Cultural Differences: Strengths And Weaknesses

1. Introduction

Cultural differences are an issue of which everyone should be aware of nowadays. They influence the way global societies and businesses are interacting. Cultural aspects need to be considered by doing so. That applies to nearly every sector of life. Be that social or business communication. Management skills demand an understanding of culture differences to interact properly just like marketing and advertising skills do.

“Classification of cultures is necessary to understand differences in cross-cultural consumer behaviour and to differentiate marketing and advertising strategies across countries.” The use of dimensions in order to categorize culture is an effective method to work out its differences and resemblances.

A brick wall, which is covered by graffiti, takes up majority of space of the picture. The centre of the wall includes an arch, which is filled by mainly white coloured boxes and shelf systems by IKEA. A male person wearing light coloured clothes is sitting on the edge of a shelf with a dreamy expression on his face. To the left of the men in the photograph an easel with colourful painting is located. Right above this setting white typography says “putting ones taste in art in boxes”. The situation takes place in sunshine. The top borders of the photograph are filed with plants and a balustrade is build on top of the brick wall. Moreover, the right corner of the photograph lies in shadow. The situation gains a positive and light overall impression by the use of sunlight, light colours, a dreamy and pleased expression of the man’s face and green plants underlining the favourable

“Putting ones taste in art into boxes” plays with being part of a society. The actual boxes are stowed neatly inside an arch, which serves so to speak as a box as well. Moreover, it reflects the Japanese’s passion of sterility and cleanness . It shows a person living inside a box, which can relate on Japanese’s awareness of a hierarchical structure and their position in a society. Nevertheless, the man on the photograph has a positive attitude that is emphasized by his surroundings. Japanese are comfortable with being part of a group. It is not the group of a family as it is in other Asian nations like China and Korea; it is more a professional group. People are pleased with these circumstances and they like working in a team. So, this advertising in some ways reflects the power distance of Japan’s society. Nevertheless, this specific print campaign works against Japan’s score of indulgence in Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory. IKEA suggests an overall positive and optimistic image of Japan’s big cities like Tokyo and Harajuku. Moreover, this impression is underlined by typical Japanese cultural characteristics and values. The most basic and significant value is harmony with nature. Japanese prefer harmony with nature instead control of nature. In addition to that they believe in nature, nature is the origin of all existence.