Tesi: Communicating across cultures: dis/similarities between American and Italian adverts of Coca Cola

Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro

Dipartimento di Scienze della Formazione, Psicologia, Comunicazione

Corso di Laurea di II Livello in della Comunicazione Pubblica, Sociale e Scienze d’Impresa 270/04 D.M.

Tesi di Laurea in English for Business and Communication: Communicating Across Cultures

Dis/similarities between American and Italian adverts of Coca-Cola

Relatrice: Chiar.ma Prof.ssa Annarita Taronna
Laureanda: Alessandra Bottalico
Matricola: 736996

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1. Understanding the Cultural Relativity
  • 1.1 What is culture? 8
  • 1.2 The Process of Culturalization 13
  • 1.3 Hofstede’s Dimensions of Culture 15
  • 1.4 Globalization and Glocalization of Culture 20
  • 1.5 Multiculturalism 26
  • 1.6 Cultural Generalizations and Stereotypes 32
• Chapter 2. Communicating Across Cultures
  • 2.1 Communication: definition and meaning 34
  • 2.2 High-Context vs. Low-Context Cultures 35
  • 2.3 Multicultural, Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Communication 39
  • 2.4 The Interplay of Languages: ELF (English As Lingua Franca) 41
  • 2.5 BELF (Business English As Lingua Franca) 45
  • 2.6 Code-Switching and Code-Mixing 51
• Chapter 3. Business and Marketing Communication Across Cultures
  • 3.1 The Impact of Culture on Business 55
  • 3.2 International Business 60
  • 3.3 Business and Marketing Communication 62
  • 3.4 Cross-Cultural Advertising 66
  • 3.5 The use of Language in Cross-Cultural Marketing: do not get lost in translation! 73
  • 3.6 The Evolution of Advertising 76
• Chapter 4. Case Study: Dis/similarities between American and Italian adverts of Coca-Cola
  • 4.1 History of Coca-Cola: an overview 81
  • 4.2 Research and Methodology 83
  • 4.3 Research Results: Comparison of Topics 85
  • 4.4 Research Results: The use of English in Italian adverts of Coca-Cola 95
  • 4.5 Limitations 101
• Conclusion 105
• Bibliography 109
• Webliography 2

Introduction

The main purpose of my work of thesis is to underline how important is having a cultural awareness in order to run successfully an international business communication across cultures, focusing on particular on the business external marketing communication, specifically advertising. Advertising is a complex phenomenon due to the various meanings its messages can assume related to the strong influence of the context in which it develops. Factors such as social, cultural and artistic elements, language, customs, different legislative systems, political and socio-economic events play a crucial role in both creating and perceiving advertising messages.

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the influence of culture in global marketing and advertising and many recent studies underline the need to adapt branding and communication strategies to consumer culture. The study of how culture is used in international advertising necessarily follows the increasingly debated global-local dilemma: is it better either to standardize advertising for efficiency reasons or adapt it to local uses and consumer motivation to be effective?

When a message is conveyed within a society where its members know and share the same rules, norms and language, there is no problem for the correct and comprehensive understanding of the message. However, advertising becomes challenging when the same message has to be conveyed across borders hence outside the society that generated it. It is common to believe that translating from one linguistic code to another is enough to make intercultural communication. What happens, in this case, is simply an exchange between linguistic codes (interlingual translation). Nevertheless, this type of translation is not enough to ensure an effective and successful communication.

It seems clear then that most companies face nowadays the demanding challenge to fulfil their main function: communicate the same message and convey it through means and methods that fit better a particular target and culture. Communication is therefore only effective when it is consistent with the messages it sends and respects and adapts to the linguistic and cultural needs of the society to which it is addressed.

In the first chapter I analyze what culture is and its main aspects, giving a definition of it according to the perspective of different authors. Understanding cultural relativity and developing a cultural awareness is the starting point for business to grow a good intercultural competence. We are all the same, but we are also all different. Our peculiarities coming from our cultural values are essential and need to be taken into account if we want to create bonds with who is culturally different from us. Culture is acquired, learned, and shared and not genetically transmitted. The processes by which individuals acquire culture are enculturation, acculturation and assimilation. These three contribute to the liquidity of culture and its dynamism.

In this context, Hofstede’s theory model is therefore essential in order to have the possibility to detect the main aspects of a culture and make comparisons. It allows us to understand why people act and behave differently in different countries, communities or societies as well. However, as Hofstede himself said, this is just a model and not correspond to a certain truth. This due to the fact that societies within countries are getting more and more complex because of globalization. This phenomenon has started in ‘60s but it is still in progress as a consequence of the improvement of technologies that allows individuals to move faster and reach whatever part in the world, connecting with people from other countries without difficulties. Two other processes linked to the globalization are the glocalization of culture and multiculturalism. In this merging of cultures generalization and stereotypes remain two crucial aspects to understand how cultures see each other.

