Cultural Barriers Cultural and Language

Cultural Barriers

Cultural and Language Barriers in Marketing

Social Networking through such sites as MySpace and Facebook has become a popular and virally spreading interest in the United States. Such online contexts for community and group orientation and networking have originated in the U.S. And have generated remarkable success and innovative applicztion there. Their spread to other parts of the globe have only been gradual though, with the companies experiencing varying degress of success by recontextualizing in countries such as France and Germany. According to a recent research endeavor by Comscore, the first ranking site in these two countries, "MySpace did a good job. It was due to their local presence and ability to present local pages in the local language. It supports the theory that culture and language are strong factors to be dealt with in marketing and advertisement." (Van Elsas, 1) by contrast, Facebook ranks fourth in the two countries, behind two services which are generated locally. The primary linguistic basis of these services indicates that the success with which linguistic specialization is attended in each local community with be tantamount to overall success in new markets.

An interesting example of language barriers in marketing comes to us from the world of sports. The National Hockey League is especially unique as it operates in concurrence between the U.S. And Canada but draws players from literally all over the world. Broadcast primarily in English speaking and French-Canadian regions, the league nonetheless features such stars as Eastern European Washington Capitals player Alexander Ovechkin. Reebok is marketing a jersey for the player in which the Russian spelling of his name is featured, selling a product in the English market with Russian writing displayed on the back. The item can be viewed at the NHL shop site here:

http://shop.nhl.com/sm-reebok-washington-capitals-alexander-ovechkin-language-barrier-player-name-and -- pi-3070445.html

Here, we can see an innovative way of overcoming the inherent language barrier, or at least rendering it secondary to fan intrigue.

China is another market context where challenges are specific and dominant due both to the dramatic distinction between the Chinese language and Romantic or Latin-based tongues and due to China's isolated and distinctly defined cultural nature. In both of these, we consider that there is a real and difficult obstruction for organizations seeking to establish a meaningful identity.