Clotaire Rapaille eloquently showed that Lego found reconciliation in combining boxes for the international markets:
Lego repositioned itself as a source of developing creativity and imagination. If they explained, however, that with one box of Lego there exist infinite possibilities, consumers would only buy one box, creating a loop. Lego needed to create a spiral, with possibilities for children to create more with two boxes than one, and still more with three than two. Instead of an instruction booklet, they needed a growth map, showing a child's creativity growing from one box to the next.
(Rapaille, 2001)
This dilemma is illustrated in Figure 2.3.
Figure 2.3: The universal-particular dilemma
THE DILEMMA BETWEEN INDIVIDUALISM AND COMMUNITARIANISM
The next of our dimensions covering how people relate to others concerns the conflict between what we want as individuals and the interests of the group to which we belong. Do we relate to others by discovering what each one of us individually wants and then trying to negotiate around the differences, or do we place ahead of this some shared concept of public and collective good? Everyone goes through these cycles, though people start from different points and think of them as ends or means. An individualist culture sees the individual as the end, and improvements to collective arrangements as the means of achieving it. A communitarian culture sees the group as its end, and improvements to individual capacities as the means to that end. But if the relationship is truly circular the decision to call one element an end and another a means is arbitrary.
This second dimension similarly gives rise to a number of key dilemmas. Is marketing concerned with satisfying individual customer needs and preferences, or is the focus on creating a trend or fashion that is adopted by a group? Individuals will then purchase to show that they have joined the group by following the shared trend. From the customer's perspective, do we relate to others by discovering what each one of us individually wants, or do we place ahead of this some shared concept which we can identify with and feel part of? Figure 2.4 shows the relative orientation of a number of countries along this dimension.
Figure 2.4: Relative degree of indivualism-communitarianism for a number of selected countries
Advertisements and Commercials in China
The impact of the communitarian values of Chinese culture on the marketing of consumer goods is rather straightforward. Most goods are best positioned in a family or family-like collective environment. Family-like collectives frequently used in advertisements are colleagues, members of a sports team, or classmates at school. Within the collectives, the leading people are often given some special attention or a special role.
Celebrating the Family in Advertising
The communitarian orientation of the French reveals itself very clearly in some of its products and in the way they are advertised. Well known products are the Renault Espace (a family car) and family vacations organized by Club Mediterranée (better known as Club Med). After an initial rejection by the entire auto industry, Renault, the largest French manufacturer, showed persistence in the development and later very successful sales of the first compact family car. It was advertised as one that united families going on vacations. The enormous success of Club Med is also indicative of French communitarianism through family life. The whole business idea is to offer vacations for families, including grandparents, in a luxurious environment. This is very French indeed.
TV Advertising in Germany
Until the early 1980s all television in Germany was public. It was financed by public television fees and advertisements were limited to short slots in the early evening. However after the introduction of private channels during the 80s, the amount of television advertising has increased quite significantly. Nonetheless, in comparison with other countries, it is still fairly limited; overall Germany is probably one of the countries with the least amount of TV advertising. Printed ads are much more common. In general, advertising expenditures in Germany are much lower than in most other countries. Compared to the United States, for example, the amount spent on advertising is significantly lower.
Comparative Advertising
Comparative advertising, while common in some countries, is illegal in France. In the US this is a common practice; individualistic America has a tradition of overtly competing products. In contrast comparative advertising is seen as humiliating by the communitarian French. Under paragraph 1382 of the French civil code it is forbidden to compare products publicly, even in cases where there is only a slight bias or where the comparison is correct.
The Public Regulation of Distribution
In marketing products on the German market, companies have to deal with a set of public regulations that may often seem rather restrictive. First, there is a law against unfair competition (Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb). This prohibits some of the more aggressive strategies to gain market entry and increase market share and sprang out of the strong tradition of cartels and "interest communities" that were active in Germany up until the Second World War. These groups were set up to hinder cutthroat competition with its potentially negative effect on the economy as a whole.
Although cartels and similar practices are now prohibited and tightly watched by the monopoly commission in Berlin, the notion that competition should not be too fierce and the push to avoid destabilizing effects on the economy are still rather strong and permeate public regulation. In general, public regulation is geared to pursuing public goals and not to fostering the free working of market forces. Planning restrictions are often used to channel behavior towards such goals. It may, for example, be rather difficult for a company to get a planning permit for a large out-of-town retail development as authorities are trying to protect shopping facilities in city centers. Retailers often have a tough time dealing with these kinds of constraints in Germany. After unification, the situation was different for a while in East Germany, and planning permits were generously granted. However, the situation there is now becoming more like that in the former West Germany.
Another frequently discussed restriction in Germany concerns the relatively short official shopping hours. Recently, these restrictions have been somewhat liberalized as a result of increased pressure.
"Uneconomic" Levels of Service in Japan
In Japanese business, good service can be taken to what westerners sometimes consider "uneconomic" levels. For example, a woman asks for a shade of lipstick that is out of stock in a drugstore. She is invited to sit down, offered tea perhaps, and a dispatch rider is sent from the wholesaler with the particular color she wants. Western economists would tell you that such high levels of service are not economically justified; the cost of delivery would lose the druggist at least 500 yen.