Cultural distances, linguistic differences, and marketing: what challenges?

Globalization has taken place at a rapid speed over the last half-century. The continuous expansion of cross-border marketing has been backed by the progressive elimination of barriers to trade, and the emergence of a global consumer culture (Cedrola, 2005). The appearance of a global consumer culture is based on increasing aspirations for a world-standard package of goods and services. However, the meaning attributed to products and consumption experiences remains to a large extent embedded in local contexts, those of shared habits within cultural and linguistic groupings. With the increase of consumer-oriented marketing, the significance of cultural influences has been recognized in consumer behavior theory and marketing practice. This paper aims to assess the implications of growing levels of cultural diversity in consumer behavior and see how cross-cultural marketers might wish to respond to them. However, foreign demand is not the only aspect to be influenced by culture. The offer also goes through a reshaping process that needs to be conducted using a cultural approach. The first issue for marketers is to decide whether or not to present the same marketing mix strategy in different countries. This area of research is a huge one: the following section is dedicated to a discussion of the main elements of the relationship between culture and international marketing.