Through the use of functions of the family as well as emotional appeals advertising, marketers are able to identify unique segments of the market to target. They can also examine the main decision-makers within a household and develop products or services which meet their needs. Through the study of consumer behaviour and these two aspects of marketing, exporting opportunities such as the purchasing of luxury items due to dual-working couples can occur. If a marketer is able to spot these opportunities early, they can make full use of their research and knowledge to gain the best result possible.
Introduction Through the study of consumer behaviour, marketers gain the ability to understand what drives individual behaviours, needs and wants. This basic concept is relied upon by marketers to successfully position goods and services in the market by appealing to their target markets and fulfilling their needs and wants. Two aspects involved in consumer behaviour which allow marketers to identify consumers in their social and cultural setting include emotional advertising appeals and the theory behind functions of the family.These two aspects of consumer behaviour will be analysed under two significantly different cultures – Australia and South Korea.
Through the examination of two varying cultures, individual differences can be distinguished aiding in the development of future consumer behaviour and marketing strategies. A sufficient knowledge of these two aspects of consumer behaviour will also provide crucial information for Australian businesspeople looking to export products internationally.Functions of the Family Throughout the literature, four basic functions of a family are demonstrated. Each of these represents a way in which an individual benefits from being part of a family household. The four functions of a family include family-member socialisation; economic well-being; emotional support; and provision of a family lifestyle (Schiffman, O’Cass, Paladino, D’Alessandro and Bednall, 2011). As discussed later, each of these functions aid in the support and growth of an individual through the family life cycle and provide knowledge and experience relevant to future purchasing power.
The knowledge of the different functions of the family is crucial to marketers targeting a family segment as knowing how individuals in the family are influenced can be utilised to position certain products strongly in the mind of the primary household decision-maker (Leonard, 1979). Without this prior knowledge, advertising strategies may be directed towards individuals of the family whom take little responsibilities for household purchasing decisions, causing the strategy to be ineffective and provide little return on investment.Socialisation of Family Members Consumer socialisation can be described as “the process by which people acquire skills, knowledge, attitudes and preferences relevant to their own functioning and participation in the marketplace” (Schiffman et al., 2011).
Whilst the majority of socialisation occurs during childhood and adolescence, it is an ongoing process throughout an individual’s entire life (Schiffman et al., 2011).In childhood, socialisation occurs within the family unit, as children are taught through observation of their parents and older siblings. However, as children reach adolescence their friends and peers become the stronger model of consumption behaviour (Schiffman et al.
, 2011). Carlson and Grossbart (1988) demonstrate how parental style results in significant changes to the child consumer socialisation process. This model can be applied to show the differences in child socialisation between Australia and South Korea.In Australia, due to the nuclear family structure, parents tend to be less authoritarian and more democratic or permissive. In contrast, the traditional ‘stem’ family structure where the parents of the husband live with the eldest son and his family, means that parents of the eldest son tend to be more authoritative in order to secure a strong future for their children who will look after them in old age (Myung-hye, 1993).
The result of this is that authoritarian parents tend to have less active roles in the children’s socialisation as consumers, which can lead to less consumer scepticism.Economic Wellbeing The term well-being can be defined as “a good or satisfactory condition of existence or a state characterized by health, happiness, and prosperity” (Schiffman et al., 2011). Marketers must understand the changing economic roles of both parents and children in order to understand each family member’s responsibility for economic security. It can be illustrated through working population rates between men and women in Australia and South Korea that there are many differences.
In Australia the proportion of women working in 1979 was 40% but this rate has increased to 55% in 2009, and the proportion of men working has been decreased from 74% to 68% over the same period (Labour Force, 2011). Similarly, there is a substantial increase in the proportion of women in the workforce in South Korea (Statistics Korea, 1996). Whilst the rates of working women have risen in both countries, differences arise with regard to the home and decision-making.Men in Australia have been reported to be participating in more household chores than ever, and make large economic decisions jointly (Schiffman et al.
