Cultural Marketing helps your brand to reach your ideal target audience
Cultural Marketing is a specific type of marketing that focuses on promoting your product or service to a specific group of people belonging to a particular culture or demographic.
Cultural Marketing specifically caters to the social nuances that varies from country to country and from culture to culture. Successful brands conceptualise different campaigns based on the social behaviour, culture or demographics of a society. You might have observed that sometimes there are ads related to ‘insider jokes’ that only people from a certain socio-cultural background would understand (think: Amul’s famous ads), ads based on cultural preferences in food, dressing code, etc. (a woman in a bikini versus a woman in a burkha), using local languages on social media, or ads based on festivals such as Diwali (check out our favorite Diwali 2017 campaigns).
Marketing campaigns that pay attention to religious or cultural nuances of the society are more relevant to the audience and therefore more successful.
In India, a country that is united by diversity, brands must ensure culture-appropriate marketing in their strategies to capture the target market and engage customers.
Some of the best examples of international brands adopting Cultural Marketing to reach their Indian audience are:
Coca Cola-
This company has always given a cultural touch to its ads to reach out to its audience like using local languages, showing the essence of Indian festivals like Diwali in their ads, presenting itself as a relaxing drink to fight off the hot and humid Indian weather. Coca Cola, in the first decade of its introduction, came up with a lot of jingles for its brand like “Pee Le Coca Cola”, “Thanda Matlab Coca Cola” and “Jo Chaahe Ho Jaye, Coca Cola Enjoy” which became very popular amongst the people.
Lufthansa and British Airways-
Lufthansa India’s tagline “More Indian than you think” and British Airways’ ad “Fuelled by Love” are both brilliant examples to show how they positioned themselves as leading brands in the Indian aviation industry. They beautifully portrayed the Indian culture their ads, instantly connecting with the people of India.
Although many companies hit a bullseye using cultural marketing, some use this strategy in the worst possible way that causes major blunders. Let’s learn from their mistakes:
Idea Mobile Network-
Idea’s ad for population control received a lot of flak and criticism from everyone. It was one of the most poorly executed ads about how people can find other sources of entertainment like using their internet to curb the increasing population in India.
Fair and Lovely-
Fair and Lovely’s racist ads have always targeted the dark skinned Indian female and male audience. In their ads, they have portrayed how men and women get attention from the opposite sex, job offers, etc. after they apply their cream which makes them look fair.
Recognize cultural differences and nuances in your target market and customize your marketing strategy with campaigns that your audience can relate to. In a country like India, culture plays a very important role and you cannot ignore the demographic, cultural and religious differences in this target market.
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