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PROFILE: PEPSICO INC. (PEP)

PepsiCo, Inc. (PepsiCo), incorporated on November 13, 1986, is a global food and beverage company, having operations in over 200 countries. The Company operates through six segments: Frito-Lay North America (FLNA), Quaker Foods North America (QFNA), Latin America Foods (LAF), which includes its food and snack businesses in Latin America ; PepsiCo Americas Beverages (PAB), which includes its North American and Latin American beverage businesses; PepsiCo Europe (Europe), which includes beverage, food and snack businesses in Europe and South Africa, and PepsiCo Asia, Middle East and Africa (AMEA), which includes beverage, food and snack businesses in AMEA, excluding South Africa.

This presentation focuses on analysis and comparison of Pepsi's website in different countries with respect to culture, using Hofstede cultural analysis and how the information represented in the web design relates to culture. The main purpose of the presentation is to try to throw light on the Issues related to cultural adaptation when doing business across cultural borders. Results show that there are differences in web design among cultures, which can be explained by cultural traits and characteristics of the society, such aspects as presence of people, their age and genders, marketing campaigns in focus, symmetry in layout, represented information, usage of effects and link to historical information.

GENERAL STRUCTURE OF PEPSI WEBSITE Pepsi websites aim to present Pepsi (as a product and as a

company) all around the world. Although Pepsi websites look different they all have something in common. What first draws visitor’s attention is usually current marketing campaigns; many of the Pepsi’s first pages have a commercial, video or picture of the new actions in the center. All Pepsi websites have descriptions or pictures of products, e.g. Pepsi, Pepsi MAX, Diet Pepsi; many times on the first page the logo of Pepsi is represented. Pepsi websites usually have links to official Pepsi accounts in social media, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube in different countries. Contact information is one that was found on every Pepsi webpage. The atmosphere of happiness, joy and youth as a general marketing strategy of Pepsi is reflected on all websites, e.g. the word “party” is common.

ANALYSIS OF PEPSI WEB-DESIGN USING HOFSTEDE’S FIVE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS

Hofstede identified five dimensions of national cultures, such as power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity and long-term vs. short-term orientation. For every explored country was calculated its own index for each dimension. According to Hofstede, the dimensions reflect the basic problems which all societies face with but the ways how they cope with those difficulties are diverse that vary cultures. Hofstede believes that cultural differences cannot disappear from national traditions even of the facts of globalization and its influence.

1. IDV INDEX (PRESENCE AND NUMBER OF PEOPLE)

Presence and number of people on websites is one of the features analyzed in this presentation. Earlier research shows that a lower IDV index reflects collectivism and is related to higher number of people represented on the websites. The opposite is true for higher individualistic cultures which have fewer or even no people on their websites. Below, the results for Pepsi websites are presented in Table 1.

Country / Index IDVPortugal 27Romania 30Arab World 38Slovakia 52Israel 54Malta 59Poland 60Finland 63Norway 69Sweden 71Belgium 75Canada 80Hungary 80Netherlands 80Australia 90USA 91

The data shows that 81% of countries (13 from 16) which have no people on the main page of their Pepsi websites have high-IDV, i.e. are rather individualistic. Presenting a group/groups of people on website symbolizes collective, relationships and connection within it which is reflected collectivistic cultures. The results for Pepsi are presented in Table 2 overleaf

TABLE 1: COUNTRIES THAT DON’T HAVE PEOPLE ON THE PEPSI WEBSITE

Country / Index

IDV

South Korea 18China 20Singapore 20Thailand 20Malaysia 26Mexico / Chile / Colombia

30

Japan 46India 48France 71Denmark 74United Kingdom 89

Counting Pepsi websites that have group/groups of people on the main page, it turned out 73% (8 from 11) of countries have Low-IDV, which reflects a tendency of collectivistic cultures to correlate people with the group To illustrate these results, Pepsi websites from the USA (IDV=91) and South Korea (IDV=18) are presented. overleaf, in Picture 1 and Picture 2 the snapshots from these websites are presented:

TABLE 2: COUNTRIES THAT HAVE GROUP OF PEOPLE IN THEIR WEBSITE

PICTURE 1 SHOWS PEPSI WEBSITE IN USA PICTURE 2 SHOWS PEPSI WEBSITE IN SOUTH K

P I C T U R E 1

Showing Individualistic culture

P I C T U R E 2

Showing Collectivistic Culture

2. MASCULINITY VS. FEMINITY (GENDER)

T A B L E 3 : C O U N T R I E S W I T H O N L Y M A L E I N T H E I R W E B S I T E

Country/ Index

MAS

Denmark 16Spain 42France 43Malaysia 50India 56Czech republic

57

United kingdom

66

Mexico 69Italy 70Switzerland 70japan 95

T A B L E 4 : C O U N T R I E S W I T H O N L Y F E M A L E I N T H E I R W E B S I T E

Country/ index

MAS

netherland 14Uruguay 38Turkey 45Argentina 56Germany 66Austria 79Countries with

Both gender

country/index

MAS

Sweden 5Thailand 34Russia 36South Korea 39china 66

As it shows, the majority of Pepsi websites (70% (8 from 11)) where only males are presented, are the countries which have higher MAS index (Table 3). In masculine cultures men have more distinguished roles in the society from women and usually higher and more powerful positions, that’s why Pepsi on the majority of its websites from the so called masculine cultures represents men. Opposite is true for the countries with lower MAS. The Pepsi websites were found only women and/or both men and women. In Table 4 and 5, 4 out of 11 countries which have only female and/or both male and female have relatively low MAS.

