[MUSIC] Once a cultural position has been articulated, the final step for building cultural equity is to identify and implement marketing actions and at communicate in the position. These actions include making choices about the brand visual identity, product decisions, communication strategies and pricing and channel strategies. Let us discuss each of these actions in more detail. Let's talk about choosing a culturally relevant visual identity. Market is going to use the cultural meanings evoke by the sound in a certain names to increase their associations with the evoked cultures and in turn to increase their cultural equity. For instance, with this Danish sounding name, Häagen-Dazs, the premium brand of ice cream might only reinforce its hedonic image. Thanks to the lane between Danish culture and hedonic food consumption, but also increase its symbolism of European culture. For its American owner general meals, this might offer an opportunity for leverage in cultural equity in a way that an American sounding name might not accomplish. This might be useful in some Middle Eastern markets in which European culture is appreciated better than American culture. Colors used in logos and packaging can also support our cultural positioning by creating cultural association. For instance, iconic American brands like Budweiser, Coca-Cola and Ford, all have in common the use of red, white and blue in their logos and packaging. These are the same colors of the American flag. And hence, colors that have cultural significance for Americans. Similarly, Mavesa, Pan and Savoy, iconic Venezuelan brands have in common the use of yellow, blue and red in their logos and in their packaging. Again, these are the colors of the Venezuelan flag. And hence, colors that have cultural significance for Venezuelans. Brands also can consistently adopt characters and icons to support a cultural position. For instance, Budweiser, the iconic American beer is strongly associated with Clydesdale horses used for promotions and commercials. There are several teams of horses that travel around the United States and others that remain in their official homes at the company headquarters, and Anheuser-Busch Brewery complex in St. Louis, Missouri. Television advertising featuring the Budweiser Clydesdales had been a long standing Super Bowl tradition from their first appearance in 1933 to their enduring presence on the American landscape. The Clydesdales are more than they symbol of Budweiser beer. They are the living embodiment of America's industrial spirit. Brands also carefully choose products to build cultural equity. One key aspect in the foreign expansion is to offer a product that caters to the taste and expectations of target consumers in the new market. In the same way that brands required cultural meanings, products can also gain cultural symbolism. We talk about this in some earlier videos. Certain cultural traditions involve the use of products that get imbued with the values of the culture. For instance, in America, to express that something embodies the qualities that are thought to be typical of American culture, people often use the expression is as American as apple pie. That's because an apple pie is an American icon in the same way that arepas, the corn dog made into a flat round patty that is baked or grilled are a Venezuelan icon or basmati rice is an Indian icon and perfumes are a French icon. For historic and cultural reasons certain parts become associated with the values, beliefs and ideas of a culture. That require cultural meanings can raise the level of a cultural symbol and were referred to such products that's cultural or symbolic, or iconic products. Because iconic products are loaded with cultural meanings, brands can build their cultural equity by establishing connections with such iconic products. Indeed, brands of iconic products are often times iconic brands themselves. For instance, arepas are a cultural icons for Venezuelans and Harina Pan, the market leader in the category is one of the most iconic Venezuelan brands. Similarly, jeans are considered to be an American icon and Levis enjoy a relatively high level of iconicity for Americans. So, one approach for a brand to increase its cultural equity in a foreign market is to associate itself with products that symbolize the culture of target consumers. Successful global companies pay careful attention to this product strategy in order to boost their cultural relevance. For instance, McDonald's carefully analyzes the taste and traditions in the different foreign markets in which the company operates and introduces products, specifically design to embody the cultural traditions of foreign consumers, such as rice burgers in Hong Kong or the Maharaja Mac in India. Products with cultural significance can also help a brand to heighten or reinforce its equity in existing markets. For instance, in its quest to become an American icon, one of the first product extensions undertaken by Under Armor, the American apparel brand was athletic shoes. This was a smart move given the cultural significant of athletic shoes for Americans. Our product is strongly connected to a lifetime of fitness, style and comfort. Similarly, when Budweiser, the American iconic beer introduced barbecue sauce was reinforcing the collection with American tradition of grilling and drinking beer. Brands can also used cultural symbols and ideals in their communication. Communicating culturally relevant images to build cultural equity focuses on informing consumers about the imagery associations and the cultural insights that support the brand's distinctive cultural meanings. Certain images are more culturally relevant than others are as we discussed earlier. A brand attempting to increase his cultural equity should promote images that are culturally relevant for its target market. For instance, marketers can build cultural equity among vertical individualistic consumer segments by communicating self-enhancement brand name by use of power. Social