward the site and his/her purchase intention, on a scale of 1 to 5 (see Table 2.2 below).

The results indicated that, in general (except in the case of the Netherlands), customers have a more favorable attitude towards Local Web Sites than towards Adapted or Standardized Web Sites. This suggests that brands such as the Gap and Marks and Spencer, which offer standardized, one-size-fits-all web sites to cater to the needs of the global market, may not be following a sound strategy. More specifically, even if the Gap and Marks and Spencer are seemingly successful with their present strategy, we contend that they could be even more successful with an “adapted” strategy (or, as the rest of the book will suggest, a culturally customized strategy). More importantly, a culturally customized web site will help build customer loyalty – the best defense against competitors – both present and those looming in the future.

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Nitish Singh, Ph.D. is Associate Professor at California State University (Chico) in the U.S. He is widely published in the areas of e-commerce, e-marketing and cross-cultural consumer behavior. He teaches and consults in e-marketing and related areas and can be reached at ncsingh@exchange.csuchico.edu.

Arun Pereira, Ph.D. is Associate Professor at Saint Louis University in the U.S. His research, teaching and consulting are in the areas of new product management, marketing decision-making and marketing research. Pereira can be reached at Pereira_arun@yahoo.com.