Here, it is the man who presents the product and the main message

MAS = 70.

Here, people from both genders were presented, an opposite of what is seen in picture 3. MAS = 5

PICTORIAL REPRESENTATION OF MAS DIMENSION IN ITALY (MAS=7O) AND SWEDEN (MAS=5) SEE PICTURES 3 AND 4.

3. POWER DISTANCE INDEX (AGE)Earlier research shows that the websites from more

hierarchical countries (higher PDI) tend to use people with higher age rather than younger (examined element - age of people). Analyzing Pepsi websites, the websites of the countries where people in website are relatively older (>25) are compared to relatively younger (<25). The reason for this classification and choice of age range is Pepsi’s target audience: young people in general, that’s why in dividing the age level for comparison was chosen so relatively young age (25). See tables 5 and 6

Country/Index

PDI

Switzerland 34Argentina 49Italy 50Japan 54Uruguay 61Turkey 66France 68India 77Mexico 81Malaysia 104

Country/Index

PDI

Austria 11Denmark 18United kingdom

35

Germany 35Netherlands 38Czech republic

57

Spain 57South Korea 60Thailand 64China 80Russia 93

TABLE 5 SHOWS WHICH HAVE OLDER THAN “25” TABLE 6 SHOWS COUNTRIES THAT HAVE YOUNG PEOPLE, ON PEPSI WEBSIT LESS THAN 25, ON THE PEPSI WEBSITE

As can be seen from Table 5, 90% (9 from 10) countries, where on the Pepsi website presented older people, have relatively high-PDI. If to count countries which tend to present rather young people on Pepsi website it turn that 45% (5 from 11) countries have low-PDI (compare with 90% on websites with older, Table 6). Possible explanation that still a quite large number of countries with high-PDI have relatively young people on Pepsi website is the main marketing strategy of Pepsi. The target audience of Pepsi is young people, and illustrating the website with older people is against their main strategy.

PICTORIAL COMPARISON OF PEPSI WEB DESIGN IN MEXICAN PEPSI WEBSITE (PDI=50) AND PEPSI WEBSITE IN AUSTRIA (PDI=11)

F I G 5 : P E P S I W E B S I T E I N M E X I C O

Fig 5

F I G 6 : P E P S I W E B S I T E I N A U S T R I A

Fig 6

4. UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE INDEX Differences in amount of information are often motivated by

cultural attitudes to uncertainty avoidance. USA has UA index with middle measure (UAI=46), Belgium has UAI=94 which is one of the highest indexes. The higher UA, the more simple the website is in terms of presented elements on the page and dividing presented information in relatively less sections, so it makes easier the process of searching of the information on the website. To examine this influence by quantitative analysis, Pepsi websites have been divided into groups by visual difference in amount of information on the main page (studies element). Below, in Table 7 the countries with little information on their Pepsi websites are presented.

Country/index

UAI

Australia 30India 35U.k 36Ireland 40Italy 50Malaysia 51Norway 75China 85Poland 85Romania 86Russia 90South korea 93Belgium 94Spain 95Turkey 104

Note 69% (11 from 16) of

countries with relatively little information on the main page of Pepsi website have high-UAI.

TABLE 7: COUNTRIES WITH LITTLE INFORMATION ON THEIR MAIN PAGE

Country/Index

LTO

Czech 13Norway 20Canada 23U K 25USA 29Germany 31Australia 31Poland 32Sweden 33Netherland 44India 61South Korea 75china 118

Long/short term orientation is a sense of attitude to the history

. Table 8. Countries that don’t have a link to history page on Pepsi website

The results show that 77% (10 from 13) of countries that don’t have a link to page with history are primarily short-term oriented countries

5.LONG/SHORT-TERM ORIENTATION DIMENSION

Since short-term oriented cultures focus more on immediate results history page would not be so interesting for them. In this terms research confirms the influence of LTO dimension on web design for different cultures. In an illustration is presented in Picture 7 and Picture 8

On the Czech Republic Pepsi (LTO=13) website there is no special link to page or at least section with historical information. Otherwise Japanese website (representative of long-term oriented culture, LTO=80) has special historical page where historical information even divided in three topics: Pepsi history in Japan, world and history of Pepsi logo

Picture 7: Pepsi website in Czech Republic

Picture 8: Pepsi website in Japan (History page)

COMPARING PEPSI WEBSITE IN CZECH AND JAPAN

EFFECT OF CULTURE ON GLOBALIZATION Globalization has allowed for the spread of custom,

languages, and products. Globalization has allowed for people to be apple to attain goods and services not previously available. You can find Pepsi, Coca-Cola, KFC in most major cities throughout the world. Globalization has allowed people to become familiar with the culture of other countries allowing for a greater understanding. While globalization opens doors, it also leads to blending of culture and the deterioration of unique cultural difference. The negative of globalization include gap between rich and poor, reduction in individual sovereignty of a nation, environmental pollution and susceptibility of all parts of the world, suffering with recession in other countries

CONCLUSIONS It’s relatively easy to create a website from a technical

perspective, but to create the website which can allow effective communication on the global market is more complicated. It’s not only about direct translation from language into language; some cultural awareness is important.

The presentation shows that PepsiCo takes at least to some extent into consideration differences between cultures and tries to adopt its marketing strategies on the global market to local cultures.

The results show that PepsiCo pays attention to the most expressed cultural traits and through them differentiate websites. So the data reveals that PepsiCo makes some adaptations on its websites.