While connecting with people across their own country borders, individuals should be able to develop and use a form of communication that reduces at minimum all the possible cultural blunders. In the second chapter, communicating across cultures is the main theme. Intercultural competence is strictly associated to a good communicative competence. As Erin Meyer, professor of INSEAD, states there are eight different scales that can help to map the world’s cultures and the communicating scale is one of them. Meyer mentions Hall’s theory about high-context vs. low-context culture and the way people communicate differently accordingly to the context they come from. However, what happens when individuals from two different linguistic backgrounds meet each other? As already mentioned, language is one of the crucial aspects of culture and it is where the culture is encoded.

That is where ELF (English as Lingua Franca) comes in. English as a lingua franca is the use of the English language as a global means of intercommunication that can be understood by speakers of different linguistic background. It is not exclusive and as a global language it can also be used by English native speakers. In business encounters, it takes the name of BELF, Business English as a Lingua Franca. The “B” before ELF emphasizes the context in which it is used. Using either ELF or BELF can be understood as a form of bilingualism or multilingualism (when people speak more than two languages). When people can speak more than one language phenomena such as code-switching and code-mixing happen quite frequently. It is important to acknowledge these two phenomena because we often find them even in advertisements.

Moreover, it must not be forgot that Anglo-Americanism have become part of the vocabulary first language of non-native. For example, in Italian we use a lot of Anglo-Americanism, even for those words we can easily translate. Words such as management, business, feedback, meeting and so on, are constantly used in everyday Italian language.

Hence, in the third chapter I focused on how culture affects business communication, in particular advertising. Organizations are influenced by both national culture and organizational culture. Especially in international business, multinational companies, while managing employees coming from different cultural backgrounds, should be able to develop a strong organizational culture that overrides all the internal differences, still by respecting everyone. A good advice on how to respect and understand diversity comes from Professor Meyer. The scale developed by Erin Meyer includes eight variables such as evaluating, communicating, scheduling, persuading, leading, deciding, disagreeing and trusting. These eight scales added to Hofstede’s theory and Hall’s can help business in managing diversity hence running a successful communication across borders.

Business communication can be both internal and external. This latter includes marketing communication. A company cannot but communicate. Even actions and decisions are part of the communication of a company. Advertising is part of the marketing mix strategy, specifically of the promotion. According to the specific country norms and culture, the national language, stereotypes and all the other meaningful cultural aspects listed so far, brands must choose the right advertising strategy between standardization, adaptation or glocalization.

In this context I remark the use of the language as a crucial component towards which companies should pay attention in order to avoid mistakes and blunders, hence losing their credibility. Moreover, although some countries are closely attached to their culture and prefer the advertisements to be translated in their national language, international business prefer not to translate everything in the message. Indeed, most often the payoff remains in the same language of the business’s country of origin. For instance, we all know the payoff “Nokia, connecting people” and whereas the rest of the message in the national commercial is translated in Italian, the payoff is still written and spoken in English. The use of English gives the brand a global image making it classy, while consumers feel themselves as cosmopolitans and part of a global society. Furthermore, the channels through which a company can advertise have increased. From the traditional billboard to social networks, marketing is getting increasingly integrated and complex.

In chapter 4, I analyzed the glocalization strategy of Coca-Cola by looking closely at the way Coca-Cola adverts on its social media, specifically on Instagram during a period that goes from 2019 to 2022. My intention was to detect whether cultural clues were present or not in adverts and how much they make the brand seem more local while remaining global. I also investigated what role the language plays in adverts outside the country where the brand originated from and whether the message is translated completely into Italian, or it keeps some English words or sentences and which topic those are related to.

The bottle of Coca-Cola is easily recognizable by its shape even without logo on it and even if we see just a drawing of it. But how is it possible? How have Coca-Cola become so popular all over the world? Coca-Cola’s marketing strategy is based on being present everywhere reducing the distance between the brand and consumers, communicating a sense of familiarity and sympathy. In its advertising campaigns, Coca-Cola has always been able to grasp the importance of emotions, thus becoming the most consumed beverage in the family, during parties, while at the movie theater, and so on. The way Coca-Cola present itself to consumers has been fundamental for its success. The Coca-Cola case reveals the importance of a coherent communication that at the same time can adapt to evolution and social changes, without forgetting values and promises on which the brand has always been based.

