Week 11
Consumer Behavior · Davood Wadi, PhD
Culture shapes how consumers see every product. AI models also carry cultural patterns from the text they learn from.
Culture is the shared meanings, values, rituals, and traditions of a society.
Consumers learn culture from family, school, religion, and media, usually without noticing. Culture shapes what people eat, wear, celebrate, and consider polite or offensive.
A product that succeeds in one country can fail in another because it carries a different meaning there.
Marketers who enter a new market study its culture before they adapt the product, the message, or the price.
Cultural values are shared beliefs about what is good and desirable in a society.
Hofstede described several dimensions on which national cultures differ (Hofstede, 2001).
Individualism versus collectivism: whether people see themselves mainly as individuals or as members of a group.
Power distance: how much people accept an unequal distribution of power and status.
Uncertainty avoidance: how uncomfortable people feel with ambiguity and risk.
Masculinity versus femininity: whether a society values achievement and competition or care and quality of life.
Long-term orientation: whether people focus on future rewards, such as saving, or on the present and the past.
An ad that celebrates standing out from the crowd suits an individualist culture. An ad that shows a family choosing together suits a collectivist culture.
Each situation reflects one of Hofstede's dimensions. Name the dimension it shows most clearly.
People accept an unequal distribution of power and status.
They feel uncomfortable with ambiguity and risk.
Achievement and competition versus care and quality of life.
A focus on future rewards, such as saving.
The buyer acts mainly as a member of a group: collectivism.
Standing out from the crowd suits an individualist culture.
The waiting consumers avoid the ambiguity and risk of an untested product.
Which concept does this case show?
A ritual is a set of symbolic behaviors that people repeat in a fixed order.
Grooming rituals, such as a morning skin-care routine, help people move from their private self to their public self.
Gift-giving rituals, such as birthdays and holidays, express relationships and obligations.
Holiday rituals, such as a Thanksgiving dinner or Lunar New Year, create large seasonal markets.
Rites of passage, such as graduations and weddings, mark a change in social status and come with their own products.
A myth is a story with symbolic elements that expresses a culture's shared ideals. Brands borrow myths, such as the hero who overcomes a challenge.
Name the kind of ritual or symbol each situation shows.
A routine that moves him from his private self to his public self.
The gift expresses a relationship and an obligation.
A holiday ritual creates a large seasonal market.
The occasion marks a change in social status and comes with its own products.
The brand borrows the myth of the hero who overcomes a challenge.
Retirement marks a change in social status.
Which concept does this case show?
Sacred consumption involves objects and events that people set apart and treat with respect or awe.
Profane consumption involves ordinary, everyday objects that have no special status.
Objects can become sacred through sacralization, such as a signed jersey, a family heirloom, or a souvenir from a special trip.
Objects can lose sacred status through desacralization, such as a national symbol printed on cheap merchandise.
Consumers often refuse to sell sacred possessions at any price.
Is each object sacred or profane, or is it gaining or losing sacred status?
An ordinary, everyday object with no special status.
An ordinary ticket becomes sacred through a special event.
A national symbol loses sacred status on cheap commercial use.
He sets it apart, treats it with respect and refuses to sell it.
An everyday object with no special status.
A souvenir from a special trip becomes sacred.
Which concept does this case show?
A subculture is a group whose members share beliefs and experiences that set them apart from the wider culture.
Age subcultures group consumers by generation, such as Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z.
Each generation grew up with different technologies, events, and brands, which shape its media habits and preferences.
Geographic subcultures reflect regional differences in climate, food, language, and lifestyle.
Ethnic and religious subcultures share traditions, holidays, and sometimes dietary rules, such as halal or kosher food.
Marketers can reach a subculture with products and messages that respect its identity, rather than with one message for everyone.
Which kind of subculture is each marketer reaching? Sort the cards.
Tap a card, then tap the group it belongs to.
Two shoppers buy expensive coats from the same luxury label. One chooses a plain coat whose only mark is a small stitched label inside; the other chooses a coat with the brand's name printed across the back. Which description fits the slide?
Conspicuous consumption is the purchase of goods mainly to display wealth and status (Veblen, 1899).
Consumers with a strong need for status prefer luxury goods with large, visible logos. Wealthy consumers with no such need often prefer quiet designs that only other insiders recognize (Han, Nunes, & Drèze, 2010).
In many markets, growing income inequality has come with growth at both the luxury end and the discount end, while mid-priced brands lose share.
Some consumers signal status through experiences, such as travel and fine dining, rather than through objects.
Others signal status through knowledge and taste, such as expertise in coffee or wine, rather than through price.
The country-of-origin effect occurs when consumers judge a product by the country where it was made.
Consumers associate some countries with quality in certain categories, such as German cars, French perfume, or Swiss watches.
Consumer ethnocentrism is the belief that buying products from one's own country is right and buying imports is wrong (Shimp & Sharma, 1987). Ethnocentric consumers prefer domestic products even when imports are better or cheaper.
Researchers measure consumer ethnocentrism with the CETSCALE, a set of statements such as "Buy [national]-made products. Keep [the nation] working."
Marketers emphasize local origin in ethnocentric markets and play down foreign origin when it hurts the brand.
Is each consumer showing a country-of-origin effect or consumer ethnocentrism?
Tap a card, then tap the group it belongs to.
AI models are trained on large amounts of text, and much of that text comes from a small number of languages and countries.
A model can therefore carry the values of some cultures more strongly than others.
Researchers gave the CETSCALE to AI models developed in the United States, China, Canada, and France, and asked each model about consumers in each of those countries (Wadi, Ghodrat, & Philp, 2026).
The models differed in how ethnocentric their answers were overall (Wadi, Ghodrat, & Philp, 2026).
Across all models, answers were least ethnocentric when the statements were about China, and more ethnocentric when they were about the United States or Canada (Wadi, Ghodrat, & Philp, 2026).
Several models also showed a country-of-origin bias: their answers shifted in a consistent pattern for particular pairings of the model's home country and the country in the question (Wadi, Ghodrat, & Philp, 2026).
An AI assistant that recommends products to consumers around the world may carry such preferences into its recommendations.
Global brands therefore need to check how AI assistants represent their country of origin and their culture in each market.
A global coffee brand from China asks an AI assistant to describe Chinese coffee brands to shoppers in Canada. Based on the study of AI models and the CETSCALE, what should the brand do?
Choose a product you buy regularly. Would a consumer from another culture or subculture use it, give it, or display it differently? If you asked an AI assistant to recommend the same product, would its answer reflect your culture or another one?
Social Class and Status Symbols
Social class is a person's standing in society, based on income, education, and occupation.
Members of a social class tend to share values, tastes, and consumption patterns.
Class shapes taste. It influences which music, food, clothing, and leisure activities people consider good.
Status symbols are products that signal a person's position in the social hierarchy, such as luxury watches or designer bags.
Old money often signals status quietly through heritage and understated quality. New money often signals status through visible brands and logos.