status, prestige, controller dominance over people of resources and achievement. Personal success for demonstrating competence. This is something that Toyota has try to do to established a cultural connection with American consumers in the big cup trump market in which vertical individual is as likely to be a salient cultural orientation. In one commercial, the Toyota Tundra is pulling the space shuttle. An American symbol of ingenuity and technological superiority. This commercial not only appropriates these meanings and transferred them to the brain, but also communicates the grand schema and ruggedness that characterizes American culture. In other commercials for the Tundra, Toyota has made connections to American football, the iconic American sport and highlighted values of achievement and competition which are cherished values for the vertical individualist American culture. Building cultural equity can also be done by gaining cultural insightfulness in communications. Brands can use their communication strategy to demonstrate their cultural insightfulness. This can be a powerful way of building cultural equity. For instance, in the 1970s, the Volkswagen Beetle was one of the most iconic brands in the United States, controlling about 5% of the auto market. The company reached this status by engaging American culture in a very unique way. Volkswagen capitalized on the anticonformism brewing among young Americans at the time who thought that the good life built around over consumption promoted in mainstream media was overly scripted and conformist. The brand offered consumers a car that would let them escape the pressure to adhere to suburban standards and would allow them instead to create their own stories. This cultural insight is cleverly captured in a Volkswagen ad from the 1970s with the tag line, we do our thing, you do yours. Depicted two side by side Beetles. One with a traditional black look and another colorfully decorated in an artistic pattern. The ad further states that Volkswagen's thing is to steer clear of the idiocy of annual model changes and to focus instead on perfecting its Beetle. Meanwhile, consumer's thing is to treat their Beetle like something else. To scrub them, stripe them and flower them in very far out ways or to treat it as a new member of the family that happens to live in the garage. Volkswagen was in fact, empowering consumers to create their own stories with their cars rather than relying on mass marketers to do so. How a company decides to price and distribute its products and services can also help support the cultural positioning of the brand. For example, Polar, an iconic Venezuelian beer leverage it channel strategy in its quest to become a cultural icon for Venezuelans. The firm did so by establishing a complex distribution network of independent truck owners, franchisees for delivering beer in the shanty towns of Caracas and other big cities. Areas that traditional distribution channels can hardly reach. Because a sizable segment of the population lives in such an accessible area, it is important for Polar to establish a closer connection with consumers in these areas in order to support its cultural meaning for all Venezuelans. A pricing strategy can also be used to reinforce a brand's cultural positioning. The price that a product commands can serve as a signal to its intrinsic value to consumers. Often, pricing decisions are inherent in a brand positioning statement. In these instances, companies need to ensure that pricing decisions are aligned with the brand positioning. For instance, Target, the American retailer. As a position, it is a mass merchandiser of a stylish but affordable goods. Implying that products sold at Target stores should be priced slightly higher than those sold at Walmart stores that adopts an everyday low price strategy, but lower than those in more upper scale department stores such as Macy's. Implementation of social price and strategy helping an image that appeals to consumers who are young, educated, down to Earth, mainly women who value stylish merchandise. I want to do an exercise to illustrate how to develop a communication strategy to build cultural equity. I want you to watch these three NASCAR commercials. And as you watch the commercials, I want you to think first, what are the themes in the different commercials? How are these themes aligned with the values and ideas nurtured in American culture? Are there specific American symbols and objects that are used to imbue NASCAR with cultural meanings? Now, I'll let you watch the NASCAR commercials. In all of the commercials, the central theme is competition and winning. This makes sense, given that NASCAR is all about racing. But also remember that NASCAR stands for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. However, these commercials also emphasized the emotional and personal aspects of competing and winning in different familiar contexts between siblings, between coworkers and even between romantic partners. They also highlight the feelings of accomplishment, pride and superiority as well as the social recognition enjoyed by winners. These are all themes that align perfectly with self-enhancement values of personal success and achievement nurtured in the vertical individualistic American culture. One of the commercials further incorporates specific American symbols and objects, such as the American flag, riding a bull or an electric guitar. The use of these symbols further strengthens the Americanness of NASCAR. So, what do we learn in this video? First, building cultural equity implies aligning all the marketing actions to communicate the brand's cultural position. Examples of this action are choosing a culturally relevant visual identity. Making product decisions that reinforce the cultural significance of the brand. Adopting a communication strategy that connects with culturally relevant symbols, values and ideals. And finally, implementing channel and price strategies that reinforce cultural equity. [SOUND]
