Imaginary Community in Construction

With advancement in technology, internet and modernization, business promotion across the globe have taken a new turn.  The business environment for most companies has greatly expanded to encompass new geographic locations with people from different cultures, compelling different ways of cross cultural communication systems for effectiveness (Simonson, 2013). As much as this creates new marketplaces for goods and services, a new challenge arises for promoting effective cultural communication across the various cultural targets (Cayla & Eckhardt, 2008). This has greatly influences brand managers to devise new mechanisms to promote regional brands. For instance, regional managers in the Asian continent have gone a notch higher to construct transnational abstract world that tries to create a sense of a connected Asia. These brands establish distinctiveness and social levels that attach some level of significance to consumers who use certain brands of goods or services. The consumers in this case, perceive themselves as part of a global village bigger than their immediate setting (Cayla & Eckhardt, 2008).

The imagined perception about given brands of goods facilitate the construction of some sort of social connection that make people in the targeted regions and who consume these products, to feel associated. This in turn makes cross cultural communication effective as the people have the intended sense of belonging to the larger social group. Nevertheless, it should be understood that this social setting is a belief in the mind and does not depict the true picture of the social structure in the targeted region (Cayla & Eckhardt, 2008) It is a creation, just like the fictional setting established by authors, especially those of vernacular language books, while attempting to create an impression of oneness in the community and in consequence help drive social change. This imagined community refers to a nation, or a community, that is politically constructed and socially imaged by individuals who perceive themselves as belonging to a certain group (Anderson, 1983). The intuition of the print media depicts an identical image of the activities undertaken by brand managers to promote their products and services.

Over the years, there was an increase in regional trading and regional institutions had risen to greater heights. This aspect has facilitated a realization for the need of regionalization calling for a contextual market promotion that redefines the region across spatial-temporal and cultural dimensions (Kurylo, 2013). This is a platform that conveys a sense of oneness, belonging and shared cognizance away from the divided Asian perception. However, this creation of connectedness seems implausible given that the Asian continent has a protracted history of violence, aggression and war. One would suggest that the imaginative branding especially in a region such as Asia that is filled with diversity and heterogeneity is out-rightly rightly unachievable and far-fetched.

Branding poses a major challenge for firms as it has many facets to it, especially to the intangible aspects that have different meanings to different markets and cultures. Cayla and Eckhard’s study (2008) showed that brand managers of various Asian brands have utilized a number of themes to facilitate this kind of cross cultural communication which include synchrony and the forging of cultural proximity, brand deterritorialization, and the creation of an Asian cultural mosaic laying emphasis on coherence and sameness. Take for instance the advertising for the Tiger beer brands both in western nations and in the Asian regions, it is clear demonstration of what it means to come from the Asian continent or be Asian. One of its advertisings is in the United Kingdom illustrates a beautiful and young Asian lady in a cheongsam, staring at a bare-chested gentleman in promptness for a body massage. This advert is supposed to lure the western population’s imagination into thinking the Tiger beer offers exactly that. On the contrary, this advert depicts an imagination that is in contrary to the cultural orientation of the Asian population. The same beer holds a different advertisement in the Asian region, in which tries to impact a global regional sway and heroism, away from the culturally divided Asian populations.

From these two commercials, can you identify the country of origin of this brand?

Enchanteur is actually a regional Asian brand which is a mass market French inspired female personal care with products ranging from eau de toilette, body lotion, body mist and so on. Enchanteur is manufactured and marketed by Wipro-Unza Holdings Limited. With its headquarter in Singapore, Enchanteur is marketed in 36 countries in Asia. Although Enchanteur is an Asian brand, most of the commercials have the iconic Eiffel Tower to emphasize that the brand draws inspiration from the French romance. If you look at the commercial, the brand manager had successfully ‘de-territorialized’ the brand from its origin and ‘re-territorialized” in Asia because you can’t identify the origin of the brand nor the location of the commercial. Furthermore, the brand is always centered on love and romance to entice and appeal to the target market of the product; women. In addition, most of Enchanteur’s TVCs employ the use of Pan Asian talents so that the talents are not identifiable by their ethnicity and can appeal to the highly diverse Asians.

The creation of fictitious viewpoints and sense of oneness is not a new idea and has been extensively used for a number of telecast projects such as the “Asian Idol.” This influence has been used by a number of brand managers to endorse their products and services both in the reality telecasts and in advertising for regional goods and services. In the article, “The search for an Asian Idol: The performance of regional identity in reality television,” the author, Jinna Tay, elaborates on how a number of reality telecast have adapted to the transferability of culture from one region to another and its influence on the target population (Tay, 2011). This in principle, can be seen as a creation of another realm aimed at instigating a change phenomenon. In this case, it is about influencing the population in these regions to watch and adore the telecast program.

In conclusion, it can be inferred from the discussion, that there is no single mechanism to articulating cross cultural communication especially where the people involved have distinctively different cultural orientation that does not borrow from each other. However, a blend of mixed methodologies tends to provide a mechanism through which social changers can drive their thoughts to achieve the aspects that they intend to accomplish (Gambetti, 2013). Grounded on the fictional setting, this imaginative application seems to have little ground for success and can be appraised as laying on a counterbalance. Above all, one would conclude that to the extent that the imaginative brand creation works to unite and promote cohesiveness which are both strategic components to cross cultural communication, this imaginative branding strategy could be embraced discriminatively to accomplish targeted objectives (Hurn & Tomalin, 2013).

References

Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities:  Reflections on the origins and spread of       nationalism. London & New York : Verso

Cayla, J. and Eckhardt, G. (2008). Asian Brands and the Shaping of a Transnational          Imagined Community. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(2), 216-230. Retrieved  from: < http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/587629>.

EnchanteurOfficial. (2011, April 29). Enchanteur eau de toilette (EDT) [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ih6DBgocaU

Gambetti, R. (2013). Managing corporate communication: a cross-cultural approach. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hurn, B. J., & Tomalin, B. (2013). Cross-cultural communication theory and practice. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kurylo, A. (2013). Inter/cultural communication: representation and construction of culture. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Nguyen, C. (2010, August 27). TVC Enchanteur Sunday drive hight quality [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE5xgEv8unM

Simonson, P. (2013). Handbook of communication history. New York, NY: Routledge.

Tay, J. (2011). The search for an Asian Idol: The performance of regional identity in reality television. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 14, 323–338. Retrieved from: <http://ics.sagepub.com/content/14/3/323.abstract>.

Image Source

HarmonyMind. (2013). Peace in oneness [photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.harmonymind.com/_wp_hm/wp-content/uploads/peace_in_oneness.jpg