Professor Kang received her BSc from Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea; her MSc from Colorado State University, USA and a PhD from the University of Minnesota, USA.
She joined Manchester Business School in June 2000 after serving nine years on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At UW-Madison, she was elected as a member of the Teaching Academy. From 2001, she was involved with various leadership roles at MBS: She directed full-time and executive MBA programmes and also provided strategic leadership for a suite of distance learning MBS programmes.
In 2005 Professor Kang was highly commended in the Public Sector for Asian Women of Achievement Award in the UK from 2007, she spent two years at Instituto de Empresa as a visiting research professor.
She is currently working on projects in the areas of market segmentation, customer satisfaction and loyalty, and brand extension strategies. She is also interested in expanding our knowledge of the effects of culture in the marketplace as well as impact of ethnicity and acculturation on consumer behaviour.
BRR: Given your vast experience, you have had intimate insights into the evolution of marketing. What areas of marketing are of particular interest to you?
Professor Jikyeong Kang: When I was in the United States pursuing my PhD, I did a lot of work on consumer behaviour and retailing. In the past decade, while I have been affiliated with the University of Manchester, my focus has shifted on to branding and customer loyalty. Having spent time in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain and Korea, I have had the opportunity to observe marketers and their prowess across different cultures.
Due to my cultural background I am always interested in the impact of acculturation on consumption behaviour. There are ethnically diverse people residing in USA and UK, and most of them perceive themselves in diverse ways too. For instance, Indian and Pakistani expatriates living in the UK may take offence on being referred to simply as British. On the other hand, many second generation immigrants in the US prefer to be acknowledged only as Americans, instead of as Bangladeshi Americans or Indian Americans. These self perceptions are intimately linked to the consumer behaviour of people; it affects their every day choices, lifestyles and choices.
So the impact of ethnicity and acculturation on consumers spending habits and preferences are of particular interest to me.
BRR: What are some ways in which culture affects consumer behaviour?
JK: Consider the example of self gifting that we studied during the course of research on this topic. We found that while those of European descent generally prefer to gift themselves with material gifts, Asians prefer to bestow experiential rewards for them. Such insights into the consumers thinking can help marketers reach out to them more effectively.
Even the demand for the same product may be driven by different motives among people from differing cultural backgrounds. So marketers need strong research that can help them understand not just what consumers want but also why they want it.
BRR: You have stressed the need to understand digital media and better harness its potential for marketers. Do you consider firms are generally not using digital media effectively?
JK: There is a lack of understanding and appreciation among marketers, of digital media and its efficacy as a medium for communicating with existing and potential clientele. Most companies are grudgingly entering the digital foray, simply because everyone else is doing it. But in most cases they are not able to effectively blend marketing efforts on digital media with traditional media to be able to maximise the return for the company.
Online marketing helps achieve many objectives that other forms of advertising such as television commercials and newspaper advertisements cannot come close to; for example emotional response. Consider the example of YouTube, which suggests videos to a user by monitoring their previous viewing choices. But this comes with a catch; not all consumers are users of YouTube or similar websites.
So the challenge is that marketing efforts have to be cognisant of the dynamic nature of digital media and the consumers that use it. The knowledge you gain today may not be relevant tomorrow, so marketers have to be extremely aware and conscious of the information that they collect and the way they interpret it. They have to be clear about who they are trying to reach and must have well defined KPIs (key performance indicators) that can help assess the effectiveness of each marketing communication.
BRR: How do the differences between advanced economies and developing economies in terms of access to the internet affect the prospects of online marketing?
JK: Across the Indian subcontinent and Africa, the rate at which cellular phone subscriptions are rising is much higher than the rate of growth in advanced economies. So even though the entire population of any of the countries in these regions may not be as web savvy as populations of advanced economies, they are catching on fast.
What marketers need to be mindful of is the unique requirements of their target audiences. For example, many people here in Pakistan may have access to a cellular phone but have limited reading skills so any marketer targeting this segment has to work around this shortcoming to reach out to potential clients.
The cycle of technological adaptation will be different here than it has been in the West. But it would be incorrect to assume that the rate of innovation is somehow slower here. Geoffrey Moore has written about the chasm in the cycle of innovation. He has highlighted that a large proportion of the innovations introduced by firms gets stuck in a chasm for lack of funding or adequate size. Once this chasm is overcome, the adoption of technology will be a lot faster in developing economies because of the lessons already learnt from early adopters, the burgeoning youth populations and strong consumerism.
BRR: In your opinion, what steps are needed to raise awareness on the use of digital media for marketing and other communications?
JK: Government has a role to play here besides the private sector. Ensuring the protection of intellectual property rights is a necessity for promoting the development of new technology and its uses. Then there is a need for seed capital that can fund research and innovation for technologies that enable the wider population to harness cellular phones and other digital technology.
It is important to answer one question from the perspective of each economic stakeholder: what is in it for me? So if a farmer or the owner of a small enterprise genuinely gains from some marketing effort directed through the internet or through a communication sent via SMS, then they would be inclined to use it.
Innovation leaders, opinion leaders and business leaders are crucial for promoting the use of new technologies among the people. Once there are relevant benefits, all stakeholders will gladly adopt new technologies.