Question

in 250 words, What is the difference between a low-context culture and a high-context culture? Name a country that is an example of each type and offer evidence for your answer. How would you alter your marketing strategy to appeal to these different cultures?

Answer 1

High context culture are generally relationship oriented where the group of people share a close bonding with each other for a very long period of time. On the other hand in low context culture the people are more rule orintation. Their main focus is the accomplishment of the tasks in order to reach the ultimate goal. In high context culture there is informal communication among the members and the communication takes place in a very implicit way but in case of low context culture the communication process is expicit. In high context culture the relationship are long term but in low context culture the relationships are based on the tasks and activities which lasts only for a short period of time. In high context culture the decisions are based on the relationships whereas in low context culture decisions are based on the tasks and whats to be done.

Example of high context culture is Japan and example of a low context culture is Germany.

Marketing strategies will be different for the two types of cultures.

In high context culture the marketing strategy should rely more on body languages, cultural context etc and the importance should mainly be given to human relations. But in low context culture the marketing strategy should be more formal and direct and should use a lot of explicit and written communication.