POP CULTURE AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Culture is the set of collective values, customs, guiding principles, arts, social institutions, and intellectual achievements of a society. In a diverse nation like India cultural factors exert the broadest and deepest influence on consumer behaviour. Culture influences consumers through the norms and values established by the society in which they live. The impact of culture is autonomous and anonymous.

Culture affects how consumers use or consume products. Customer buy good & services to obtain utility, form and meaning, all of which marketers must consider since they are defined by the cultural context of consumption. This is to understand the culture value and how it influences consumer behaviour and for a marketer it is important to know the behaviour related to culture as it is one of the main causes bringing change to the market and the buying behaviour of the consumer.

WHAT IS POP CULTURE?

Popular culture or pop culture is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of the practices, beliefs and objects that are dominant in a society at a time. Popular culture also encompasses the activities and feelings produced as a result of interaction with these dominant objects. Heavily influenced in lives of people in a given society. Therefore, popular culture has a way of influencing an individual’s attitudes towards certain topics. (McGaha, 2016)

Popular culture has a way of influencing an individual’s attitudes towards certain things. It is something that can be defined in a variety of different ways by different people, in different contexts. It is generally viewed in contrast to other forms of culture such as folk culture, working-class culture, or high culture, and also through different theoretical perspectives such as psychoanalysis, structuralism, postmodernism, and more. The most common pop-culture categories are: entertainment such as movies, music, television and video games, sports, news, politics, fashion, technology, and language. (Gary West, “What is Pop Culture?”)

SOME INFORMATION ABOUT INDIAN CULTURE

India is one of the world’s oldest civilizations and one of the most populated countries in the world. The Indian culture, is an amalgamation of various sub-cultures that span across the entire Indian sub-continent and has been influenced and shaped by a heritage that is thousands of years old. Throughout the history of India, Indian culture has been heavily influenced by religious forces which shaped much of Indian thought, literature, architecture, art and music.

In the early 21st century, Because of the economic liberalization of the Indian government in the early 1990s had resulted in the globalization of the Indian markets with manifold increase in the number of foreign players. The Indian consumer with choices of goods & services. The new entrants came with their own cultural traits, have generated a cross-cultural mix amongst the Indian customers, especially among the GenY‘.

Technology is also thriving. One such example was found in the transition of the consumer preference from desktop PC to Laptop, to smartphones. The fashion industry in India has been radically changed since the last decade. This has happened due to cross-cultural amalgamation and globalization ‘.

The fashion industry always had its own heritage and rich traditions in India. In a study by Joy and Wallendrof (1996) it was noted that since ages, clothes have always been the indicator of the social status of the individual and the group. As part of this study, cloth and cloth transaction acquire meaning because they symbolize the status, and they transformed the moral and physical bearing of the wearer ‘. Mahatma Gandhi encouraged Indians to buy Indian made Khadi clothes to support the Indian economy as well as to cultivate the sense of national identity at the time of India ‘s freedom struggle against Britishers.

Pop Culture influences Consumer Behaviour, how?

Culture has one of the most important role that plays in our behaviour and also the place we tend to live in. It may be an advanced development that includes nearly all aspects of the experience shared by people in general, and it’s culture that dictates the social expectations humans must adhere to so as to belong to their group. In order to participate in a culture, it’s necessary to stick to the behaviours determined by that culture. Pop Culture influence consumers’ thoughts and behaviours. research shows that culture operates primarily by setting boundaries for individual behaviours and by influencing the functioning of every establishment because the family and mass media. (Parker-Pope, 1996) analysis shows that individuals from totally different culture consume otherwise primarily as a result of their variations in values and norms.

Simple samples of distinction in cultures between 2 countries

 In China, asking a couple of person‘s financial gain, age or legal status is common whereas in USA it’s thought of

rude.

 The outlay patterns of a prime economy like United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are fully totally different then a developing nation. Same

goes for the saving pattern additionally. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland customers are additional doubtless to pay more cash than different countries because their earnings is high additionally.

In most countries, after you head to someone ‘s place, you have got to require gifts with you.

In China, even if someone is coming back to your house, you have got to relinquish gifts to them.

Cultural values are wide command beliefs that affirm what’s fascinating. These values have an effect on behaviour through norms, which specify an appropriate, vary of responses to specific things. shopper behaviour differs as a result of values inherited by customers disagree from culture to culture. Julie and Jacqueline (2008) results indicate that overall, consumers are differentially influenced by others in planned and impulse purchase things, even when dominant for price. These differential influences may be explained by culture. Another issue that affects the buyer behaviour is that the level of diversity and uniformity among culture. A culture that values diversity not solely can settle for a large array of private behaviours and attitudes, however is additionally doubtless to welcome selection in terms of intense food, dress, and different merchandise and services. Collectivist cultures tend to place a robust worth on uniformity (Mooij, 2004); whereas additional individualist cultures tend to worth diversity. For example, analysis shows that in Japan and China individuals tend to consume merchandise and avail services that everybody else is intense, wherever as in UK and Unites States individuals are additional inclined to form their own individual choices bases on personal preferences and tastes.

Marketing is all regarding understanding shopper desires and steering the client toward your product by making certain desires within the minds of the client. The data and understanding of shopper behaviour have become a basic task each at the entrepreneurial and institutional levels. Marketers have realised that since customers have adopted an additional aggressive and hard to please role, they need to change their attitudes. customers from totally different cultures disagree in their reaction towards foreign merchandise and advertising. (Money et al, 1998)

Conclusion

Consumers‘ perceptions about product features: packages, size, shape, colour, material and branding depend largely on their cultural backgrounds and should therefore be the cornerstone of all the company‘s thoughts. People are changing from time to time, so do their tastes and preferences. Identifying those is the first step towards achieving success and the rest depends on the performance of the product. Consumers in different social cultural structure have a different tendency of consumer values and consumer needs. Thus, managers need to give different marketing activities to satisfy both regions‘ consumers since the consumers in two culture region show different needs tendency.