The UK shares some of the common symbols and traditions of other western cultures yet still maintains its own unique, rich culture. At a macro-level, the UK culture can be described using five cultural values.
Research showed that cultural values like Individualism-Collectivism, Power Distance, Masculinity-Femininity, High-Low Context and Uncertainty Avoidance can be used to categorize various national cultures.
A country’s culture is made unique by which of these five values are incorporated into daily life and they emphasis it puts on each. For example, the UK rates significantly on Individualism, Masculinity, Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance.
Insight Into UK Consumers’ Values:
Loyalty: A recent study showed that 72 percent of British Internet users do not like to shop around the web, but instead prefer to stick with 10 or less online stores they know. (www.receptional.com).
Privacy and Security: Based on a report from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), almost 79 percent of online British consumers are “very concerned” about online privacy and security. Almost 3.5 million British shun online shopping due to lack of trust and security concerns.
Gender-Differences: Women, aged 25-34 spend almost 20 percent more time online than their male counterparts (Ofcom communication market report, 2007).
Mobile Devices: According to MobileWeb Metrix British Mobile, web users account for almost 67 percent of the entire mobile web audience of the UK.
Social Networking: Research shows that more than one third of British online consumers are big on social networking and other social computing activities, like blogs, podcasting, etc. This participation in social networking is double the European average (Forester research, 2007).
Source: GPI Report, June 2008.
