Multi-Collectivism

I listened to a presentation about cultural marketing that focused on the ways in which marketing in an individualistic culture differed from marketing in a collectivistic culture – it was a bit of a meander that ended in a shrug, and I do think the presenter got a lot of things wrong, but it gave me some food for thought.

Primarily, the classification of cultures as either individualistic or collectivistic is completely wrong-headed.   It sets up a black-or-white fallacy that leads binary thinkers to assume that a culture, or even a person, is 100% one way or the other when in reality there is a spectrum: a person, and an entire culture, has elements of both.  

That is, a consumer makes some product or brand choices according to his own standards, but in other choices he is highly concerned about being acceptable to others.   Particularly when a product is conspicuously consumed, the impression others will have is often more influential than the value it provides to the consumer himself.   I could elaborate further, but the case is very well made by Kapferer and Bastien.

But the greatest flaw of the argument is in characterizing individualistic cultures as concerned with personal status – this is, in fact, a quality of collectivist cultures, because status is a social phenomenon.   One only has status relative to the status of other people in a group (collective), so the desire to be as good as others, or better than others, or similar to others, or distinguished from others – all of these desires use “others” rather than “self” as the measurement.

An individualist pursues his own interest, indifferent to what others may think.  A collectivist is highly concerned about what others think, and makes his choices accordingly.   The desire to have possessions that provide comfort and pleasure is individualistic, whereas the desire to have possessions that impress others is collectivistic because the primary motivation for the consumer is what others think of him for consuming them, not any direct personal benefit of consumption.

This is because a collectivist is concerned with his status within the collective: keeping up with the Joneses does not serve any individualistic motive, but instead considers a person’s position in a collective and seeks to preserve personal status in the context of a collective: the consumer isn’t concerned with his individual needs, merely in conforming to the standards of the social group to which he belongs (or aspires to belong).  The desire to make an impression is primarily focused on what others think, not on what one truly is.

Even in western culture, true individualists are very rare – not many people think for themselves, have formulated a set of personal standards and act in ways that pursue them.   I would argue that what we have is instead a form of multi-collectivism in which a person seeks to gain and preserve their personal status in the context of multiple collectives.  

In monochromatic cultures, where all people are of the same ethnicity, religion, and so on there is a single set of rules and it is easy to see how people conform to them or consciously break the rules to obtain increased status.  In multicultural environments, such as western culture is today, a person’s choices consider not one set of rules, but many sets of rules that are often in conflict.   To be in good standing with one’s neighbors, with one’s colleagues, with one’s religion, with one’s class, with one’s ethnic group, and so on means compromising among many sets of conflicting standards.

As such a person may appear to be an individual because they assemble a highly idiosyncratic rule-book that works out compromises between the conflicting rules of the various collectives to which he considers himself to belong.   But his primary motivation is still extrinsic: when he chooses not to follow a rule, it is not because he has a personal standard, but because he has chosen to obey a conflicting rule imposed on him (albeit voluntarily) by a different collective.   This is not at all the same as individualism, which ignores all the rule-books entirely.

As such, one cannot state that people in western cultures are highly individualistic – they are highly confused, perhaps, but their primary motivation is to conform to the standards of multiple collectives.   As such, collectivistic marketing tactics will still work, but it is much more difficult to accurately identify the collectives to which an individual seeks to belong, and determine which rule of which collective takes precedence in his buying decisions.