The Impact Of National Culture On Marketing Strategies Of LADA Company’s Dealers In Uzbekistan

This research looks at the national cultural factors that affect Lada company’s marketing strategies in all regions of Uzbekistan. For data collection, this is an exploratory analysis focused on interviews and questionnaires of 39 marketing and sales managers. Content analysis and coding techniques were used to interpret the data. The results show that the studied national cultural influences have an effect on marketing campaigns at various levels. Six considerations affect sales campaigns, while power distance and uncertainty avoidance influence new product release the most. By far the most influential cultural influence on communication and advertisement campaigns is language. The results suggest that when entering the Uzbek market, managers can design and implement better business strategies. This study adds to our understanding of Uzbek culture and its effect on customer behavior, a crucial element in marketing.

cultural aspects, which are considered to have crucial importance to marketers is analyzed. Therefore, Hofstede's three factors from the national cultural framework including uncertainty avoidance; power distance; longterm orientation as well as three others known in the literature on national culture such as language, religious beliefs; ethnic values, are the form of local part of current research.

LITERATURE REVIEW
The Impact of Uncertainty Avoidance on Marketing Strategies Customers who have high uncertainty avoidance index culture are pertinent about payment of the right price for offered service or product. Consumers in such an environment, according to Roozmand, Ghasem-Aghaee, Nematbakhsh, Baraani, and Hofstede (2011), are more likely to buy highquality goods and services so as to lessen the danger of losing money during transactions. In the same way, Hofstede, Jonker and Verwaart (2008) emphasize on how setting correct price for this category of customers is important. These findings cannot be applied to all marketing media, particularly in markets where quality is in high demand. There are differences in how companies manage customer loyalty programs and sales promotions, and this is where cultural dimensions are used to shape loyalty strategies (Liu and Yang, 2009).

The Impact of Power Distance on Marketing Strategies
People's rights and responsibilities are determined by their power distance. People with high power often result in an effective direction (Brettel, Engelen, Heinemann and Vadhanasindhu, 2008). According to Soares, Farhangmehr, and Shoham (2007), power distance is a dimension that has a profound influence on customers' actions and decisionmaking process. Owing to high inequality in community, customers readily agree that the contents of sales promotions can vary from one buyer to the next (Kwok and Uncles, 2005). There is widespread consensus that loyal customers should be rewarded with extra benefits, whether monetary or otherwise. The way promotional activities are conveyed is influenced by power distance (Darley and Blankson, 2008). The popularity of celebrities in ads, according to Amos, Holms, and Strutton (2008), is attributed to their power and control over customers.

Impact of Long-Term Orientation on Marketing Strategies
People's long-term orientation decides whether they are looking for long-term results or immediate results. According to Yucel-Aybat (2014), although some customers might want to appreciate a product's immediate result, others may be content to enjoy it later if it means saving the best for last. A customer's loyalty behavior is unaffected as long as they are secure in paying the correct price. According to Mujtaba, Mohd, and Olayemi (2013), long-term orientation culture has an effect on the "relationship between confidence, personalization, and customer satisfaction in the banking sector" from a relationship marketing perspective (p.125). Claycomb and Martin (2001) found that in a long-term-oriented society, bank customers are more interested in savings and investments because they reap the benefits over time. Customer satisfaction and a company's ability to retain it are two big concerns of loyalty and long-term orientation.
The Impact of Language on Marketing Strategies Each culture, according to Umoren (1996), has connection with a language and it's one of the most obvious indicators of cultural identity. According to Lovelock (1999), in a world  (1985) claim that language has a significant effect on marketing strategies such as new product creation, advertising, and sales because of its many expressions (body language, colors, greetings, etc.). Language, according to Popovici (2011) and Tian and Borges (2011), is the most significant barrier to advertising. In China, the KFC slogan "Finger-lickin' good" was mistranslated as "We'll eat your fingers off," and in Taiwan, the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" was mistranslated as "Pepsi is bringing the ancestors back to life," which makes it appear to be an offence. "Advertising appeals that clearly demonstrate comparisons of goods are likely to be seen as less than tactful and, therefore, improper" from an Asian culture perspective rather than from an American culture viewpoint, according to Darley, Luethge, and Blankson (2013, p.197

