Significant Influences of Culture in Geopolitics and Strategic Marketing

Culture significantly influences communication, particularly in geopolitics and strategic marketing.

Cultural Aspect Affects Communication Strategy

Let us dive into a couple of examples explaining how a cultural aspect in message encoding can affect the entire strategy of the communicative process.

Example from Geopolitics 

Position yourself where Scandinavian directness and Slavic diplomacy intersect. If an important communication takes place in the environment of governmental negotiations, whichever comment about any prolongation of the responses, for instance, in the process of aligning the contractual statements can be quite natural for the representatives of Scandinavian nations such as Danes.

On the contrary, it can be perceived as offensive depicting all possible negative characteristics related to the information flow in, for example, Ukrainian authorities. Instead of saying: “We experience delays with your responses” to Ukrainians it is reasonable to encode the message as follows: “It would be great to define the timeframe we shall expect the response to our enquires from your organization.”

When the first message declares that Ukrainians are slow to respond, which potentially entails a negative reaction in their perception, the second statement evokes a very positive reaction describing the common foundation for a great collaboration: “It would be great”, “to define the timeframe”, “we shall expect the response to our enquiries”.

Certainly, during everyday conversations, mostly informal ones, we can skip the encodings, simply talking to each other, still respecting the cultural differences.

Example from Geopolitical Environment 

Another example from the geopolitical environment. In Turkish culture, drinking tea plays a significant role during the negotiation process. While it is customary for tea to be served by a man, it is considered disrespectful to decline the offer of tea, regardless of the weather conditions or differing practices common among Europeans.

Example from Strategic Marketing

An example from strategic marketing involves a TV campaign for mineral water branded with the words “blue” and “water,” translating to “puking” in a local Slavic language. The outcome exceeded all the expectations… This unintended meaning led to market rejection instead of raising brand awareness.

Behavioural Cultural Example

Our final example pertains to behavioural cultural patterns. In Europe, tearing the wrapping paper on a gift is generally accepted, whereas, in Japan, it is considered more respectful to open the gift carefully.

Unintended Occasional Messages Result in Unforeseen Negative Communication Outcomes

Therefore, unintended occasional messages can initially result in unforeseen negative communication outcomes when distinct cultural attributes are involved.