Ethnomarketing, the cultural dimension of marketing*

Ethnomarketing, the cultural
dimension of marketing*
Dagoberto Páramo Morales
PhD (c) Université de Genève. M.A degree at Tulane University. MBA in Inter-
nacional Managernent from Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. Under-
graduate program in Marketing at UNEVMAC, México. Teacher and coordinator
of the Marketing Research Groupat Universidad del Norte (MRG). Barranquilla
(Colombia). dparamo@uninorte. edu.co
Abstract
In this paper a new and revolutionary marketing approach named ethnomarketing
is proposed. Reaffirming marketing con textual character in which culture is assumed to
conduct and guide the entrepreneurial success, main ethnomarketing characteristics are
presented. First, ethnomarketing principal features are described, emphasizing its four
epistemological foundations: ethnicity, ethnoconsumerism, cultural dimensions of markets,
and marketed oriented organizational culture. Second, postulates of ethnomarketing are
mentioned. Third, ethnomarketing strategic matrix elements are shown, highlighting
the three marketing functions to be fulfilled: to comprehend consumers, to conquer cus-
tomers, and conserve clients. Fourth, ethnomarketing and organization relationships are
formulated. Fifth, ethnomarketingand ethnography’s mutual influences are explicained.
Sixth, the main strengths of ethnomaketing are presented. Finally, some ethnomarketing
research implications are suggested.
Key words: Ethnomarketing, culture and marketing, ethnography and ethnomarket-
ing, cultural dimension of market, ethnomarketing’s postulates.
Resumen
En este artículo se propone una nueva y revolucionaria aproximación conceptual
denominada etnomarketing. Reafirmando el carácter contextual del marketing en el cual
la cultura es vista como la guía del éxito empresarial, se presentan las características del
etnomarketing. Primero, se describen los principales rasgos del marketing, enfatizando sus
fundamentos epistemológicos: la etnicidad, el etnoconsumo, la dimensión cultural de los
mercados y las culturas organizacionales orientadas al mercado. Segundo, se mencionan los
postulados del etnomarketing. Tercero, se muestra la matriz estratégica del etnomarketing
resaltando las tres funciones del marketing que deben ser tenidas en cuenta: compren-
der consumidores, conquistar compradores y conservar clientes. Cuarto, se precisan las
Fecha de recepción: 10 de diciembre de 2004
Fecha de aceptación: 10 de abril de 2005
* Paper accepted for presentation at the 2004 Academy of Marketing Science Cultural Perspectives
on Marketing Conference held at the Universidad de las Américas Campus in Puebla, Mexico.
pensamiento y gestión, N° 18
ISSN 1657-6276

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interrelaciones existentes entre el etnomarketing y la organización. Quinto, se explican
las mutuas influencias entre la etnografía y el etnomarketing. Sexto, se registran las prin-
cipales fortalezas del etnomarketing. Finalmente, se sugieren algunas implicaciones del
etnomarketing en la investigación académica.
Palabras claves: Etnomarketing, cultura y marketing, etnografia y etnomarketing,
dimensión cultural de los mercados, postulados del ethnomarketing.
INTRODUCTION
According to new tendencies viewing marketing as a social process, a broad
epistemological trend supported by the relativistic paradigm has emerged.
Culture has been recognized as the main backstage where consumption be-
haviors are assumed and where certain products have acquired a particular
symbolism (Lindridge and Dibb, 2003). As a result, beyond instrumental,
sociological, social, mutual benefice exchanges and strategic, administrative
and market engineering considerations (Páramo, 2004b), a tendency in the
academic and research community worldwide to think about marketing in a
cultural framework has emerged in the last few decades. (Douglas and Isher-
wood, 1979, Arnould and Wallendorf, 1994, Páramo, 2000a, 2000b).
In contrast with the one-country paradigm, this propensity suggests that
societies are subculturally determined to a large extent and that almost all
countries consist of distinct subcultures (Japan, is an exception) (Rao, 1997).
In fact, the past 20 years have witnessed increasing interest in cross-cultural
differences between ethnic groups and their implications for marketing
strategy using ethnicity and culture as segmentation criteria.
Apart from some research in multicultural Australia (Pires, 1999), very
little has been done to conceive and develop the marketing process in coun-
tries with cultural diversity in their historical traditions. There is a lack of
cultural marketing studies in the majority of Latin American countries,
where there is a convergence of native, African and European ancestry with
different shades and mixture).
