Product syntax and cross‐cultural marketing strategies

The marketing implications are examined of a recent research project which shows how respondents from England “read” furnishing interiors from Denmark, and vice versa, in ways which are fundamentally different from those intended by the owners. The differences arise not least because the two cultures hold very different ideas of appropriate product syntax; of how the furnishing items could and should be combined. The marketer’s strategic choice between a standardized and an adapted approach to a new market involves an assessment of the impact of the cultural variable. Using a model developed in previous work to assist in this strategic choice, the data on the two contrasting furnishing cultures is examined to illustrate some of the processes at work in the impact of the cultural variable, and to suggest some possible approaches to utilising the insights in the construction of culturally adapted promotional material.