Importance of National Culture While Branding Any Products in Nepal

Running head: DISSERTATION
Importance of National Culture While Branding Any Products in Nepal
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1DISSERTATION
Acknowledgement
Thank you to all of those who have helped listened and encouraged me throughout this study. I
am indebted to my supervisor ......................... whose guidance, advice and patience have
been immeasurable. My sincere thanks to all members of the............... [Mention your
university/college name], both staff and students, whose continuous support have made this
thesis possible.
I would like to thank all of the participants in the study: students, teachers and Local Education
Authorities, for the time and help given throughout. Without their participation, this research
would not have been possible. In this context, I am also thankful to them, whose research work
helped me to execute this paper well.
Finally, I thank my family, without whom this thesis would not have been started or completed!
Your encouragement and support have never faltered; thank you.

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Abstract
The aim of the research is to investigate the importance of national culture while branding any
product in Nepal. For this study, the national culture of Nepal is being considered and its
importance in branding any product in the country. Culture is one of the significant factors that
ensure successful branding by the business organizations. The patterns include customs, beliefs,
morals, laws and intellect thereby, summing up the way individuals live in a particular area in a
specific time-period. The culture of a country plays a significant role in the strategic direction of
the business and helps in increasing efficiency and competitive position of the brand. several
global brands have encountered cultural issues while branding their product. Some of the
companies that encountered branding issues due to culture are Coco-Cola, BMW, McDonald’s
and Disney.
The culture of Nepal is fairly distinctive and is lagging from the rest of the western countries.
Increased secular belief, closed mind-set, minimized brand recognition are potential challenges
that business organizations face while branding any product in Nepal. In addition to,
understanding the native Nepalese culture is an issue for the brands, as it differs largely from the
existing cultures of the rest of the world. Analyzing the importance of culture while branding any
product is significant, as this offers the provision of identifying the impact of the gap of culture
on branding of products. Addressing the potential cultural issues while branding will also help in
assessing the relationship between culture and branding. Due to this comparison, it will become
easy to compare and contrast branding in the presence or absence of culture.
Positivism philosophy, deductive approach, descriptive design and survey research strategy has
been used. This facilitated the application of primary data collection technique and quantitative

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data analysis technique that is analyzed using co-relation and regression techniques using SPSS
software. In accordance with the survey research strategy, 50 participants are selected sing
simple random probability sampling technique that would help in understanding the significance
of national culture while branding any product in Nepal.
The results obtained from the data analysis indicates that the significant value has come to .000,
which states that the null hypothesis has been rejected and the alternate hypothesis has been
accepted in this case as well. As a result, it can be inferred that there is a strong relationship
between the national cultures that is present in the Nepal market with respect to the product
branding.

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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................................9
1.0 Overview...........................................................................................................................9
1.1 Problem statement...............................................................................................................11
1.2 Research aim........................................................................................................................12
1.3 Research objectives.............................................................................................................12
1.4 Research questions...............................................................................................................13
1.5 Research hypothesis.............................................................................................................13
1.6 Research rationale................................................................................................................13
1.7 Structure of the dissertation.................................................................................................14
1.8 Summary..............................................................................................................................16
Chapter 2: Literature review..........................................................................................................17
2.0 Overview..............................................................................................................................17
2.1 Conceptual framework.........................................................................................................17
2.2 Concept of culture................................................................................................................18
2.3 Factors affecting culture......................................................................................................18
2.3.1 Religious beliefs...........................................................................................................19
2.3.2 Society..........................................................................................................................19
2.3.3 Language.......................................................................................................................20

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2.3.4 Customs and taboos......................................................................................................20
2.3.5 Values...........................................................................................................................21
2.3.6 Business norms.............................................................................................................22
2.4 Concept of branding............................................................................................................22
2.5 Factors affecting branding...................................................................................................23
2.5.1 Target audience.............................................................................................................23
2.5.2 Quality..........................................................................................................................24
2.5.3 Positioning and re-positioning......................................................................................24
2.5.4 Marketing......................................................................................................................25
2.5.5 Being the first one.........................................................................................................25
2.5.6 Communication.............................................................................................................26
2.6 Elements of branding...........................................................................................................26
2.7 Benefits of successful branding...........................................................................................30
2.8 Challenges in successful branding.......................................................................................31
2.9 Techniques for mitigating branding challenges...................................................................32
2.10 Culture of Nepal................................................................................................................33
2.11 Branding challenges in Nepal............................................................................................35
2.12 Methods of mitigating branding challenges in Nepal........................................................36
2.13 Impact of culture of branding............................................................................................37
2.14 Relationship between culture and branding.......................................................................38

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2.15 Benefits of considering culture while branding.................................................................39
2.16 Challenges of considering culture while branding............................................................40
2.17 Techniques for mitigating cultural challenges while branding..........................................40
2.18 Research gap......................................................................................................................41
2.19 Summary............................................................................................................................41
Chapter 3: Research methodology.................................................................................................42
3.0 Overview..............................................................................................................................42
3.1 Research outline...................................................................................................................42
3.2 Research philosophy............................................................................................................43
3.2.1 Explaining the use of positivism philosophy................................................................43
3.3 Research approach...............................................................................................................44
3.3.1 Explaining the use of deductive approach....................................................................45
3.4 Research design...................................................................................................................45
3.4.1 Explaining the use of descriptive design......................................................................46
3.5 Research strategy.................................................................................................................47
3.5.1 Explaining the use of survey research strategy.............................................................48
3.6 Sampling technique and sample size...................................................................................48
3.6.1 Explaining the use of random probability sampling technique....................................49
3.7 Data collection process........................................................................................................50
3.7.1 Explaining the use of primary data collection process.................................................50

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3.8 Data analysis technique.......................................................................................................51
3.8.1 Explaining the use of quantitative data analysis technique..........................................51
3.9 Ethical considerations..........................................................................................................51
3.10 Accessibility issues............................................................................................................52
3.11 Summary............................................................................................................................53
Chapter 4: Analysis and Findings..................................................................................................54
4.0 Introduction..........................................................................................................................54
4.1 Demographic factors............................................................................................................54
4.2 Inferential statistics..............................................................................................................56
4.2.1 Correlation analysis......................................................................................................56
4.2.2 Regression analysis.......................................................................................................67
4.3 Summary..............................................................................................................................69
Chapter 5: Discussions..................................................................................................................70
Chapter 6: Conclusion and recommendations...............................................................................73
6.0 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................73
6.1 Linking with objectives.......................................................................................................74
6.2 Recommendations................................................................................................................76
6.3 Future scope of the study.....................................................................................................78
References......................................................................................................................................79
Appendix 1.....................................................................................................................................94