METHOD
The triangulation approach was used to gather and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data for this research. According to Easterby-Smith, Thorpe, and Jackson (2008), this mixture should be considered complementary rather than supplemental approaches. The participants (seventy-eight in all, based on convenience sampling) were selected for their ability to control marketing campaigns at their respective companies. As such, respondents of the survey were marketing and sales managers working at dealerships of Lada company from various regions of Uzbekistan including (Tashkent, Andijan, Fergana, Samarkand, Bukhara, Navai, Khorezm, Jizzakh, Sirdarya, Surkhandarya, Kashkadarya, Namangan and Karakalpagistan Republic). The aim was to gather substantive data and summarize the results in order to answer the study questions. The interviewer prepared a list of seed questions and sent an introductory email to all participants to update them on the goals and objectives of the interview and the research in an effort to make each interviewee feel as relaxed as possible. The key 3 marketing managers and 75 sales managers were then sent a questionnaire to assess the degree to which the most important national cultural influences found during the interviews influenced their marketing strategies. The respondents were asked to include suggestions that could shape marketing campaigns when taking into account national culture in the questionnaire's final segment. The questionnaire, which was focused on interview answers and ranked from very low to very high, was created to determine how cultural influences influence marketing strategies. The questionnaire was designed using the Google Form tool (https://docs.google.com) and respondents were required to assess how each of the six national cultural factors impact each marketing strategy. Face-to-face interviews (3) were conducted in Tashkent and Bukhara since originally author is from Bukhara but works in Tashkent. The remaining interviews were conducted over the phone with sales and marketing representatives from other regions.

Cultural Factors Influencing Lada Company's Marketing Strategies in Uzbekistan
Most of those interviewed indicate that marketing strategies undertaken by Lada company in Uzbekistan are influenced by religious beliefs, language, ethnic values, loyalty, inequality and hierarchy in the society, tolerance to risk and the willingness to take risk. The majority of interviewees mainly describe a society where marketing strategies are influenced by Islam, long-term orientation attitudes, languages, ethnic values and social hierarchy. According to more than 80% of the respondents, power gap, ambiguity avoidance, and long-term orientation are the cultural considerations that have a significant impact on pricing strategies. Inequality and hierarchy in society are seen as the most influential factors (more than 90 percent). Tolerance to risk and ability to take risk are affected by pricing strategies, according to 66 out of 78 respondents (85%), and long-term orientation culture is influenced by pricing strategies, according to 82 percent of respondents.  Table 2 also shows that relatively few respondents believe that societal inequalities and hierarchy, longterm orientation, and risk aversion have a significant effect on pricing strategies. Long-term orientation culture affects sales promotion 2 2 0 52 22

Sales promotion
In many cases, Table 3 is eye-opening. To begin with, it indicates that more than half of the respondents (97%) rate all six cultural factors as "good" or "very high," with long-term orientation being the most significant. Second, the national cultural considerations that have the least impact on sales marketing tactics are risk tolerance and ability to take risks.  Table 4 reveals that new product launch is primarily influenced by two cultural factors: societal inequality and hierarchy, and risk aversion and ability to take risks. More than 80% of the participants agree that these two cultural influences had a substantial effect. About all agrees that language has a minor effect on the launch of new products. Tolerance to risk and willingness to take risk influence loyalty programmes and strategies 24 28 8 8 10

Loyalty Programmes and Strategies
Long-term orientation culture affects loyalty programmes and strategies 6 8 4 34 26 The three cultural influences that have a major effect on loyalty programs are religious views, ethnic traditions, and long-term orientation, as seen in Table 5. On any of these cultural influences, more than 75% of participants suggest that it has a substantial effect. Language is only mentioned by less than 1% of participants when it comes to describing loyalty programs.

Pricing Strategies
According to the majority of interviewees, three cultural factors influence pricing strategy: power distance, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation. Interview results suggest that pricing strategy can be improved by leveraging on inequality in the society and defining many different pricing models. Interviewee from Bukhara says: "We have many different prices for our cars and services. Prices are tied to offers which are built based on the social position. We propose premium price for leaders and high influencing people with premium services, while we do have standard and low prices for basic services" Uncertainty avoidance enables firms to improve the pricing model for new services by setting a lower price when launching a new service. According to one of the interviewees, setting a lower price on cars can remove the uncertainty. Some interviewees state that when customers are long-term oriented, the pricing strategy is to reduce prices or propose discount to enhance and increase subscription on long term basis. On the other hand, for markets scoring low on long-term orientation, the price is relatively higher to ensure revenue in the short run.