Faced with the necessity mainly experienced by small and mediumsize
organizations to incorporate culture in their process of conception, imple-
mentation and control of marketing activities as an organizational philoso-
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phy, ethnomarketing has emerged as an alternative approach. Reaffuming
marketing’s con textual character, in which culture is assumed to conduct and
guide the entrepreneurial success, the main ethnomarketing characteristics
are presented. First, ethnomarketing’s principal features are described em-
phasizing its four epistemological foundations: ethnicity, ethnoconsumerism,
cultural dimensions of markets, and marketing-oriented organizational culture.
Second, postulates of ethnomarketing are mentioned. Third, ethnomarket-
ing strategic matrix elements are shown, highlighting the three marketing
functions to be fulfilled: to compre hend consumers, to conquer customers
and conserve clients. Fourth, ethnomarketing and organizational relationship
are formulated. Fifth, ethnomarketing and ethnography’s mutual influences
are stipulated. Sixth, the main strengths of ethnomaketing are presented.
Seventh, some ethnomarketing research implications are suggested.
1. ETHNOMARKETING
Ethnomarketing begins by recognizing culture as the frame and the essence
driving contemporary businesses. In the same context, consumer behavior,
organization decisions and the market dynamism in which an enterprise
develops its activities, are analyzed under cultural dimensions. Anthropologi-
cal and ethnographic contributions characterizing consumption cultures are
also considered.
Under the revealing lens of culture (Schein, 1985) with all its symbolic
charges printed over human conduct, consumers, customers, clients, entre-
preneurs, employees, government agents, intermediaries, and artifacts, prod-
ucts and mutual benefice exchanges, ethnomarketing discovers the hidden
predominant values and beliefs supported by an in-depth underlying world
located at the heart of our cultural roots (Figure 1).
Under the former cultural approach, it is plausible to accept marketing
as a cultural expression rather than a technical one. Products (artifacts) are
exchanged (marketed) between persons. Products are charged with symbolic
meanings installed in the culturally constituted world. Consumers, customers,
and clients (market demand agents) are linked to entrepreneurs, employees,
and competitors (supply market agents) through agents and distributors
(intermediary market agents), regulated by persons who work for private
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and public institutions (regulation market agents). All of them act as human
beings, rather than commercial beings, prompted by their values and beliefs,
and by their deeper underlying world.
conduct
&
artifacts
values
&
beliefs
underlying
world
Figure 1
Culture levels (Schein, 1985)
In this sense, ethnomarketing has been visualized as the social process in
which, from the point of view of the human groups, it conceives and imple-
ments the three main functions of marketing: to comprehand consumers,
to conquer customers (buyers) and to conserve clients1. Thus, the consumer
is a person for whom every product is conceived, the customer is a person
who acquires a product, and the client is a person who routindy purchases a
product. All of these functions are grouped in a strategic matrix where the
dispersed efforts of the modern businesses are accumulated. Ethnomarketing
is conceived as marketing for homogeneous ethnic groups under the great
cultural diversity that characterizes current cultures (Páramo, 2004a).
1 We prefer to use this classification for nemotecnie reasons. Eaeh word begins with the letter
“c”.
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Accepting this revolutionary and irreverent way of seeing the fundamentals
of marketing, ethnomarketing breaks the traditional and ancient marketing
view from the classic marketing mix approach into thousands of fragments (4
P’s model). Under that old marketing concept much damage has been caused
both to businesses and academic worlds when trying to reduce marketing
processes to a universal formula with superficial variations in its four main
ingredients (Gronroos, 1994, 1997), without paying enough attention to
the radical adjustments having to do with considering current competitive
surroundings.
The ethnomarketing proposal has been supported on four central grounds:
first, the extensive debate around the historical-temporal ethnicity construct
with two sets of principIes operatingwithin every human group: the inclusion-
ary-exclusionary principle, and the difference-identity principIe (Costa and
Basmossy, 1995); second, Ethnoconsumerism understood as the study of
consumption from the point of view of the social group or cultural group that
is the object of study (Venkatesh, 1995); third, markets’ cultural dimensions
where objects, norms and exchange parts acquire meaning only within a certain
culture (Spillman, 1999), and fourth, market oriented organizational cultures
(MOOC model) in which marketing assumes a prominent role as the main
axis of every enterprise strategy (Páramo, 1998a), as supported in different
prior work (Narver and Slater, 1990; Kohlí and Jaworsky, 1990).
1.1. Ethnicity
Several approaches developed in the social sciences involving ethnic topics are
vast and complex, although from a marketing point of view in-depth anthro-
pological and sociological perspectives on ethnicity as a social phenomenon are
preferred. Thus, ethnicity is a concept of individual and group identity that
“embraces differences identified by color, language, religion or some attributes
of common origin” (Horowitz, 1985). As a theoretical construct ethnicity
has acquired a central position in cultural studies establishing separate status
for people operating within differentiated groups. Despite the undeniable
importance that ethnicity has gained in marketing, there are still some ques-
tions about who defines it and what its borders are. Several researchers (Barth,
1969; De Vos, 1975) affirm that the basis of ethnicity is self-identification of
the members mediated by the perception of the others.
