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Marketing Across Cultures
Book

Marketing Across Cultures

Capstone, 2004 more...

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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Peter Woolliams’ and Fons Trompenaars’ academically-oriented marketing book attempts to use theoretical research to explain why global marketing campaigns succeed or fail. Their chapters on the inherent differences among audiences in an array of countries provide great examples of cultural idiosyncrasies. However, the book sometimes stalls when the authors cite academic research to illuminate various points. For example, the authors make confusing distinctions between "ethnic," "multi-ethnic" and racial marketing that may be better suited for an anthropology text than a marketing guide. The chapter on Internet market is similarly flawed. However, the authors prove their point: global marketing studies offer domestic marketers new ways to reinvigorate their global business campaigns and illustrate some pitfalls to avoid. Thus, getAbstract recommends this book not as a how-to manual but as a source of relevant background for marketing managers and executives.

Take-Aways

  • Cultures are systems of shared meanings.
  • To be useful, market research must understand a culture’s system of meaning.
  • Global marketing management is still torn between centralized and localized control.

About the Authors

Fons Trompenaars is director of Trompenaars Hampden-Turner, an intercultural management firm. He is the author and co-author of several books, including, Did the Pedestrian Die? and Riding the Waves of Culture. Peter Woolliams is professor of international business at Anglia Business School. He is also an owner-partner in Trompenaars Hampden-Turner.