Global Marketing and Advertising [antikvár]

Foreword Geert Hofstede ¦, naive set of assumptions, quite common in both business and academia up to the present day, is that people are rational in trying to maximize their income, but irrational in spending it. Producers are supposed to be rational; consumers irrational. And inside the business organization managers are supposed to be rational; subordinates irrational. There is something fishy in this reasoning, because producers are consumers to other producers, and managers are subordinates to other managers. The aforementioned assumptions do not reflect observable reality, but a perception process in which those in control define rationality in their way. The rationality described in the policies and textbooks is usually the rationality of the producers and managers. More fundamentally, there is no such thing as a universal rationality—a discovery that, for example, economists applying a "rational choice" model have to make. What is rational or irrational to a person depends on that person's value system, which in turn is part of the culture that person has acquired in her or his lifetime. What people around the world value varies enormously: They include poverty next to maximizing income, togetherness next to individuality, cooperation next to competition, modesty next to assertiveness, saving next to spending, chastity next to sexual fulfillment, self-effacement next to self-actualization. Downsizing personnel in order to maximize a company's profits may be rational in one society—say, the United States of America—but not in another—say, Japan—in which the commitment of permanent employees is the company's main capital. Marketing and advertising are basically about consumers, not about producers. Marketing and advertising theories based on producers' logic but missing consumers' logic are useless. Market research agencies try to bridge the gap between the two kinds of logic, and their excellence depends on their XIII