Global marketing should consider cross-cultural similarities while conducting communication strategies. However, being undervalued, diversity of national, economic, political, cultural, and social peculiarities of populations from different countries can result in insufficient international marketing practices. Thus, the conclusions drawn in the paper under scrutiny appear to be persuasive arguments.
Since the time when IRC (Internet Relay Chat) technology was invented in 1988, communication via social media has become an ascendant pastime among representatives of all age categories. Creating multicultural communities worldwide and connecting people across physical space, social media are steadily ousting other means of communication due to the rapid growth of international online access today. They provide marketing practitioners with unique opportunities to promote their brands, launch products, attract potential consumers, conduct research on supply and demand, design new strategies, and implement diverse marketing programs (Sterne, J. 2010; Liu, F. & Smit, W. 2011). Networks have become “a typical expression of corporate diversity policies” (Cambié, S. & Ooi, Y. 2009, 65). Diverse forums, newsgroups, and blogs facilitate discussions on particular subjects of mutual interest. The main global division occurs according to the Internet projects, which subdivide the target audience into informal groups of interests, age, gender, businesses, and other characteristics.
International advertisers should implement their communication strategies in accordance with cultural specificity of the target audience; the phenomenon of cultural specificity encompasses a wide range of factors such as beliefs, religious creeds, morals, customs, knowledge, mentality, lifestyles, consumption patterns, attitudes to others, etc. Inappropriate design, layout, contents, texts, images, navigation modes, and even colours of the websites significantly reduce potential customers’ perception of advertised goods and services and, thus, make a negative impact on their choices. Thus, “making specific changes to a web site and measuring results, marketing practitioners can alter prospective customers’ behavior by altering promotional efforts and persuasion techniques” (Sterne, J. 2010, 2).
References
Cambié, S., Ooi, Y., 2009. International communications strategy: developments in cross-cultural communication, PR, and Social Media. Philadelphia, PA: Kogan Page Limited.
Crampton, T., 2011. Social Media in China: the Same but Different. [Online] Available at: http://www.thomascrampton.com/china/social-media-china-business-review
Liu, F., Smit, W., 2011. Surrender to the Social Media Dilemma! [Online] Available at: http://www.imd.org/research/challenges/TC043-11.cfm.
Sterne, J., 2010. Social media metrics: how to measure and optimize your marketing investment. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, …