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Introduction
Consumption decisions made in the market cannot be viewed as an independent event - these are closely related with values and social relationship and cultural allegiance. According to past research, national culture has considerable influence on consumer behavior ([19] Jaishankar, 1998). National culture of any country, as outer stimuli, influence on the diffusion of products across countries ([25] Kumar et al. , 1998). With globalization, culture becomes predominantly important strategic issue in market that has to be faced and properly managed. People of each country possess a distinct "national character" ([40] Clark, 1990). Countries are a source of a considerable amount of common mental programming of their citizens ([16] Hofstede, 1991). Core values of any country shape its national culture. As culture varies country to country, a close insight about country-specific culture and core values is almost essential for a smooth sailing in any country market. For brand marketing, cultural dimensions play a vital role to formulate imagery about the brand and help marketer to communicate better. In this backdrop, an attempt has been made in this paper to discuss overall fundamental dimensions of Indian culture and core values with the help of a verbal model. The model has further been examined with the help of empirical marketing evidences from Indian market with an objective to help marketers to address those cultural and value dimensions at the time of their brand marketing in India.
Literature review: role of culture and values in consumer marketing
From anthropological point of view, there are two schools of thoughts behind evolution of culture. Half century ago two leading anthropologists, [24] Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952), identified 161 formal definitions of culture. Further, in 1871, Tylor define culture as "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man (sic) as a member of society". Boas popularized "culture" as a result of group's responses to environmental conditions and their specific historical development ([13] George, 1974). Old school of thoughts describes features of culture as: bounded small scale entity; defined characteristics; unchanging; shared meanings, identical. So, old school of thought describes "a culture" with "a people with some specific characteristics", which may be defined within a specific boundary. New school of...