, 2011), however in South Korea, women still participate in more than 80% of household chores, and report less involvement in important decision making (Park and Cho, 1995). This strongly implicates marketers in the sense of economic wellbeing as if women in South Korea are less likely to participate in joint decision-making, advertising should potentially target men instead.Emotional Support A family provides emotional support through love, affection and intimacy, in order to help each other cope with personal and social problems (Schiffman et al., 2011).
Whilst emotional support for family members is a universal concept, the people who are most likely to give this emotional support differ greatly between Australia and South Korea. The nuclear family structure, whilst decreasing in prevalence is still the most common family structure in Australia, and much more common than the extended family or stem family which is commonly seen in Asian countries (Schiffman et al., 2011).Jaerim (2010) explains how grandmothers living in South Korea with their children and grandchildren are much more likely to provide child care and intergenerational support. This occurrence is very common in South Korea due to the large prevalence of stem families. Australian families however are more likely to provide emotional support between the parents and children.
Grandparents still play a vital role in emotional support however due to the movement towards nuclear family structures from extended families, this type of support is less prevalent than in South Korea (Schiffman et al., 2011).Provision of Family Lifestyle Family lifestyles have changed dramatically in recent years due to the higher prevalence of women in the workplace, and increasing time pressures. As a result many marketers aim products to help families find a work-life balance that suits them and make the most of available time (Schiffman et al., 2011).
Whilst most western countries strive for the perfect work-life balance, South Korea is very different. According to the Korean Times (2010), Koreans work 30% more hours than the average country. This is a vast difference as the family lifestyle in South Korea involves much less time spent together than Australia. The result of this vast difference is that children spend less time with their parents, in particular the fathers and a lot more time with their grandparents.Emotional Advertising Appeals Within any market segment, there are individuals who respond differently to the diverse range of advertising appeals used by marketers.
Many consumers prefer advertising containing factual information and definitive numbers to aid their decision-making, whilst others prefer emotional appeal advertising. For an advertiser, the choice between using emotional or factual appeals depends on the audience being targeted and their level of cognitive thinking throughout the purchasing process (Leonidou and Leonidou, 2009).Emotional advertising appeals include the use of fear, humour, agony, sex and abrasive advertising to effectively communicate with the target audience (Schiffman et al., 2011).
Marketers must determine the purpose of the advertisement and target audience for any given advertising campaign to assess if emotional advertising is appropriate. For example, factual advertising is unlikely to be used for advertisements such as anti-smoking campaigns. Through the use of emotional appeals such as agony advertising, a marketer can more effectively display the positives or negatives associated with a product.Research has shown that emotional advertising has shown significant success with less educated audiences but effectiveness is diminished for educated audiences (BulBul and Menon, 2010). The theory behind emotional advertising is crucial to marketers and the study of consumer behaviour as it provides a useful framework to implement a plethora of advertising strategies (Schiffman et al.
, 2011). It is firstly important for marketers to understand the nature of their target audience – do they prefer emotional or factual advertising? If a marketer is able to correctly identify their target audience and the most effective means of advertising to them, effective use of emotional appeals in advertising can provide profitable support.Fear Appeals Fear appeals work by compelling the market to either act or refrain from acting by showing the consequences as negative and undesirable. Fear appeal advertisings are normally used in public advertisements, such as anti-smoking or cancer prevention (Appendix: Figures 1 and 2). Australia and South Korea both use fear appeal advertising on cigarette packaging, however in slightly different forms.
In Australia, every cigarette package has an image of cancer as a strong fear appeal, whereas in South Korea, the cigarette packaging uses phrases to describe the cigarettes as a cause of cancer. Cancer Council NSW (2007) statistics show a significant reduction in Australian smoking men from 72-18%. Similarly, until 2000 in Korea, 70-80% of men were smokers, yet this rate has halved in 10 years. (Hudson, 2008). Fear appealing advertising has worked in both these instances however with different levels of persuasion.
