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Acculturation as defined in the article "Marketer Acculturation: The Changer and the Changed " is a general term that encompasses intercultural interaction and adaptation and includes assimilation of a new culture, maintenance of the old culture, and resistance to both new and old cultures. Applying this concept in a marketer's perspective, it seems that acculturation in marketing entails a very rigorous task. How can a marketer be a change agent but at the same time be changed in the process of acculturation?
With this, I was reminded of the TV series American Choppers which is televised at Discovery Turbo Channel. On the series, the OCC or Orange County Choppers Company with the leadership of Senior, the owner of the company, managed to reach-out into the culture of its target market by manufacturing personalized super bikes. The company honored their customers by anticipating their market desires and supplying them in ways of luxury and style associated with the good life concept. As the company produces different designs of super bikes, it becomes a change agent who passes its own ethnic and organizational culture onto its customers through market transactions. Alternatively, in the process of being a change agent, the company also acquired specific values in its personalized transactions such as family orientation and a looser sense of transaction timing and terms. Eventually, the company not only was a change agent in the process but had been changed as well. Simultaneously, the cultural learning takes place. The direct contact with the customers became the vital factor on the acculturation.
With this, I was reminded of the TV series American Choppers which is televised at Discovery Turbo Channel. On the series, the OCC or Orange County Choppers Company with the leadership of Senior, the owner of the company, managed to reach-out into the culture of its target market by manufacturing personalized super bikes. The company honored their customers by anticipating their market desires and supplying them in ways of luxury and style associated with the good life concept. As the company produces different designs of super bikes, it becomes a change agent who passes its own ethnic and organizational culture onto its customers through market transactions. Alternatively, in the process of being a change agent, the company also acquired specific values in its personalized transactions such as family orientation and a looser sense of transaction timing and terms. Eventually, the company not only was a change agent in the process but had been changed as well. Simultaneously, the cultural learning takes place. The direct contact with the customers became the vital factor on the acculturation.