”Dear Friend” (?): Culture and Genre in American and Canadian Direct Marketing Letter
Md Rishad Zaman
001100341
Professor Neil Stubbs
Introduction to Academic Writing
Section WRIT 1000B
17 July 2013
In “”Dear Friend” (?): Culture and Genre in American and Canadian Direct Marketing Letter”, Roger Graves examines how English speaking Canadian people are different from Americans, and how business communicators need to identify those differences to be successful in both countries. Roger Graves uses warnings written on the cigarette packet to argue that Americans see only the health factors when Canadians consider both health and moral issue.
Another difference Roger Graves states is that
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He mention that “Canadian seem to prefer more direct approach than Americans.”(244).In his research, American culture with less power distance using a friendly facades. As a result, business letters in America starts with “Dear friend” (244). On the other hand Canadians prefer business letters with a more formal tone which establishes more power distance. A Canadian focus is only on the products and services, anything other than that is insincere.
Business letters in America use economics, nationalistic and patriotic sensibilities to sell their products and services. In contrast, Canadians prefers to have facts, professionalism, and confidential analysis of products and services, enhancing the credibility and trustworthiness of businesses. Canadians view the extrinsic rewards in the products and services with suspicion suggesting that it may not worth purchasing. He also observes that the US market is larger and more complex than the Canadian market. US businesses include a brief explanation of them; whereas, Canadian businesses assume customers to know who they are.
In the U.S. presidential campaign, Bill Clinton put the date and hand written sign to reduce the distance with the general people by making it more personal. They want to believe that politicians are more in touch with the general people by greeting “Dear Friend” in their letter as a polite greeting from an equal. In Canada, “Dear
Overall business in America and Canada resemble each other closely. “The two countries share a lot of political and economic ties as well as similar laws in many areas.” However, with business they are different in ways such as working over time, terminating an employee, and the language.
This paper will discuss the cultural dimensions of two countries. It will describe how they are different and similar and how businesses in each country would do business together. It will also discuss the communications and cost of doing business. Similarities and Differences Canada and Italy are only truly similar when it comes to individualism with Canada at 80 and Italy at 76. Second in line would be power distance with Canada at 39 and Italy at 50.
Americans have a very straight forward and practical approach towards business. They believe in driving hard bargains and negotiating, while the Chinese put more focus on respect, friendship saving face in their business conduct. Mr. Smith was a typical American businessman who in spite of knowing that
For this purpose, the marketing manager Guillen wants to see the difference between consumer markets of Canada and that of United States in order to design a marketing strategy according to it to boost the sales as well as profit of this category.
In a business perspective, the oriental and western cultures remain a huge difference. Low-context societies such as American egalitarian culture, they emphasize on logic and facts, verbal messages are more direct and concise, individualism and extremely tolerant to changes. However, high-context societies such as Chinese hierarchy culture, they prefer non-verbal methods to express meaningful communications, group-oriented, and pay more attention to interpersonal relationships during business interactions. For example, a successful business interaction will count on interpersonal relationships among businesses and government. On the other hand, business dealings can be completely transactional with Americans, without building relationships to do so.
The screen fades in, the actor is portrayed in black and white with solemn expression on his face, his eyes pointed towards the ground as he speaks. Suddenly his “wife” walks up behind him and rubs his back, she suggests that he has a problem as a pharmaceutical name pops onto the screen. Promotion of pharmaceuticals to consumers is referred to as direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. In the United States, pharmaceutical suppliers are now the leading communicator of health information to the mass public. Whereas the FDA does oversee the distribution of such media, the question of consumer competency raises concern. Those who support these advertisements suggest the information is beneficial to the consumer. Such advertising does provide crucial
Social behaviour and business etiquettes between Chinese and Americans are very different and often will offend each other. The cultural dimensions of Hofstede and Trompenaars will be applied to evaluate the cultural difference between Chinese and Americans in later part of the discussion. These theories allow managers or relevant users to identify and rectify the problems that might have arisen due to a cultural clash.
What does a review of the current press reveal about the attitudes of Canadians in terms of global business and international trade?
The American way of business differs from many other countries across the world. Each company has their own set of tactics that they use to close big deals. Businesses from Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, tend to do things a bit differently. They take pride in getting to know the individuals from the other company before even disclosing any information to them. Meetings sometimes take place in less than formal locations such as coffee shops and cafes. The religious and social differences between the United States and Saudi Arabia make it challenging for Americans, unaware of the way of Saudi life, to do business there. They may experience cultural shock or even
It’s been understood that “communication in business involves a complex set of unwritten rules governing speech, written correspondence and body language that varies in different parts of the world” (Ingram, 2014). Communication is the essential component of business, “from the entry-level manager to the seasoned venture capitalist, can benefit from paying attention to communication etiquette in business” (Ingram, 2014). Both verbal and nonverbal communication in the business world allows for a more fluid transmission of information and policy. It
Canada has unique cultural values, beliefs, and business practices that is different from other international markets. Firms must research a country’s values, beliefs, and business practices prior to entry and prior to developing a marketing plan. For example, Canadian’s are well known for their accents and love of hockey. If Henry Inc. ran a commercial which dictated Americans making fun of Canadian’s accents and love of hockey more than likely the ad with receive a negative response and offend numerous Canadians. Henry Inc. would receive backlash about the ad and lose consumer confidence. In this section, I will discuss culture, values, beliefs, and business practices.
Have you ever had someone in your life who helped you figure out who you were? Someone who showed you the right path. Someone who was there right next you even if you did not take that path. Someone who always seemed to be right, but never held it against you when you were not. Someone whom without your life would most likely be entirely different. I have. Her name was Jessica.
Communication is the main essence of knowledge and understanding. The emphasis on cross cultural communication has increased due to the ever growing global environment, of which, this case is a perfect example. Canadian Bank of Nova Scotia increased their share in Inverlat, the Mexican Bank to 54% and took control of the management. Soon after that, BNS started the restructuring process of Inverlat and sent a team of Canadian managers to Mexico.
A friend is someone you can always count on when times are tough. Having friends is easy but being a true friend is not always easy. To be a true friend firstly you need to keep yours promises. Do not make a promise that you not going to keep. Because if you do not keep your promises, your friends will definitely start to loss confident in you. If you promise your friend to go with her to the store, if you just cannot go, give your friend a gift and tell him or her sorry. Secondly be dependable. Being dependable is one of the most important aspects of being a true friend. If you are a true friend who is dependable, your friend call on you most especially in hard times. Thirdly be honest. Honesty is the fairness and straightforwardness of
They viewed the politeness phenomena in communication as a common expression and they thought the reason behind the polite behaviors is actually “face and rationality” (1978: 63). To illustrate the point, they developed the conception of Model Person (MP) . By “rationality” , it means “the availability to our MP of a precisely definable mode of reasoning from ends to the means that will achieve those ends” (ibid) . And by “face” ,it means that the MP “ is endowed with two particular wants -- the want to be unimpeded and the want to be approved of in certain respects” (ibid). According to them, there are two types connected with the FST. One is termed as the “negative face”-- “the want to be unimpeded”. The other is the “positive face”-- “the want to be approved of in certain respects”. Everyone wants to be a gentleman and everyone has his understanding about the self-esteem, so sometimes she/he have to do a face-saving compromise. For the two wants above, people take action to interact with the others and try their best to avoid making the hearer get into trouble. Similarly business English letters often start with “Dear Sirs”, or “Dear Sir” and end with “Yours faithfully” or “Sincerely yours”, and the inside address containing the name of addressee with “Messrs”,