Silent Language Complexity American & Asia - marketing [2of3]

Cultural skills necessary for multinational and global marketing


With innumerability already established, let us turn to basics. The following is a universal truth: communication is the ruler by which we measure relationship. This is perhaps the most fundamental challenge for multicultural marketing (the sum whole of communication). However, there are no phrase books, machine translations or handheld translators for the nonverbal (yet ). Here we have to work with what we have, which essentially is constituted by personal experience, leveraging (through employment or otherwise) the indigenous citizens and/or the still developing collections of such information as it exists online (Executive Planet, Kwintessential, etc.)(“Executive Planet“, 2010)(Kwintessential Ltd, 2010). To the degree to which the communication is clean and complete, to that degree the playing field is even. And, that is just getting to “even” (other citizen-like).

The cultural skills necessary to develop such an internal database necessarily marry the acquisition of the dataset just referred to in the preceding paragraph, along with practice. Naturally, practice does not occur in a vacuum. Other fundamental skills that inform practice itself will include the degree to which one has established (or is establishing) other soft skills.

Integrating the various skill sets that constitute professionalism, relationship expertise and the like, such as being hyper-vigilant and being able to make sense of the relationships one is witnessing (between person(s) and person(s), person(s) and thing(s), etc.). Such studied and weighed visual acumen necessarily considers nuance and differences from one configuration to the next. A similar heightened sensitivity applies to listing skills. Naturally, seeing and hearing are not separate, and need to be understood as contributing to each other.

Some kinesthetics are graphic, and consequently readily available through online secondary research; such as never exposing the sole of your foot anywhere throughout Asia (a serious insult). However, see if you can find anything on burping in Indonesia. The likelihood is that you will not, and it is impolite. Such an eructation in China, at the end of a good meal, is a compliment, for which online secondary research is well established. Herein lies the need to acknowledge that what is true in one part of Asia is not necessarily true in another, and if there is no readily available research do not assume.