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

Music In Cultural Differences

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