Module10.14 – Targeting Messages About Products and Services to
Different Cultures
Communication strategies, products, and service plans must reflect the differences of the cultures for which they are designed. These differences have to be discovered and recognized before they can be acknowledged. Before you can do any of this, however, you have to be able to communicate with the people in the foreign country or culture. This usually means communicating at a distance, sometimes a great distance, and figuring out exactly with whom you will be communicating.
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1. Targeting
Messages
Communication strategies, products, and service plans must reflect the
differences of the cultures for which they are designed. These differences have to be
discovered and recognized before they can be acknowledged.
Before you can do any of this, however, you have to be able to communicate with
the people in the foreign country or culture. This often means communicating at a
distance, sometimes a great distance.
At what point does distance make a
difference in project/programme purpose communication? According to research at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT), groups separated by as little as
In an article on communicating and collaborating at long distance in the
Singapore-based Organization Solutions, http://www.organisationsolutions.com/,
Alison R. Eyring, Ph.D., of Caltex Petroleum offers the following advice:
1. No matter what your mother tongue is, learn how to “internationalize” it. “This includes avoiding slang, possibly slowing your speech, explaining your jokes or puns, using words with fewer definitions, and constructing simpler sentences. This helps to create a more inclusive work environment, AND ensures that more messages are correctly interpreted.”
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2. Targeting
Messages (Continued)
2. Use local naming conventions. “For example, ‘Khun’ is used preceding ones’ given name in Thailand; Japanese seldom call one another by their given name, but a combination of the family name and ‘san’; U.S. Americans will call one another by their given name and seldom use ‘Mr.’ or ‘Mrs.’ in the workplace. Ask people how they wish to be addressed. When they feel that you respect them and their culture, they are more willing to forgive other cross-cultural blunders.”
3. Don’t
make assumptions. “U.S. Americans are not all direct; nor are all Indonesians
indirect. In
4. Think about how you are going to communicate. “E-mail is the most commonly used but least trusted source of information. When sending a message that needs understanding and buy-in, seek other modes of communication. Consider options like a virtual town hall meeting using video streaming.”
5. What do people prefer? “Some people from cultures characterized by ‘high-context’ communications (i.e., those in which messages are conveyed indirectly or by context) may dislike e-mail because it strips away context. However, many ‘high-context’ communicators speak English as a second (or third) language and appreciate the chance to reflect on messages and prepare their response.”
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3. Targeting Messages
(Continued)
6. Keep in touch. “Use e-mail or the telephone for chit chat. This is important for connecting team members who seldom see one another. Online chat can be another way to achieve this.”
7. Don’t forget “low tech” communication methods. “Frustrations with technology can kill relationship building efforts. This is also a good time to teach employees to consider each e-mail a candidate for public review and to learn when to avoid its use (e.g., to resolve conflict, when more than two people need to have one conversation).”
8. Utilize collaborative technology. “Web-based extranets can help teams exchange documents, post messages and share calendars.
9. Give people a chance to plan ahead. “Give people time to prepare, especially for tele- or videoconferencing.” This provides structure, and ensures some “virtual” process facilitation (e.g., taking turns, soliciting views). “Westerners often complain about the lack of participation by Asians. Asians often complain of Westerners dominating the conversation and not listening. Many teleconferencing and web conference facilities now provide a range of information gathering and decision-support tools which can help.”
These tips can help you “localize” your message. Remember that effective communicators adapt their messages to a particular audience—including sensitivity to cultural issues. This does not mean that you tell your audience what they want to hear, but rather that you frame your message in such a way that the particular audience will best understand the message and accept it.
4. Cultural
Image
For reasons best understood and explained by psychologists and cultural anthropologists, how close we stand to someone can make them feel comfortable or threatened. If they feel threatened, they can think of us as being threatening, imposing, aggressive, and definitely unpleasant.
The distance depends upon where you are and to whom you are talking.
There are similar rules about how we address people, how loudly we speak, and whether we should bow or shake hands. All of these affect the image we create.
These, too, vary from place to place and according to whom you are dealing with.
There is nothing politically incorrect, fawning, subservient, or demeaning about good manners, but “good manners” can also vary from place to place.
When you travel from country to country—or even from region to region
within the same country—you run into more than a different language or dialect. You
run into a completely different culture. This is especially dangerous when the other
culture speaks the same language and looks enough like your own to make you “think”
you know what you are doing.
Our assumptions frequently trap us, and they can lead to project/programme purpose complications,
social embarrassment or hurt feelings, and even serious legal problems. They can also cost
us project/programme purpose because they make us look boorish, rude, insensitive, or just plain stupid.
