Advertising strategies and glocal cultures. A case study: Absolut Vodka in the Chinese market

The most external circle of the Neuliep model represents the cultural context, which "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", (Tylor E., see par. 1.1.1). So, culture shapes the way we communicate, how we act and in particular how we interact with people that surround us.

According to Neuliep (2003) the dimensions that create culture and influence the way people communicate are individualism/collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, high/low context and value orientation. The first three aspects are the same used by the scholar Geert Hofstede in his survey on the cultural dimensions (see par. 1.1.2) whereas the high/low context is an idea introduced by Edward Hall.

Firstly, living in an individualistic or collectivistic Country influences the way people behave and how they express their feelings. For example, in the former society the role of the individual, his freedom and his rights are stressed and, as a consequence, it is normal to publicly praise people or to say what someone is thinking about in a really direct way. Indeed, this happens because people are taught to express themselves since their childhood and to be who they feel they are. For this reason there is almost no difference between how people act in public and in private occasions.
However, in the collectivistic cultures the individual is subordinated to the needs of the group. This is mirrored in the way people communicate: the first principle to be respected is the harmony within the group, so people are discouraged from saying frankly what they think and this is the reason why communication in public is really different from the one between the "in-group members" (relatives, friends). For example, this is the expected communication environment in China, since the Country is considered a collectivistic society according to Hofstede’s model: indeed, the Chinese Nation is placed after the 50th position out of 76 Countries in the Individualistic Index (see par. 1.1.2).

Secondly, when people usually communicate what they think and want they want directly and in understandable way, we say this is a low-context culture, whereas if the communication style is rich of allusions and the message of the conversation is not explicit and can be understood only referring to the local culture, we have a high-context society (Hall E. as quoted in Neuliep, 2003). For example, the Anglo-Saxon Countries and usually all the Countries with a high Individualistic Index are low-context societies (Neuliep, 2003) and people generally communicate using a verbal code with explicit rules and expectations. However, in the high-context societies communication is more often based on nonverbal codes: for example, Japan is a really high context society probably because, historically, people were used to live in small isolated villages and the family and social life were, more or less, always the same, so the amount of language required for mutual understanding was small (Samovar et al. 2009). Furthermore, another great difference in the communication style is the use of silence: on one hand the low-context cultures feel uncomfortable with it and try to avoid it in any way; on the other hand the high-context societies stress its use as an important part of the process. Samovar et al. (2009) state that in Japan lovers prefer not to express their feeling for the partner because they believe that words discount and downplay it. This different approach to silence is also reflected in the local sayings and in the proverbs; while the high-context cultures like the Indonesian or the Japanese affirm: "Empty cans clatter the most" or "it is the duck that squawks that gets shot" whereas the American (low-context culture) famous proverb says: "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". Moreover, in the Chinese culture, that scores a low point on the Individualist Index and so it is connected to a high-context society, one should communicate in an indirect way, avoiding direct judgments and using the right pauses during a speech.

Third, there are differences in how people communicate if we analyze also the power distance dimension of culture. In order to review the concept already explained in paragraph 1.1.2, in the large power distance societies the high inequality in the distribution of power is well accepted and all the public offices are usually organized in hierarchical structures. In the low-power culture, instead, the aim of politics is to minimize the inequalities among people and this is reflected in all aspects of society, from family to school. Indeed, in the former type of society people change their way of speaking according to the context and the receivers of the message. For example, in China, that scores a high point on the Power distance index (or PDI, see par. 1.1.2), there are different terms to call relatives or friends who are younger and the ones who are older. Moreover, in Italy and Czech Republic, both countries with high scores in the PDI, one can find at the same time terms used to address people in a formal and in an informal way: the English pronoun "you" is translated with tu in the informal situations whereas the pronoun Lei will be used in the formal ones. This phenomenon is totally absent in English where there is no verbal distinction if you are talking with your boss or with a friend.

Fourth, even the perception and the management of the uncertainty affect the communication style. In the cultures where the level of uncertainty is high, like the South American Countries or the Southern European Nations, the level of anxiety is high as well and this is reflected in the bigger difficulty of the people from these countries to interact with people from other cultures (Neuliep, 2003). Furthermore, the stratagems to reduce the uncertainty vary across cultures: for example, when facing a stranger in the high-context countries persons try to gain information from their personal connections, whereas in the low-context environment they do this by asking direct questions.
Fifth, intercultural communication is affected by cultural values: in this case, it might be common that the sender’s system of values is different from the receiver's. In order to study these differences, in the 1960s two scholars from Harvard, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, developed the concept of value orientation (Neuliep, 2003): they argued that all cultures face the same problems but the solutions provided are influenced by five sets of value orientations. Several years later two communication researchers, Condon and Yousef, extended the range of values to twenty-five, organizing them in six categories: self, family, society, human nature, nature and the supernatural. Generally speaking, there are two opposite approaches to these values: the individualistic low-context and the collectivistic high-context cultures. All the differences in the communication style can be related to these two approaches to reality. [...]