Culture, a marketing tool

While watching a video on you tube, I came across an advertisement of Samsung Inverter Refrigerator. Being a student, refrigerator as a product didn’t grabbed my eyeballs. But still the advertisement worked its magic on me and I liked it, because of the cultural values it displayed.

A beautiful mother daughter relationship was shown where mother still takes care of her working daughter like a child and daughter reciprocates it. It stated that nothing should come between the happy moments and the way mother takes care of her daughter, the same way refrigerator will take care of her mother.

With increasing competition and growth of advertising sector, many companies have resorted to a common trend of using culture and our value system as a marketing tool. Consumption decisions made in the market cannot be viewed as an independent event- it is closely related with values and social relationship and cultural allegiance. Therefore, companies portray the culture of country, in which they are selling products as a medium to connect to people.

Indian culture is portrayed in many ways like religion, cuisine, social habits, heritage, dresses but the main element is our ‘Values’. This trend is growing day by day because of its effectiveness, as when audience see their culture being displayed, their interest develops. They easily connect with it and see themselves in the shoes of character which have significant impact on person’s attitude. Audience develop a soft corner for the brand, despite whether product being advertised is useful to them or not. Even if they don’t buy the product, they grow fondness for the brand. Therefore, highlighting the culture of a particular country creates good brand image in the eyes of consumers. Usage of culture can be seen as an opportunity as well as threat.

Using culture as a marketing tool has its own disadvantages as well. This tool has to be used with caution as people’s emotions are connected with culture. If any advertisement shows culture in inappropriate manner, it tends to offend them and hurt their sentiments.