Intercultural Marketing. The Impact of Culture on the Marketing-Mix

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 2.3, University of Applied Sciences Wiesbaden Rüsselsheim Geisenheim, language: English, abstract: The objective of this presented bachelor thesis is to demonstrate how culture affects international marketing activities, thus portray the marketing intercultural branch. In other words, the reader will gain an idea of the importance of culture in the strategic marketing planning. From a marketing point of view, it is recognizable that worldwide interdependence of economies has partly created homogeneity of business operations, but the world is still comprised of cultural differences and specificity and various consumer behaviors and needs. Bearing this fact in mind, enterprises integrate culture more and more into international marketing activities, especially when doing business in an environment full of cultural diversity. The question of a strategic choice is raised at this point. Active international corporations have to decide whether to standardize or to adapt to marketing-mix activities. This leads to the following questions: which factors determine businesses choice for a differentiated or a standardized strategy in marketing mix activities? To what extent can companies standardize goods and services? Is standardization relevant for all marketing mix activities and for all foreign target markets? Is it a necessary for the active international firm to adapt their activities to each national culture? How important is the impact of culture on marketing-mix? The presented paper will provide some preliminary answers to these questions with an emphasis on marketing-mix elements and will investigate whether and to what extent culture should be considered as a strategic key success factor.