Culture and values - their relevance for marketing strategies

Abstract

Research on consumer behaviour has revealed that the prospect of reaching a personal value is the virtual buying motive. Bearing this in mind, the researcher, as well as the marketer, is not only able to observe whether one product is preferred to another, but also to understand why this product is preferred. Hence, identifying consumers' personal values contributes to explaining consumer preferences and buying motives, which is of great importance for marketing practice. Personal values that are developed during the process of socialisation are part of a culture and differ depending on one's cultural background. Therefore, culture- specific values result in specific consumer behaviour. The aim of our paper is to combine research about buying motives (generally speaking, consumers' personal values) and about culture- specific consumption patterns. Knowledge of these cohesions is of great importance for marketing strategies. If there are differences between the personal values of consumers who are from different cultural backgrounds, this has to be taken into account by differentiating the strategic direction of marketing strategies, which should incorporate culture- specific product cognition. The following aspects of this issue will be discussed in the paper: · consumers buy products because of the resulting consequences, which satisfy consumer values · values are part of the culture, and therefore cause culture- specific consumer behaviour · the underlying motives for culture- specific consumer behaviour have to be included in marketing strategies.