Socio Cultural Factors

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Every society has its own way of life and interpreting things. The socio cultural environment differ from one society to another. These differences force the marketer to know the Social cultural environment of a particular society prior to promotional campaign. Therefore, aesthetics, language, colors, customs and taboos, values, time, business norms, religious beliefs, age and social class to mention only a few, being functions of socio cultural environment have a number of effects to the promotional campaign. Using numerous examples, this paper sets out to explain how the socio cultural environment affects the promotional campaign. Socio cultural environment may be defined as things that people of a given society hold to be important (Clemente, 2002). Aesthetics is the function of socio cultural environment that affects the promotional campaigns. Aesthetics refers to as the prevalent ideas in a culture concerning beauty and good tastes, as expressed in the arts, music, art, drama, and dance and the appreciation of colour and form (Keillor, 2007). The aesthetics have an important role in promotional campaign since is can either attract or repel the clients (Baisya and Bas, 2008). For instance most of European tourists while in Zanzibar prefer the Makuti Resorts than modern ones. Similarly, the sofas made from the old ngalawas and other boats seem to have a special aesthetic values to the European tourists as opposed to the modern looking sofas from Dubai. Language is another function of socio cultural environment that affects promotional campaign. The language is not merely words and terms, it also expresses the thinking patterns of a culture or even forms of the thinking itself (Gillespie and Hennessey, 2016). Consequently, a consistent marketer is supposed to speak a language that reflects the unique cultural and expression values of the target market (Rajagopal, 2010). The choice of words and expressions should also be in line with the perceived meaning of a particular society. For instance, a market from Belgium who goes to France for promotional campaign of his hotel, needs to know the variation of words such as soixante dix where in Belgium French is called septente both meaning seventy. Similarly the use of the words pony up, fronted up, and stumped up that all have the same meaning are selectively used in America, New Zealand and UK respectively. In addition to this, even the choice of communication seems to differ from one society to another, for instance, while westerns prefer verbal communication, Asians tend to prefer nonverbal communication.

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Colour also affects the promotional campaign. For instance while brown colour is associated with ruggedness, purple with sophistication, red with excitement, and white with purity and cleanness in western countries, white is associated with death in some of Asian countries, gray mean inexpensive in Japan and China. Also, there is gender preference in color. Example most woman seem to prefer pink, red and so forth. However, the color preference differ from one society to another. Good marketer needs to know in details the colour preference and perception of a particular society before starting his or her promotional campaign. Custom and taboo. Some countries have some their customs and taboos which would not be immediately apparent to some creative fashion marketing team (Lea-Greenwood, 2013). The customs and taboos of one culture are not necessarily customs and taboos in another culture. In Zanzibar an example of promotion with the delivery of alcoholic drinks in public might be considered as taboos. Time. Some societies are more sensitive than others in the way they perceive the time in business. Americans and European are more sensitive in time, than Africans. For Americans and Europeans all business appointments have to be set in advance and observe the punctuality. For example a marketers that want to do promotion for his tour operator from Zanzibar apart from having an appointment with his potential customers, he is supposed to be at the meeting place as well at least few minutes before the agreed time. Religious belief. Religious may greatly affects the promotional campaign (Schiffman and Kanuk, 1991). The religious beliefs vary from one society to another. Therefore a marketer needs to know the religious belief of a particular society before starting his or her promotional campaign. For instance, a Marketer that promote Emirates airline in a catholic society of Rome in Italy, should adjust the promotional add by removing the Quran verses appearing from the airline staff before takeoff. Similarly, the American Marketer that promotes the hotel in San Francisco in India should avoid use some symbols like cow symbol as cow acts as a goddess in certain Indian society. Business norms have also an impact in socio cultural environment. Business norms refer to the situation or type of behavior that is expected and considered to be typical in a business (Kramer, 2001). A good marketer is supposed to have a little bit of knowledge of business norms in a business that he wants to promote. For instance, Mr. Haji who goes to ITB in Berlin for

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promotion of his tour operating business, should at least know how to dress and address the travel agents during the trade fair. As part of business norms, the marketer should be smart with at least a nice costume as opposed to casual wear such as t-shirts and jeans. Cultural values also have impacts on promotional campaign. A research conducted at the California University to study the values between Anglo American and Asian American Students revealed that the Chinese would prefer the preventive appeal during the promotion while Anglo American society would prefer the promotional appeal (Stanford University, 2015). This indicates that a marketer has to know certain values that belong to a particular culture in order for him to have positive results of his promotion. Moreover, age is another important function of socio cultural environment. A good marketer may decide to use certain promotional appeal to attract a particular age. For instance, music appeal may be used to attract the young age (Kotler et al, 2008). Social class has impacts on promotional campaign as well. For instance, a marketer whose promotion targets the group of sheikhs may have a careful selection of an advertising media. The marketer will definitely use Islamic oriented media such as Radio Iman and Radio adhana for promotional campaign. Not only the choice of media. But even the choice of appeal may be influenced in different socio class. For example, a marketer could the celebrity appeal to promote Chumbe Island hotel, and this might attract easily people with higher social class anywhere in the world. Similarly a Marketing team of Nungwi Inn hotel may not go to promote the hotel to the ruling class in England as the hotel per se is a low class hotel. To conclude, the socio cultural environment, the aesthetics, language, colour, customs and taboo, time, religious belief, business norms, values, age and social class are of paramount important to know before the promotional campaign. However, should the marketer lacks a knowledge of the socio cultural environment of his target market, may lead to failure of the promotional campaign.

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Reference Baisya R.K & Das, G.G. (2008). Aesthetic in Marketing. Los Angeles: Sage Publications. Gillespie, K & Hennessey, H.D. (2016). Global Marketing 4th Ed. London: Routledge Kotler et al. (2008). Museum Marketing and Strategy 2nd. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Rajagopal, (2010). Consumer Behavior: Global Shifts and Local Effects. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Koiler, B.D. (2007). Marketing in the 21st Century. USA: Praeger Publisher.