The Influence Of Cultural Diversity On Marketing Communication: A Case Of Africans And Indians In Durban, South Africa

Abstract

This paper investigates the cultural diversity between Africans and Indians in Durban, South Africa, based on marketing communication. While cross-cultural marketing research has been concentrated on Western and Eastern societies, there is a lack of such research in Africa. The study examines the cultural values of Africans and Indians based on the individualism-collectivism cultural dimension, adapted to account for marketing communication-specific cultural values (MCSCV). The study was a quantitative study which used judgmental sampling technique to recruit subjects and analysed data using the t-test. Surveys were completed by 283 African and 92 Indian respondents at the main shopping malls in two of Durban’s renowned African and Indian townships viz. Umlazi and Chatsworth, respectively. The findings of the study revealed that Indian respondents showed more individualistic tendencies toward marketing communication, as compared to their African counterparts. The study highlights that target markets’ indigenous cultural values may not necessarily serve as predictors for market segmentation. The study further shows that directing stereotypical marketing communication strategies toward culturally homogeneous markets based on indigenous cultural dispositions, without investigating the compatibility of both cultural contexts, can be deleterious. The paper builds on current thinking in cross-cultural marketing literature and develops an orientation of MCSCV.