Know Your Target Market: Culture

Theme: Marketing

Grade: 6-11

Introduction

All businesses have to establish an identity for themselves in order to be set apart from competing companies. That means that they have to create a distinctive and catchy company name and logo, among other things. After the company's general goals and identity have been developed, then the company must research the market, decide on its core products, and analyze the competition.

Do you think that businesses adequately cater for culture?

Are advertising campaigns discriminating against various cultural groups?

Is there unreasonable exploitation or stereotyping of culture in advertisements?

Task

Entrepreneurship is a well-publicised theme in your school. Many learners have developed successful small companies individually or in groups in the past. Because of this your school has been approached by "a large corporation" based in South Africa for assistance with culture-based market research. They would like you to adapt "one of their existing products" so that it is more attractive to "people of a different culture ". Click here to read this note on adaptation now.

Consider the following questions:

• What do consumers of different cultures want these days?
• Are they satisfied with the way that products are culture-based?
• What kinds of sales or promotional efforts work and don't work for people of different cultures?

Your deliverables are:

1. Select one product typically aimed at a market of a specific culture and conduct market research amongst members of different cultures to find out what would make the product more attractive to the cultures other than that for which it was originally intended. For example, if clothing marketing campaigns are aimed at English-speaking men, what can be done to the product and marketing campaign to attract foreign men or African men? Choose your own example of a product.
2. Design / adapt the logo for that product to suit the new market audience.
3. Adapt the name of the product, if necessary.
4. Adapt one advertisement of the product to suit the new target audience.
5. Write a press release announcing the product.
6. In conclusion, produce a slide show presentation in which you
   1. identify the product with which you have been working, and explain why you have chosen this product
   2. use graphs to show the results of the market research for a new target audience
   3. display the new logo, with an explanation of the adaptation that you have made
   4. display the new name, with an explanation of the adaptation that you have made
   5. display the press release
   6. display the adapted advertisement, with an explanation of the adaptation that you have made.

Process

For this assignment, you will work in teams of four and you will divide your task into roles as follows (click on each role for more information):

1. Market researcher
2. Product manager
3. Graphic artist
4. Advertising agent

Resources (websites online)

Persuasive presentation template

Assessment

Conclusion

Advertising teaches us a lot about understanding people and being sensitive to stereotypes and cultural issues. During this activity you would have had the opportunity to have fun and be creative while, at the same time, you will have gained new insights into the world of marketing.