Marketing global de produtos: impactos dos fatores culturais nas decisões estratégicas das corporações

Global product marketing: impacts of cultural factors on corporate strategic decisions

Abstract

Since the 20th century, marketing strategies have been demarcated that make the existence of a global marketing chain possible amidst the cultural transformations engendered in the universal consumption system. To demonstrate this phenomenon, this article analyzes how sociocultural structures influenced companies' decisions regarding products worldwide, especially after the 1980s. Initially, it was necessary to outline the trend towards a universal cultural attitude characterized by common motivations for consumption everywhere. This circumstance served as an opportunity for standardization for the marketing programs of multinational corporations, however it is organized around the identities that delimit the consumption behavior of social groups in their territories of origin. We later examine how the global economic system functions in a more homogeneous way than the cultural structure, as it is defined in integrated operational models. This implies a direct contribution of the economic system to aspects of cultural homogenization, essential to global marketing. In this way, global product marketing strategies can be defined based on universalist consumption premises, but also anchored in cultural differences between social groups and territories. Finally, it was possible to define the product levels (local, international and global) at which companies operate their global marketing programs. Cultural factors explain most of the adjustments to global marketing programs, as they influence the set of values about the brand and create its stature.