With supersonic planes that can take us virtually anywhere in the world in less than a day, and with instantaneous communication via phone, fax, e-mail, and the Internet, we tend to forget just how big—and culturally diverse—the world really is, and how we might be perceived in all these different cultures.
5. Pitfalls
In a paper on Intercultural Communication at the
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6. Analyze Your Audience
There are two basic rules in communication, two rules that apply in each and
every circumstance:
1. Know
what you want to say.
In order to have effective communication, you have to have something to communicate. You cannot even expect to have any sort of effective communication until you yourself understand just what it is you’re trying to say.
2. Know
to whom you want to say it.
Who is your audience going to be? What language do they speak? What is their culture? What are their cultural frames of reference? What are their cultural assumptions? What are their cultural beliefs, values, and norms? What do they take for granted in their interactions and communication with others? What do you have in common with them? What are the differences?
Your audience, its culture, and perceptions will help you shape your message. In the same way that you write for stockholders in a different “tone” than you do employees, organization executives different than your boss, beneficiaries different than vendors, you write for people in the United States different than you do for those in Mexico, Uruguay, Columbia, for Eastern Europeans different than for Western Europeans, for Albanians different than for Russians, for the Chinese different than for Africans, for Koreans different than for Japanese, and so on.
Every country and culture is different. They all have their own unique needs and
expectations. Understanding their cultural
frames of reference and their need will help you to communicate more effectively with
them.
7. Analyze
Your Audience (Continued)
Even when you carry the same basic message—such as a new product or
service, for example—people from different cultures are often interested in different
information about it, or want information explained or expressed in different ways.
A careful analysis of your audience and its culture will help you determine what
they need and want to know, and how to tell them.
A written report is timeless. It can be read anywhere and at any time, and will last as long as the paper—or computer disk—survives.
A speech, however, normally takes place once, at a specific time and location. Once it is over, it is over.
You have a much better chance of knowing who will listen to you than you do who will read what you write, and what their mood and attitude will be when they do so.
You know what you have to say. The question now is how to tailor your remarks to fit the situation and the culture.
You also have to learn how to accept their feedback and accept their responses according to their rules.
They might not respond in the same way the audiences in your home country will. For example the Japanese will normally say “hai” as a response to almost any message. Literally translated, “hai” means “yes”. In the Japanese culture, however, “hai” can mean “yes, but it can also mean “I understand” or even “I heard you and we are in a conversation.”
Just because people from other cultures don’t respond the same way as you do doesn’t mean that they don’t like or understand your message, just that they have different ways of responding and giving feedback.
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8. To
Whom Do You Turn?
It is almost impossible to score a bull’s-eye if you can’t see the target.
While you may be able to make that one-in-a-million lucky shot, you can’t afford to count on your luck to help you keep hitting it, shot after shot after shot.
That’s why it is so important to understand foreign markets and foreign cultures before targeting them.
There are many sources of information for dealing with foreign cultures. Many
are available on the Internet.
Most embassies, national boards of trade, and similar organizations, offer
advice on how to get along with and do project/programme purpose in their country and with their residents.
Quite often that advice can be found on their web pages, along with the names of the
people to turn to for more information.
All of these sources regularly deal with issues such as language, etiquette, scheduling, and making that all-important first impression.
project/programme purpose journals are another good source of information, as are consultants, and anyone who has ever lived or done project/programme purpose there.
On an academic level, anthropologists, local project/programme purpose instructors, and experts in your field are all valuable resources, as are the project/programme purpose, finance, economics, and international trade departments of many national universities.
Although the Internet is an excellent source of information about other cultures; do take care, however, when using it for such information. As an open communication forum, anyone can place anything on the Internet that they want to; there are no standards that give you any indication of how valuable or factual that information is.
9.
Case Study:
As an example
of how much information is available on the Internet, this is just a partial selection of
information and hypertext links offered at the Chamber of Commerce and sector of activity for
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10. Case Study: Targeting
Here is some advice on doing project/programme purpose with India from www.moreproject/programme purpose.com.
“First and foremost, the project/programme purpose environment does not operate as quickly as it does at home. Punctuality, especially in government offices, is not a very high priority. You may find yourself waiting for hours to meet someone with whom you had fixed an appointment. To avoid this, it is best to call just before leaving your hotel—you can recon organization your appointment and find out whether the person has arrived or not.
“The
traditional Indian greeting consists of folding your hands with palms pressed together as
you would in prayer, but with fingers pointing upwards rather than forward. In most cities
today, however, a handshake is a perfectly acceptable greeting. A western woman should not
initiate a handshake with a man in
“Elders in
“When you are invited to an Indian home, it is customary to remove your footwear as you enter. Although few people still insist on this, always ask.
