2.3.2 The effectiveness of marketing communication mix

Cultural identity impacts the effectiveness of marketing communication mix. Advertising, as an example is profoundly influenced by language, which is one of the critical facets of culture. Very often multinational firms, whose products are created for mass-market, poorly translate advertising message into host languages message, as a result they get losses in comprehension and creative idiom and afterwards, their emotional call is not a real value to regional consumers. For example, if Irish or Russian humour is not understood and appreciated in a foreign country, as it might be a great advertisement in Ireland or in Russia, then it brings losses of resources in another country (Oosthuizen, 2004).

Some cultural aspects within marketing communication mix might be modified by international business communications. Consequently, marketing promotion message should be shaped in accordance with these changes. It happens due to the fact that more businesses have become international, marketing mix is partly standardized across the world contributing to the degree of cultural modifications in how they process messages and develop critical responses (Arnould and Thompson 2005). This idea might be illustrated by the example of aforementioned Chinese local commercials, which reflect not only traditional values, but also trend towards contemporaneity, which appeared with time and due international connections and developments.

Even though it is argued that at least a basic awareness about national features should be acknowledged , it Is still highly important to avoid people stereotyping, because their background might be considerably different from what is usually thought about their culture (Lu and Fan, 2015).

For instance, after a long observation it has been identified that consuming and purchasing patterns of Chinese, who immigrated to Canada long time ago, are entirely different from the patterns of Chinese, who are in China. Therefore, marketing communications should be shaped in accordance with certain groups’ patterns regarding their certain situation (Tian, 1999).

2.3Culture and cultural dimensions of Hofstede in marketing communication context

2.4.1 Defining culture

Even though, it is accepted that cultural differences should not be underestimated and culture influences people’ perceptions, there are still no one unified meaning of culture and it varies in accordance with author (Gudykunst, 1983). The most common definitions of culture are found in an-thropological literature.

According to Albaum et al. (2002), culture is human-made, so it is learned and is communicated from one generation to another. This definition corresponds with the statement of Soumava and John (1994), who stated that cultures are ways of living built up by a group of human beings, which are transmitted from one generation to another. One of the most popular definitions was given by Hofstede (2001), who stated that, culture is the collective programing of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.

In accordance with Hofstede’s (2001) definition, Xiaosui (2014) stated that a national culture is a set of collective beliefs and values that distinguish people of one nation from those of another.

Thus, there are many expressions of what culture is and it is interesting to notice that most of concepts are concentrated at culture as at a common or collective context rather than at individual perceptions.

A crucial note among aforementioned definitions is that culture is programming (Hofstede’s definition). It is agreed that culture requires a number of years to be formed and acquired in society, so it is a slow process. During these years major beliefs and attitudes shape people’ values and develop collective activities (for example celebrations) form unity of rituals, Installing the role models and people are acquiring symbols (designations of myths, sagas, clothes, jargon, linguistics…).

These features of culture are gained from childhood. They are shaped by family, education institutions, religion, worksite, friends, media and books, and many other sources (Jones, 2007).

With regards to aforementioned processes it might be argued that Irish and Russian culture are different (for example different languages, role models), however, it is not clear whether it might influence people’ perception of marketing communications or not.