Communication and Advertising
Results suggest that communication and advertising can be improved by translating the message to fit the local language. This is illustrated by the below two responses from two interviewees of Lada company: some of the messages in advertising must be translated in Uzbek language since not everyone knows the terms about the complete set of cars (e.g., classic, standard, comfort, luxe, luxe prestige, luxe multimedia and so on

Sales Promotions
Almost all interviewees agree that the five cultural factors (language, religious beliefs and ethnic values, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation) influence sales promotions. For example, one respondent states that religious beliefs and ethnic values makes it possible to target and reach specific consumers whose shopping behaviours are significantly impacted by these two mentioned cultural factors. An Interviewees from a Bukhara and Samarkand say: "We run most of our promotion in Tajik, the dominant local language, both in rural and urban areas. We select some local people to go to meet consumers at their houses and present the promotions. As many people language Tajik, it makes it more efficient to present sales promotion in their language". Another Interviewee says: "We do have big sales promotions during Ramadan's and Eid's days. As the country is almost 90% Muslims, it was evident to implement such promotions during these periods 1 . It was actually the best times for promotions, not during Christmas as it could be in others places".

New Product Introduction
The findings show that power distance and uncertainty avoidance are cultural factors influence the introduction of new products. A high number of the respondents state that new product introduction strategy can be improved by using the inequality in the society and introduce the product to high income earners first, usually called VIP customers. By doing so, firms are able to get buy-in from these top consumers, and can expect that followers will adhere (or not) to the product. The majority of the interviewees also suggest that uncertainty avoidance impacts negatively on the introduction of new products. Therefore, they suggest that to improve new product introduction strategy in a market with high level of uncertainty avoidance, the strategy must be aligned with a well-defined pricing that will encourage the consumer to buy the new product. They state that even if there is uncertainty for product, if the price is reasonable, consumers are still willing to buy it.

Loyalty Programmes
Interview results suggest that religious beliefs, ethnic values and long-term orientation are cultural factors influencing loyalty programmes. Loyalty programmes can be improved by leveraging on religious considerations and ethnic values to win the loyalty of many customers, especially in a country with high degree of ethnicity and religious beliefs. Most of the interviewees also agreed that long-term orientation can be used to improve loyalty programmes strategy. Customers that live in countries scoring high in long-term orientation emphasize on short term outcomes, so loyalty programmes are designed to propose short term outcomes. For example, loyal consumers can enjoy additional bonus or discounts on a daily or weekly basis.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY
This study suggests that three cultural factors influence pricing strategy: power distance, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation. As such, advertising should not criticize religious beliefs or ignore ethnic values. Almost all interviewees agree that the five cultural factors (language, religious beliefs and ethnic values, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation) influence sales promotions. The findings show that power distance and uncertainty avoidance are cultural factors influence the introduction of new products. The majority of the interviewees also suggest that uncertainty avoidance impacts negatively on the introduction of new products. Interview results suggest that religious beliefs, ethnic values and long-term orientation are cultural factors influencing loyalty programmes. Loyalty programmes can be improved by leveraging on religious considerations and ethnic values to win the loyalty of many customers, especially in a country with high degree of ethnicity and religious beliefs. There is also strong agreement that long-term orientation can be used to improve loyalty programmes strategy. Customers who have high score in long-term orientation, emphasize on short term outcomes, so loyalty programmes are designed to propose short term outcomes. The findings from the fieldwork and the literature reviewed concur that pricing strategy is influenced by uncertainty avoidance. From the long-term orientation perspective, the literature does not attribute a clear-cut relationship between longterm orientation index and pricing strategy. This study suggests that long-term orientation influences pricing in two ways. This finding suggests then that low price should be the strategy for market with high long-term orientation culture. When religious beliefs and ethnic values influence pricing, it is firstly because these cultural factors impact consumers shopping behaviour, and secondly because communities are most of the time grouped based on religious beliefs or ethnic masculinityfemininity and indulgence. However, the authors, while acknowledging that these factors also impact consumers' behaviour, view that the ones considered in this paper are the most significant factors for the context of the study. Another limitation lies in the fact that the study does not look at the interaction between national cultural factors, but instead considers them separately and evaluates their impact on consumer behaviour separately. Nonetheless, the study has shown an interesting relationship between national culture and marketing strategy in the Uzbek context and the study leveraged on the diversity of the participants to give credit to the data collected. The results of this study have a number of practical implications. The conclusions of the paper work allow managers to better design and implement marketing strategies in the Uzbek business context. This paper also extends knowledge of Uzbek culture and its impact on consumer behavior and marketing strategies, which are important for the marketing literature and research work within Uzbek context.