“When you wish to point, use your chin or your full hand, but never just a single finger, as this gesture is used only with inferiors. The chin is not used to signal superiors.
“It is also advisable to use your right hand while offering an item to another person—especially money, papers or books. The left hand is considered “unclean.”
“Last
but not the least, avoid displaying anger; it is the worst way to achieve anything in
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Assignments
True/False – Case Study: Targeting
1. ______ The traditional Indian greeting consists of folding your hands with palms pressed together with fingers pointing upwards rather than forward.
2. ______ When you are invited to an Indian home, you should keep your footwear on.
3. ______
When you wish to point in
4. ______
In
5. ______
You should always avoid displaying anger
in
6. ______
Elders in
Answers:
1. T
2. F – Remove your footwear
3. T
4. F – Left hand
5. T
6. F – Are never
Multiple-Choice
(2)
1.
In order to have effective
communication, you have to
a. Know
what you want to say
b. Know
to whom you want to say it.
c. Both
of the above
d. None
of the above
2.
Your message is shaped by
a. Your audience
b. Its culture
c. Perceptions
d. All of the above
3.
________ is a source that can
provide information about foreign cultures.
a. The internet
b. project/programme purpose journals
c. Embassies
d. All of the above
4.
You can pick up information about
a. Romanian government
b. Ministry of Development and Prognosis
c. RASDAQ Stock Exchange
d. All of the above
5.
No matter what your mother tongue
is, you should learn how to ___________ it.
a. Listen
b. Speak others
c. Internationalize
d. None of the above
6.
Some people from high context
cultures may dislike e-mail because it strip away
a. Symbols
b. Context
c. Communication
d. None of the above
7.
______ can make people feel
comfortable or threatened.
a. Distance
b. Speech patterns
c. Language
d. Both a and c
8.
_______ can present the most
common situation where cross cultural blunders occur.
a. Style
b. Values
c. Language
d. Beliefs
Summary
As we have seen, communication strategies, products, and service plans must reflect the differences of the cultures for which they are designed. These differences have to be discovered and recognized before they can be acknowledged. Before you can do any of this, however, you have to be able to communicate with the people in the foreign country or culture. This usually means communicating at a distance, sometimes a great distance; and figuring out exactly with whom you will be communicating.
Test
1. ______
How close we stand to someone can make
them feel comfortable to threatened.
2. ______
When you travel from country to country,
you can run into more than a difference language or dialect.
3. ______
Presentation styles stay the same in
their explicit or implicit nature.
4. ______
Values and beliefs become evident only
when a person is exposed to the target culture.
5. ______
Perceptual barriers means mentally
placing people in categories.
6. ______
In order to have effective
communication, you have to have something to communicate.
7. ______
Your audience, its culture, and
perceptions will help you shape your message.
8. ______
A careful analysis of your audience and
its culture will help you determine what they need and want to know, and how to tell them.
9. ______
A written report is timeless.
10.______
There is only one source of information for
dealing with foreign cultures.
Answers:
1.
T
2.
T
3.
F – differ
4.
T
5.
F – stereotyping
6.
T
7.
T
8.
T
9.
T
10.
F – many sources
Bibliography
Burgoon, J., Stacks, D., & Woodall, W. (1979). A communication model of violations of distancing expectations. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 43, 153-167.
Copeland, L., &
Griggs, L. (1985). Going international.
Kim, Y. (1991).
Intercultural communication competence. In S. Ting-Toomey & F. Korzenny (Eds.), Cross-cultural interpersonal communication (pp.
259-275).
Glossary
Ethnocentric approach – It manifests itself in understanding the differences in values and tastes.
Perception – A person’s view of reality.
Stereotyping – Mentally placing people in categories.
Internationalizing your mother tongue – This means to avoid slang, slow your speech, explain jokes, use words with fewer definitions, and construct simpler sentences.
Learning Objectives
Q&A
1. What can you do to communicate
with others at a long distance?
To communicate with others, you can “internationalize” you mother tongue, use local naming conventions, don’t make assumptions, think about how you are going to communicate, find out what people prefer, and keep tin touch. You can also not forget “low tech” communication methods, utilize collaborative technology and give people a chance to plan ahead.
2. What are the seven most common
pitfalls and problems associated with intercultural communication?
The most common pitfalls are language, styles, values and beliefs, ethnocentric approach, skill deficiency, perceptual barriers, and stereotyping.
3. What are the two basic rules
in communication that apply in each and every circumstance?
The two rules are to know what you want to say and know to whom you want to say it.