1.

In the local market

a. What specific aspect of culture should be considered

In Ethiopia, there are occasions in which meat plays pivotal and vital parts and its cultural symbolic
weight is markedly greater than that accorded to most other foods. These include holidays, initiation rites
and visitations by important guests. Cultural factors exert the broadest and deepest influence on consumer
behavior. The marketer needs to understand the role played by the buyer’s culture, sub-culture and social
class.

1.culture
It is the most basic cause of a person’s wants and behavior. Human behavior is largely learned. Every
group or society has a culture, and cultural influences on buying behavior may vary greatly from country
to country. Failure to adjust to these differences can result in effective marketing mistakes. Hence
marketers are always trying to spot cultural shifts in order to imagine new products that might be wanted.
So, ABC company should consider the following cultural aspects in its local market.

Community spirit

1. Meat consumptions in Ethiopia have associated with peculiar cultural practices, for instance: the
people sues the oldest and cultural preservation of meat and prepare traditional dishes from meat, meat
by-products are utilized for preparation of traditional dishes. It is a fact that the share of meat in the
human diet has been closely related with a life style, wealth, habits, religious beliefs and human
awareness.

2. Consumption of chicken in respect to the Ethiopian people has very cultural practices, that is, the
preparation process of the national dish i.e Doro wat. These sources of meat have parts in the diet of
Ethiopian people. In addition, the dominant egg that is used as a food source by Ethiopians will be
another competing factor for the ABC company in the local market.

3. In Ethiopia, a cow or an ox can be butchered for the sole purpose of selling within the community. In
special occasions and holidays, people have a cultural ceremony for slaughtering cows or oxen, not any
other animals and sharing among the group, called kircha, which is a very common option of the rural
areas where access of meat is challenging. Kircha is considered by Ethiopians as their social capital and
common in some of Ethiopia towns’ people by which the elders especially enjoy being involved in the
activity. It may be cheaper than going to the ABC company . The meat is divided on the basis of equal
portions comprising a package of every internal organ, muscle meat, and bone of the slaughtered animal.
Size of the package is determined by the number of divisions. The consumption of meat was one of the
factors that differentiated the society of antiquity. But in ABC company the internal organs of ox were not
easily accessible and packaged. This may be another competing factor for ABC company.

As far as the behavior of Ethiopian people is concerned, they are sensitive in respect to their culture and
very conservative in food. This is because they are aware of the conservative attitude of local people to
their culture and trying to shift the traditional eating habit of local people whose meat source are
dependent on their consumption and supply culture could meet the challenge of improving buying from
ABC company’s beef product.
B. What specific aspect of sub cultures should be considered
Subculture
Each culture contains smaller subcultures, or groups of people with shared value systems based on
common life experiences and situations. Subcultures include nationalities religions, racial groups, and
geographic regions. Many subcultures make up important market segments, and marketers often design
products and marketing programs tailored to their needs. ABC company should consider the following
sub cultures in Ethiopia in while it supplies its beef product to local consumers.

1. Religion

Religious beliefs shape also the social behaviors where differences in religious affiliations tend to
influence the way people live, the choices they make, the food they eat, and with whom they associate
(Kim et al., 2004).

Ethiopia’s religions have a significant role to play on consumption of meat and meat products by setting
the feeding habits and customs of the people which in turn influences the pattern of meat consumption in
the country. The religious groups to which people belong will determine food practices according to their
religion. Differences in religious affiliations tend to influence the way people live, the choices they make,
what they eat and whom they associate with.

The consumption of meat and meat products in Ethiopia has very tidy association with religious beliefs,
and are influenced by religions. In Ethiopia, according to CSA (2007), Christians generally represent
62.8% of the population: 43.5% Orthodox Christians, 18.6% Protestant and 0.7% Catholic. Muslims are
33.9% of the population. The traditional beliefs, accounts for the rest 2.6% and others 0.6%. Because
these main religions of Ethiopia have their own peculiar doctrines in detecting the feeding pattern of their
followers, it will be critical to understand the situation of animal’s flesh food consumption in relation to
the religious influences. The influence of these Ethiopian mainly religions on the peoples’ meat products
consumption are the following.

1.1 schedule the days of the years in meat products consumptions.

The belief of Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Christians, the faithful must abstain on fasting days such as
Wednesdays and Fridays except the 50 days running from Easter, the Fast of the Prophets, the fast of
Nineveh, Lent, the Fast of the Apostles and the fast of the Holy Virgin Mary . The Ethiopian Orthodox
Christians follow fasts in a way similar to other Orthodox Christians but with a frequency of
approximately 250 days in a year (Rakesh and Tafesse, 2010).

Orthodox Christians fasting influences consumption of meat by reducing the supply, the total Christians,
withdraw from meat products on an average for about 250 days of the year due to this religious belief the
periods for low demand of cattle meat was observed in correspond to the fasting period of followers. This
is because the company cease or minimize their services.
On the fasting days of Orthodox Christian followers which accounts for 62.8% of the Christian and
43.5% of the total population, ABC company don’t give service except those few owned by Muslims.

So, the above reasons may lead ABC company decrease sales volume due to low consumption pattern
of the consumer.

1.2 Slaughtering

The three Ethiopia’s Christian sects such as Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic, 62.8% of the total
population, have the same ritual process for animal slaughtering, which is, slaughtering the animals in the
name of “trinity”: the name of “Father God, Son Jesus and the Holly Sprit”. Whereas, Muslim’s ritual
slaughtering entails that the animal is killed in God’s name, “Allah”. Based on these differences Peoples
may purchase the live animals rather than ABC company beef product.

1.3 Medical case and age

Childers and people with medical case and others are forced to limit or withdraw from consuming beef.
slaughtering sheep, goat, chicken --------

2. Social class
Almost every society has some form of social class structure. Social classes are society’s relatively
permanent and ordered divisions whose members share similar values, interests, and behaviors.

Social class is not determined by a single factor, such as income, but is measured as a combination of
occupation income, education, wealth and other variables. In some social systems. Members of different
classes are reared for certain roles and can’t change their social position.

Marketers are interested in social class because people with in a given social class tend to exhibit similar
buying behavior

c. How can the company overcome the possible cultural challenges

transparency of the connection between beef and ox origin to activate consumres' cognitive
dissonance due to the religious paradox. Some people may associate the stimuli used with the ox
origin of beef.

It may also have been the case that showing the different cuts of beef in the meat condition
activated participants' willingness to eat beef, prompting questions about whether pictorial or
verbal presentations of a dish may enhance the perceived deliciousness of a dish. Such
presentations of dishes are quite common in restaurants and shops

the manipulation of the connection between meat and its animal origin was a dish described with
a recipe, sometimes with a picture of the dish. Such conventional verbal and visual
representations often accompany offers of meat dishes in restaurants and shops, and may be
expected to arouse people's appetite and liking for the dish.

d. What specific strategy do you recommend for the company to be successful

To be successful in the local market ABC company should consider the following basic stratages

1. By using successive promotion and awareness tools ABC can gradualy change the people’s
behavior in their beef consumption culture , for instance, by encouraging the supermarkets to
sell beef, by frequently preparing of experience sharing and exhibitions that avail the
cultural practices of other , and by celebrating national days of food which promote beef
product of ABC company.