Chapter 1. Understanding the Cultural Relativity

1.1 What is culture?

Culture is a broad and incredibly complex concept: several academics, interested on this subject, gave different definitions of it trying to describe the nature and all the characteristics culture is made up with; but the term also can be used to describe different types of culture such as political culture, organizational culture, national culture, family culture, traditional culture, folks’ culture etc., along with the intellectual and artistic activity such as music, literature, painting and sculpture.

From this perspective culture can be so considered a mix of several factors that defines the characteristics of a specific context and has a huge influence on people, society, marketing, communication, and business. However, it must be considered that culture rapidly changes due to the admixture with other cultures and populations, favored by the globalization and the development of technology that allows people from all over the world to interact with each other. Over time culture is never as it was before. As Dawn Burton says in his book ‘Cross-cultural Marketing’ (2009), culture is indeterminant and therefore not fully predictable.

In his book ‘Culture, communications and diversity’ (2020), Delli Poggi gives an anthropological point of view about the concept of culture, quoting Edward Brunette Tylor, an English anthropologist, the founder of cultural anthropology: “Culture [...] is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”. From this point of view, culture is a social outcome: it is not natural and biological. It can be considered as the lifestyle of individuals, groups, populations, and nations. It is the heritage of the collective meanings of a human group.

The psychologist and linguist Spencer-Oatey in her book ‘Culturally speaking: Culture, communication and politeness theory’ (2008) defines culture as a set of values, beliefs, knowledge, norms, language, behaviors, and material objects shared by a community and transmitted socially from one generation to another, hence culture is not acquired biologically. It also affects the way we interpret other people’s behavior and their actions.

Culture is “[...] a fuzzy set of basic assumptions and values, orientations to life, beliefs, policies, procedures and behavioral conventions that are shared by a group of people, and that influence (but do not determine) each member’s behavior and his/her interpretations of the ‘meaning’ of other people’s behavior.” (Spencer-Oatey, 2008)

Starting from these two definitions above, it can be said that culture fulfills various functions. Firstly, it has an adaptive and regulatory function making it easy for the people of a group to relate to each other and be cohesive; secondly, it determines the identity of a group and the sense of belonging. It reflects a community or nation ideology. The concept of ideology is strictly related to culture, and it can be defined as a set of ideas and beliefs that shows the worldview of a community.

Each culture is defined by a precise system of values that is important to know in order to understand why people act in a certain way (Olivero & Russo, 2013): culture shapes personalities, affects perception, and influence behavior. This makes culture a vital and important determining factor of how the community reacts, responds, and grows. Culture plays a major role in the lives of everyone in the society (Painter, 2022).

Our culture determines the structure of our thinking, which influences our perceptions. Judgment skills, preconceived notions, attitude, and emotions are closely linked with our culture. For instance, people who belong to cultures that promote individualism tend to look at only the main aspects of a situation, while those of a culture that promotes collectivism tend to consider even the minor details. Our culture also affects the way we socially interact. The standards of personal space, for example, are also defined by culture. When we communicate, we usually keep a certain distance from the others which is largely influenced by the culture we belong to. Gestures, body language, the way we show emotions, everything is related to our cultural norms.

Summing up, culture is in every aspect of an individual’s life, and it is related to the context the individual was born and raised. Cultural context inevitably and unconsciously influences people and determines their actions. This means that culture also shapes us as consumers and the way we perceive the advertising related to a specific product. There is a reason why we cannot find the same brand in every country, and not all the products are sold in the same way or with the same flavors (thinking about food for example) all over the world.

As a result, the understanding of the meaning and nature of culture is vital in the marketing field to develop the right strategy. Nevertheless, what is most important for marketing and communication is acknowledging National cultures with their own values, myths, costumes and rituals.

“Since different cultures have different values, consumers have different buying habits. Marketing strategies should reflect the culture that is being targeted. The strategy should show the product or service as reinforcing the beliefs, values and customs of the targeted culture. Failing to do so can result in lost sales and opportunities.” (Niosi, 2021)

In this context it is appropriate to explain what national culture is. “National Culture” is the term we use to refer to a group of people who have been brought up within a given country. These individuals are linked to each other by sharing certain expectations of how things should be done and values around these expectations. (Hofstede Insights, 2021).

Cross-cultural marketing usually analyzes the responses of individuals in one country and compares them with another. The differences in costumers’ behavior are attributes to national cultural differences. Nevertheless, it can be said to be always true because cultures are interconnected and exchange.