Cultural Differences between Germany and the United States in Landing Page Design

Companies with global operations should consider the culture of their target country in order to be internationally successful despite of globalization. Every marketing strategy should be adapted to the target country and its local cultural background. Companies which offer their products only through online channels need to pay special attention to the design of their websites. Therefore, we analyze in this study the design of United States and German landing pages in the online fitness industry and whether or not changes can improve the conversion rate of a landing page. To answer these questions, we develop and evaluate a culture specific landing page framework with a design science approach. The evaluation shows optimization potential of landing pages for the test elements “free content” and “promotional pictures”. Hence, the framework can be used to identify improvement potential for culture specific landing pages, but needs to be validated in other areas, too. 1. Problem identification and motivation Globalization increases in international integration between societies and states. This has implications for numerous fields, such as business, politics, the environment, but also for each country’s culture. The culture of a society has no boundaries, and it may be assumed that different cultures merge in today's globalized world. In relation to this issue, we generally speak of a hyper culture that combines the aspects of many different cultures [5]. However, numerous cultural researchers, including Hofstede, assume that there are elements of a culture that remain constant despite the influence of new and different cultures over time. In the face of all the changes that take place in the course of globalization, there is a reliability in the values of a culture [8]. All companies with global operations should make an effort to understand culture to survive in the global economy. Products and their marketing should be individually adapted to the respective countries including their cultural and local environment. In addition to the design of the product other aspects are important, such as advertising or the adaptation of websites. The purchase decision of website visitors depends on whether or not they are attracted to and can identify themselves with the product. The goal of every website is to convert visitors into customers. Therefore, a company can use a landing page to provide the visitors with the relevant information about a product. Those companies that sell their products online need to take extra care when designing and structuring their landing pages. A landing page is one of the most important tools of online marketing and has the task of informing a visitor about a particular offer. For this reason online marketing should also face the challenges of cultural adjustments [1]. In this study we chose the fitness industry to demonstrate the effects and opportunities of cultural differences in the context of landing page design. According to the study of the European health and fitness market, the fitness sector is growing continuously. Membership in European health and fitness clubs grew by 9% from 2013 to 2014. In addition, the fitness sector is being defined by changing consumer preferences, which cause a polarization of the market segments and diversification of the products offered. Digitalization continues to play a major role in this market, as it has in other consumer goods markets. More and more fitness clubs offer programs exclusively through the internet, requiring them to pay closer attention to the cultural differences between different countries [3,21]. The present study examines the differences between landing pages both in the United States and in Germany in the online fitness sector. The research questions (RQ) of the study are: RQ1: Do cultural differences reflect in the design of landing pages in comparison between Germany and the United States? 3991 Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences | 2017 URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10125/41642 ISBN: 978-0-9981331-0-2