Abstract.
The case study of Dolce & Gabbana marketing communication failure in Mainland China analyzes the key inter-cultural communication problems the company encountered in its advertising strategy around the Grand Show in Shanghai in 2018. The rise of China’s economic power, China’s nationalistic rejuvenation policies and historic forbearing of Western injustices in the form of One Hundred Years of Humiliation, and offensive use of Chinese traditional symbol chopsticks in Dolce & Gabbana advertising videos were the key challenges feeding into Dolce & Gabbana’s loss of foothold in Mainland China. The article reviews problems of communication across different cultures (Western and Eastern specifically) and provides insights into the “context” problems of encoding and decoding patterns in high-context cultures. On the basis of contextual complexity of communication, the authors have developed and present an elaborated model of inter-cultural communication framework for high-context cultures. The suggested framework is a practical tool for international managers to be used in marketing communications across different cultures.
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Bellomi, I.J., Kholod, T. (2023). The Complexity of International Marketing: Pitfalls of Dolce & Gabbana Marketing Communication Strategy in China. In: Demir, E., Bilgin, M.H., Danis, H., D'Ascenzo, F. (eds) Eurasian Business and Economics Perspectives. EBES 2022. Eurasian Studies in Business and Economics, vol 26. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30061-5_11
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