Il marketing come forma di relazione tra culture diverse

In recent years the Italian society has been more and more changing: at the moment, our nation - which has well known the phenomenon of emigration – counts about two millions eight hundred thousand regular immigrants, who generally inhabit the centre and north of Italy. Of course, the presence of these different cultural communities has drawn the attention of marketing operators. The way to integration is the best one to embark on: it implies respect for one’s originary identity as well as exchange of point of views in order to enrich one’s own culture. Anyway, prejudices and cultural diversities constitute obstacles. It is for this reason that the process of integration is a constant negotiation, in which communication has great importance. So media play a very important and interesting role in this process and as regards marketing, communication is basic for its strategies. Welcome marketing is a new field inside marketing: the active taking part of immigrants marks it out so welcome products and services try to meet efficaciously integration needs. An immigrant community is different from another one, especially as regards integration phases; therefore a careful segmentation inside a marketing plan has to consider some important variables like reasons of immigration; phases of migratory process; originary culture and religion and so on. The phase of promotion has great importance in a marketing plan, it is a moment of “manageable communication”: the main aim is in fact to create a certain kind of feedback in customers. Advertising is the promotion means, which involves more communicative channels, in this way a certain message can reach a large number of population. Taking the immigrants’ point of view into consideration, television is the best means of communication because it easily reaches these communities. As regards the creation of advertising messages for this target, it is very important to know as much as possible the cultural context and background and to hold in consideration the importance of cultural differences, as well as linguistic and religious ones. Since the poor presence of immigrant communities unlike other European realities, Italian marketing does not satisfy possible function of integration yet, but it can be a possible moment of meeting. At the moment, intercultural communication – which is basic for marketing plans oriented to immigrant targets – is realized only by public bodies, local health department and all those organisations, which provide to give a first support to these people after they have crossed the Italian boundaries. Fairs can be also another moment of meeting and positive comparison (see the “Fiera dell’Artigianato” in Milan, the “Fiera del Levante” and so on). The meeting is realized in the moment of buy of products and/or services, so very important is the bond between brand and customer: the strength of a brand and its value can serve as a bridge among different cultures. The management of brand value has acquired more importance only recently, since firms had created a new conception of marketing: at the moment, customers can rake an active part in the creation phase of products. So marketing has gained a more relational approach and basic is the role of a means of communication as the Net. The typical interactivity of Internet has allowed a turning point for the direct marketing: thanks to the use of an up-to-date and voluntary database, firms can always stay abreast of customers’ requirements. Anyway, it is possible to interpret the concept of marketing in a wider sense: marketing works as a sort of integration also only trying to understand how to relate itself to a prospective customer.