The Impact Of Color And Its Different Associations In Multicultural Marketing
This weeks Get International Clients Newsletter starts a series of articles on how to culturally customize your website.
The feature article this week focuses on the choice of color and their different meanings in different cultures.
As this subject interests most readers, I have completed the list of colors here to keep as a reference in the Multicultural Marketing 101 Guide, which you can find in the list of other useful Guides to your right.
The use of color plays a role in cross cultural communication.
Some Cultures Have Richer Vocabularies For Colors
First let’s look at the different numbers of words in different vocabularies.
Some languages have a wider choice of words to describe certain colors. These words may actually refer to very different shades or variations of a color.
Different cultures pay more attention to the variations of certain colors. Here are some examples: Read more
Adapt Your Own Communication For International Business Success Like The Professionals
April 22, 2008 by 
cindy
Fear of cultural communication blunders often waves its head at some stage in international business. Especially for businesses just starting out in their own international business expansion.
Lack of international business skills can make this fear take all sorts of proportions.
Learn From Others
Looking at the communication styles of seasoned international business professionals can be a big help.
How A Third Culture Kid’s Natural Cross Cultural Vision Can Power Your International Business Expansion
April 2, 2008 by cindy
Last updated 20 August 2008
Would you like a secret weapon to help power your international business expansion?
Are you wondering if there is one simple thing you could add to your current business mix that would help you a lot throughout the whole process?
What if you had a unique cross cultural vision tool in your pocket?
Third Culture Kids
Working with a Third Culture Kid could be the solution for your company.
Third Culture Kids (TCKs) aren’t children. It is a term used in international environments. It is used generally to describe people that grew up Read more
Target Your Global Market With A Good Understanding Of Their Demographics
February 2, 2008 by cindy
Small businesses have a great challenge if they are based in one country and selling to another country. Understanding the demographics of your foreign markets will make you more sales.
But it is often hard to really get into the demographics of your international markets. It can be hard to stretch yourself to fully understand cultural differences and the consequences in your sales and marketing strategies.
This is also complicated by single language markets made up of many, many different cultures. You not only have one set of specific demographic characteristics. You can literally have dozens.
The best place to start is to determine specific demographic information for each of your target markets, and to move on from there. The process actually gets easier the more cultures you adapt to. Your company will get faster at understanding how to adapt to each different culture.
An interesting example was how MTV adapted its music to each country. There are two main factors that came in to play.
- Music is culturally different in each culture.
- MTV targets a younger audience and youth do not have the same lives in different cultures.
MTV realized early on that they needed to adapt their music to the culture in each country. This is fairly easy to understand. Read more
Different Consumer Habits In Different Cultures
February 1, 2008 by cindy
Photo: Benjamin Earwicker
Sometimes the different consumer habits people have in different countries can really surprise us.
Our first reaction can be total incomprehension:
- Wow! Those people are weird!
- How can anyone be like that?
- You mean someone actually likes that?
Curiosity might follow.
- Now I wonder why those people do that.
- Does everyone over there think that way?
- Why do they like that?
The answers are often fascinating. With the answers to these sort of questions you can really begin to understand different cultures. You might even be able imagine someone living such a different life. Then you might even imagine yourself living the same sort of life. Read more
International Marketing Strategy For Small Businesses - The Right Mindset
January 31, 2008 by cindy
An international marketing strategy requires sustaining an international mindset. Setting up an international marketing strategy requires a more intense focus than for a local marketing strategy. There are so many more factors to take into account.
If you have markets in several countries it can be a challenge to remain open to all of their different cultural requirements. You must be open to understanding the different markets in each country, with the different parameters specific to each country. And yet you must stay focused on each marketing strategy. Read more
Music In Cultural Differences
January 26, 2008 by cindy
When you travel it is easy to notice a lot of differences in the places you travel through compared to what you are used to back at home. All of your senses are involved. Even music sounds different.
You may not notice it immediately. From the taxi, to the hotel, you may have heard a more international “pop” music. It might not be your favorite kind of music. But it might not sound “foreign”.
If you have the time to turn the television in your hotel room onto the local channels, that’s where it starts to sound different. And if you happen to turn the television on when the older local generation are watching for entertainment, any music will definitely give you a cultural shock. Read more
