This is a guide for western companies seeking to maximize their marketing success in Asia, which accounts for a quarter of the world economy and half of the world's population, but where cultural differences strongly influence consumer behaviour. In the West, an effective brand name will be short, distinctive, memorable, and indicative of the product's functions, but in Asia a strong belief in luck and fate means that additional qualities have a significant effect on market response to a brand name. Successful sales and marketing strategies in Asia therefore need to be rooted in an understanding of the cultural differences which affect Asian consumers' buying patterns. Drawing on examples from a variety of Asian markets, the book outlines the differences between Asian and western cultures, encompassing aspects such as religion, tradition and philosophy, and explaining the effect such differences have on communication styles, brand-loyalty perceptions of products, and advertising methods.
Hellmut Schutte is Professor at INSEAD, the European Institute of Business Administration, in Fontainebleau, France. Deanne Ciarlante holds an MBA from INSEAD and currently works in marketing in the cosmetics industry.
"A masterful introduction to a new kind of history, one that looks to the past to illuminate the most basic aspects of contemporary behavior, from parenting practices and consumer behavior to the rise of the hospice and the growing acceptance of oral sex. This is one of those seminal books that radically transforms the way we look at the present and the past." -Steven Mintz, author of "Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood" "As always, Peter Stearns stimulates our thinking about history and human experience in important ways. "American Behavioral History" is unconventional, provocative, and compelling. This collection gives new vigor to the study of social history." -Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of "The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls" "Contextually rich, in-depth and well argued." -"Journal of Social History", "Peter Stearns and his intrepid co-conspirators do not, like other seekers of truth in history, try to understand the past in its own terms. Instead, they try to learn from the past to touch the present and affect the future. One after another, their extraordinary essays suggest that their audacious ambition may be attainable." -Michael Zuckerman, author of "Almost Chosen People: Oblique Biographies in the American Grain" "Stearns and his colleagues leave us with a compelling sense that we need history to understand ourselves. Without an engaged historical perspective on today's behaviors, prescriptions for social change will not only fail, but leave us vulnerable to quick fixes and moral zealotry, sparking social behaviors--;incidentally, with a rich American past--;whose history might assist us in our efforts to understand today's cultural and political climate, and, perhaps, begin to change it." -"Journal of American History",
