Overview

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Globalization has brought dramatic changes to the marketplace. A proliferation of global brands brings diverse cultures to a consumer population that is also culturally diverse. This course enables students to understand how globalization changes consumers at a psychological level and provides tools for infusing brands with cultural meaning that can resonate with global consumers. The focus is on understanding that culture exists in the mind as well as in the environment, and that globalization creates multi-cultural spaces in contemporary societies. Consumers can use the cultural meaning of a brand to build their identities or reject the brand’s cultural meaning. The course will help students identify when assimilation vs. exclusionary reactions are more likely to occur and to devise strategies for imbuing brands with cultural meanings that can elevate them to the status of cultural icons. You will be able to: • Understand how globalization impacts the psychological responses of consumers in global markets • Explain what culture is and how it manifests itself in business environments • Understand how brands acquire cultural meanings and predict consumers’ responses to the cultural meanings in brands • Identify strategies to win-over multi-cultural consumers in globalized markets • Practice the fundamentals of how to build an iconic brand This course is part of Gies College of Business’ suite of online programs, including the iMBA and iMSM. Learn more about admission into these programs and explore how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into a degree program at https://degrees.giesbusiness.illinois.edu/idegrees/.

Syllabus

Globalization, Culture & Brands

Globalization has brought dramatic changes to the marketplace. A proliferation of global brands brings diverse cultures to a consumer population that is also growing culturally diverse. This module discusses what globalization is, and how it is connected to four forces: growing multiculturalism, cultural mixing, global competition, and connectivity/co-creation. We will analyze what culture is, how it manifests itself, and how culture varies around the world. We will close this module by acknowledging that brands can be tangible representations of culture that embody the values and ideals of a cultural group.

Cultural Mindsets and Assimilation to a Cultural Framework

This module discusses how culture can be brought to the fore of the mind to guide our judgments and behaviors. We will learn that culture is represented in our heads as a network of elements linked to a central concept. When this network is activated in our minds, we exhibit a tendency to assimilate our behavior to what our culture prescribes.

Culture Mixing and Its Consequences

This module reviews how people respond to the juxtaposition of cultures at the same time in the same object, a phenomenon we label culture mixing. We will learn that culture mixing has both cognitive and attitudinal consequences. People can respond favorably or unfavorably to culture-mixed stimuli depending on a variety of personal and contextual factors. We will examine these factors in order to predict when people will respond positively or negatively to culture mixing.

Focusing on Culture to Build Iconic Brands

This module discusses the marketing process to build cultural equity into a brand, or to turn a brand into a cultural icon. The process consists of three stages. The first stage is acquiring a deep cultural understanding of the brand and its market, which is referred to as conducting a cultural audit. The second stage is to develop a cultural positioning, or to articulate a statement about how the brand distinctively embodies the culture. Finally, the last stage is the identification of marketing programs (promotion, product, distribution, and price) to communicate the cultural positioning.