Humour in Advertising Marketers believe that ‘humour will increase the acceptance and persuasiveness’ of the advertisement (Schiffman et al., 2011). According to the report released by Korea Broadcasting Advertising Corporation in 2006, 17 per cent of Korean TV viewers watch TV ads “because advertisements are fun”. The data exemplifies that humour in advertisements attract Korean consumers’ attention, therefore the marketers can use humour in their advertisements to gain attention effectively in the Korean market.
Australian humour has long been known as “dry, full of extremes, anti-authoritarian, self-mocking and ironic” (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Australia 2007). The acceptance to humour in advertising of Australian consumers is high, since humour has been a strong tradition in the Australian culture. The acceptance on humorous appeals would be the similarity between Australian consumers and Korean consumers. However, the criterion of humour would be different between two cultures.
As Hofstede cultural dimension (2009) indicated, South Korea has a low individualism score, which means they are showing high loyalty to the culture in which they exist. In contrast, Australia has “a strong belief in individuality, with individual rights being paramount within the society” (Itim International, 2009). Australian humour allows mocking of their culture however the Korean consumers would not allow advertisements mocking of the culture they are proud of.Agony Advertising As Oxford Dictionaries (2011) defines, agony means ‘extreme physical or mental suffering’. For example “the commercials that depict in diagrammatical detail the internal and intestinal effects of heartburn, indigestion, clogged sinus cavities, and hammer induced headaches.” (Schiffman 2011).
Confucianism still plays an important role in Korean culture (Yi, 1967), meanwhile the younger generations is being influenced by the western culture (Kim-Rupnow, 2007). From the viewpoint of Confucianism, pain is “an essential element of life” (Tu, 1971).It is believed that agony advertising would not be effective to the elder generations of Korean consumer as they treat agony as “essential” in their traditional culture. In the western culture, “pain is a bio-psychosocial phenomenon that often requires interdisciplinary care” (International Association for the Study of Pain 2002). It is more likely that the Australian consumers would look for health care when they are suffering for pain.
The agony commercials would be highly persuasive to get them to buy the product, because they believe the product can help them to escape from the pain carried by the ailments.There would be a strong similarity between younger Korean consumers and Australian consumers that the effectiveness of agony in advertisements to them. On the other hand, the effectiveness of agony in advertisements to the elder Korean consumers would be relatively lower than the Australian consumers.Abraisive Advertising Abrasive advertisements are ads that are annoying or unpleasant which in turn makes them more memorable. Research shows that the use of direct visual forms, which promotes product attributes and benefits appeals, in South Korean ads far outnumber the use of indirect visual forms and thus “Korean consumers will have higher attitude towards ads, brand attitude and purchase intention for brands in ads using direct visual forms, rather than indirect” (Bu, Kim & Lee 2009).
In other researches about South Korea, Hsieh and Lindridge (2005) find that “value for money” is positively associated to “good styling”, and Keown et al. (1992) find that package food and health/beauty aids are top products advertised.That explains why it is very rare to see abrasive appeal in Korean commercial ads although in social marketing, especially antismoking campaigns, threat appeals, which include elicit fear, worry and uneasiness are still employed by marketers (Yu, Paek & Bae 2007). On the contrary, there have been a number of Australian ads that receive hundreds of complaints for being too annoying or unpleasant (Herald Sun 2010). A typical example is Mentos Ice chewing gum TV commercial which shows a man's nipples get longer after eating Mentos (Appendix: Figures 3 and 4).
Sex in Advertising It is stated that sexualisation and eroticisation of objects is one of the most conspicuous features of commodity culture (Grazia and Furlough 1996). Sex in advertising can range from obvious nudity to double entendres and more subtle devices like subliminal messages. A research on mode nudity presented in ads discovers that “high-masculine cultures will employ higher degrees of nudity than those in low-masculine cultures” (Nelson ; Paek 2008). Chang’s research (2006) mentions that South Korea ranks lower on masculinity (41st) than Australia (16th).