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From a marketing perspective most of the ethnicity studies deal with
ethnicity as a complex social structure wherein the distinct ethnic values of a
group are linked to consumer behavior. The majority of these studies involve
ethnic groups living in developed country markets. Often these studies deal
with processes of acculturation. Within the marketing discipline, literature,
training, and epistemological paradigms, the focus is on learning to assess
what is, in fact, culturally relevant outside the researcher’s own culture. As a
result, much of the literature has tended to be parochial and/ or ethnocentric
in its perspective (Arnold and Bamossy, 1995)
1.2. Ethnoconsumerism
Putting together cultural, social, and individual aspects under the same
analytical framework, Venkatesh (1995) the “ethnoconsumerism” construct
is proposed. It is conceived as the study of consumption from the point of
view of the social group or the cultural group to which one belongs. This
new paradigm about consumer behavior uses theoretical categories originated
within a given culture. Ethnoconsumerism is envisioned as the study of con-
sumption from the point of the cultural order in question, using categories
of behavior and thought that are native to the culture. Ethnos means nation
and people, and consumerism is used in the classical sense of consumption
as a set of cultural practices. Consumerism is not to be mistaken for concepts
such as consumer activism, consumer rights, and so forth.
Ethnoconsumerism follows the intellectual traditions of comparative
methods and cross-cultural studies, but it differs from existing versions of
these studies in several aspects. Ethnoconsumerism is not a method, as the
others tend to be, although cross-cultural comparisons can and must be made.
Ethnoconsumerism begins with basic cultural categories of a given culture
and studies the actions, the practices, the words, the thoughts, the language,
the institutions, and the interconnections between these categories.
After reviewing many research experiences developed by several ethnic
and cross-cultural studies, ethnoconsumerism forces the researcher to contem-
plate the person not as an individual but as a cultural being, as being a part
of a culture, a subculture and other group affiliations. Ethnoconsumerism
combines the study of the consumer with value systems, symbolic beliefs
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systems, rituals and daily practices. All of them are intertwined in a holistic
consumer vision. The ethnoconsumerism approach has several levels:
1) The study of the cultural level (symbolic and beliefs systems and, norms
and ritualistic practices)
2) The study of the social level (social organization, social institutions, etc)
3) The study of the individual level (personality, cognition, behavior, mental
constructs, etc).
1.3. Cultural dimensions of markets
Undoubtedly postmodern thought yields ideas that help to foster a better
understanding of markets; in particular, of the dynamism of markets, and
the interplay between firms and their environments on which this dynamism
is based. The basic ideas of postmodernism are that the individual does not
have an autonomous consciousness but needs communicative interaction
with others to develop his or her own identity; that meanings are not given
prior to communication but arise from it and are context-dependent; that
there is no universal and permanent meaning, but at best only a local and
temporary unity of meaning and consensus on the rules of the game, which
are continually broken and shifted in an ongoing process of differentiation
and change. (Nooteboom, 1992)
Under this approach the markets are like processes in continual construc-
tion and must be seen from the perspective of assigning meaning to the
objects in the exchange process (commodification and decommodification),
to exchange parties (markets social imaginary), and to the norms of market
exchanges (Spillman, 1999).
• Cultural construction of objects of market exchange. Although this process
tends to be taken for granted by economists and some economic sociolo-
gists, the goods and services that can legitimately be sold in markets vary
widely both historically and cross-culturally. These products have suffered
cultural commodification or decommodification processes from their
original conception. This legitimating social process differs among the
different existing cultures in the world and corresponds unequivocally to
values, beliefs, and dominant cultural assumptions. It is conceivable that
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the execution of this process of meaning assigned to a product – a good,
service, or idea – by the set of people who use it, maintains a narrowly
prescribed relation with the predominant cultural patterns. It has to be
understood that this legitimating social process is related to the cultural
dynamics in which these products are situated. Likewise, the existence
of a series of symbols in the culturally constituted world, allows market-
ing professionals to define some of the symbols to be used to introduce,
conserve, or take a product out from the market.
• Cultural construction of parties to market exchange. Spillman (1999) has la-
beled this social construction process of creating meaning by the parties
to market exchange: “The social imaginary of the market”. Contrary to the
general thought and practice on marketing, it suggests that transactions
are not carried out by the individual alone but within groups (organiza-
tional, corporations, sections, nations, families, committees of purchases,
for example) or by people who represent a given group. Most importantly,
but simultaneously less recognized, is the ranking that traditionally has
been assigned to this social imaginary of the “other” as the counterpart
to the transaction in the market. These potential counterparts can be
implicitly or explicitly delimited by geographic, demographic, ethnic, or
racial aspects, as well as gender, nationality, and based on existing social
networks and social classes. In regard to social classes, perhaps this is the
most used marketing category through the well-known concept of social
mobility with which potential “others” can acquire those products that
symbolically allow them to see themselves as becoming better, almost as
being part of a more elevated social class with more privileges and with
greater refinement. This is a component of Veblen’s (1899) conspicuous
consumption (emulation).
• Cultural construction of norms of exehange. This construction refers to the
interpretation of the norms as well as to the ways in which, formally
or informally, these norms are judged or used to sanction or to award
someone. Specifically it refers to that which is considered “natural” in a
given market as well as to those things that symbolize success and failure.
Typically within a market exchange activities should be characterized as a
clear competition between buyers and salesmen. These parties to the same
transaction within lucrative organizations are directly related to market
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agents who interpret and evaluate any transactions carried out under the
social protection of such rules. What is implied by this prescriptive’s optics
is that through the prizes and punishments schema it is possible to construct
rules that impose and establish the limits of every executed transaction.
It is expected that rituals associated with such norms of behavior symbol-
ize this regulation of conduct and human acts (Páramo and Díaz, 2004).
These norms, in their turn, have been stereotyped by people who use and
practice them, and also come to be seen as laws of implacable application
within which no opposing claims are permitted. Market agents’ behaviors
–supply, demand, regulation, and intermediation– are watched by society
members who in an open or a hidden way are in charge of fortifying and
defending them.
1.4. Market oriented organizational cultures
Studying organizational culture as a source of sustained competitive ad-
vantages, Barney (1986) analyzed such cultures as a valuable, rare and im-
perfectly imitable resource. Consequently, the implementation of a specific
organizational culture can become a source of superior sustained financial
performance for the organization that manages, consolidates and maintains
it. Among the modern forms of organizational cultures emerge those with
a specific market orientation, suggesting that a business with an increased
understanding of market requirements can improve its global performance
(Narver and Slater, 1990).
It seems to be clear that during the devdopment of the change processes
carried out within any organization symbols can acquire new and potential
idiosyncratic connotations (Barley, 1983). These symbols like language,
besides being itself an integrating force of values and beliefs and expressions
and forms to make things, allow that every member of any organization shares
strategies, processes, and policies. It is for that reason why it becomes essen-
tial to construct a common language among the employees with respect to
which a market oriented organizational culture implies in contrast to which
traditionally has been believed
To establish a market orientation within an organizational culture is rela-
ted, definitively, to the implementation of the marketing concept in the whole
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organization (Narver and Slater, 1990). In other words, trying to create or to
drive a market-oriented organizational culture implies efforts to instill the
marketing concept as always present in every functional unit that comprises
the organization. This means that in order to be successful, a market oriented
organization needs to construct long term relationships, implementing
strategies that allow potential consumers to be converted into loyal clients,
one of the essential postulates of the marketing concept. In order to achieve
this state of client loyalty, an organization must have a close knowledge of
its counterparts’ needs in each of the different moments in which the orga-
nization builds exchange relationships: before (pre-transactional exchange),
during (transactional exchange) and after (post -transactional exchange) the
process is executed (Páramo, 1998b).
Accepting the former approach, any market-oriented organization must
operate by considering the three components of behavior –client, competition,
and inter-functional coordination–, and the two decision criteria –long term
and profitability– that characterize all kinds of market orientation (Narver
and Slater, 1990). Thus a market oriented organizational culture is defined
as “a set of behaviors, myths, rites, rituals, symbols, beliefs, assumptions, and
mainly values, that allow the organization to place the client in the center of
its activities, to know its present and future competitors, to coordinate suit-
ably its internal activities, to make the decisions in a long term perspective
and not to forget its agreed profitability according to its own plans and needs
previously determined” (Páramo, 1998a).
2. POSTULATES OF ETHNOMARKETING
Within the framework of uncertainties and multiple paths to cope with the
consumer, ethnomarketing (as a discipline of thought and organizational action
in which culture, understood from an anthropological and an ethnographic
perspectives) and is taken as an overwhelming mechanism that stimulates
and answers commercial relationships and produces almost unconquerable
market segments. It is supported on the following postulates (Páramo, 2000a;
2004b):
• Marketing conception and practice are inscribed in the relativistic scien-
tific paradigm, in open opposition to –not complementary with– the
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