“Analysis of cultural values of young Saudi citizens towards segmentation of commercial advertisements”

Advertisement, being one of the most effective marketing tools, induces customers to purchase their products and encourages them to behave in a certain way. This study focused on the relationship between demographic and cultural values of young Saudi Arabians. Primary data was collected from a total of 284 respondents from the Riyadh region using an online survey. The survey questionnaire was adopted from previous relevant studies and modified according to the objectives of the understudy by consid-ering the cultural values apparent to Saudi citizens. The corresponding sub-items were also designed on a 5-point Likert scale. Based on the theoretical aspects presented in the literature, the hypotheses were formulated to find the substantial contributions of the sample data. The correlation using SPSS revealed that gender and marital status had no relation to the segmentation of advertisements, whereas other vital cultural factors such as religion, language, manners and customs, social institutions, aesthetics, and traditions demonstrated a strong linkage with segmenting firms’ advertisements. The study revealed important implications for international product advertisers and market communicators. It also provided several directions for future researchers.


INTRODUCTION
The globalization of business and online technology allowed customers to shop around the world without crossing national borders. According to Keegan and Schlegelmich (2001), most firms combat marketing-related challenges. Among them, understanding the cultural values of customers is vital, as they are constantly changing. Hofstede (1988) defined culture as complex but not chaotic, and it is a collective behavior of people's minds that differentiates one group from another. Hollensen (2011) exposed eight cultural components, including attitude, behavior, religion, manners and customs, technology and material culture, languages, values, and traditions, social institutions. According to Sinclair and Wilken (2009), to attain a competitive advantage in the global market, global firms need to understand these aspects of their customers to segment them accordingly. Further Usunier (1993) stated the cultural differences in every country arise from the spending pattern, values, attitudes, and tastes of different people. Many researchers demonstrated a strong impact of the consumer culture on their lifestyle, choice of product and services, motivation and intention to purchase, and ultimately, its consequences are evident on consumption behavior (Tse & Wong, 1988). Global firms persuade their audience in such a way to make them purchase their products. Some other companies may not even promote their products, but present themselves just as uncommercial. Al-Mohammadi (2014), Limbu and Torres (2009) stated the main objective of such advertisers was to tempt customers to behave in a particular way that indirectly affected their purchasing behavior. In the context of Saudi culture, Kraidy (2009) 2013) and Al-Salomi (2016) argued both liberal and Islamists of Saudis are not the same in perceiving different ads despite both groups applying true Islam. Therefore, it is not certain to state which group is right. Therefore, this study is proposed to explore the opportunities that firms may adopt to cultural ideas while advertising specifically in Saudi Arabia. It also examines how Saudi young consumers behave and adjust their buying patterns based on the advertisement messages, which they might find against their cultural values and beliefs. This study bridges the gap in understanding the attitude of various young consumers from cultural perspectives and differentiating Islamist and liberal customer groups. Moreover, the study helps advertising firms and marketing communicators to segment the youngsters while advertising.

LITERATURE REVIEW, AIMS AND HYPOTHESES
Ali (2019) stated that there is a lack of research on advertising with reference to the cultural context in the Arab world. In exploring the elements of cultural values on advertising, Mansour (2015) surveyed Saudi and Sudan customers and found that social norms and credibility affected Saudis, and entertainment, information and credibility affected the Sudaneses. Sahin (2014) on Turkish students showed the local product ad was more effective than that of the international branded products. This demonstrates that cultural similarities increase the acceptance of an advertising message. Another study by Medabesh (2016), using desire, interest, attention, and actions as Saudi customers' variables, showed that online ads increased the customers' purchasing. However, it was assumed that this study might have persuaded people with the anti-culture ads. Therefore, another study was conducted by Badawi (2017)  to the majority of the Arab and Muslim population and the apparent homogeneity, there are many cultural similarities. These societal clusters can be segregated based on beliefs, traditions, behavioral aspects, religion, social class, income levels, and education. Researchers mentioned that due to globalization, the Arab nations welcome foreign products and the market offers abundant prospective for imported products.
The cultural values in Saudi Arabia are given topnotch importance since the beginning. The same is true for organizations and advertising firms due to the prevailing cultural norms. According to Kalliny (2012), Arab countries maintain a conservative society, since women were given high value compared to western countries. For instance, Arab women dress modestly in ads in order to avoid the scenes of sexual attraction (Kalliny, 2010;Kalliny & Gentry, 2007). Even the international companies present modest ads in Saudi Arabia compared to anywhere they advertise in the rest of the world. Bin Said et al. (2017) and Sahin (2014) reported that advertising alcoholic products was challenging in Arab countries. Despite that fact that most of the Arabs are Muslims, there are different perspectives in terms of religious beliefs and their worship styles.
Only Saudi Arabia believes in the Hanbali doctrine at the government level. Therefore, even political values are also based on Islamic trends for decades. Also, the national Saudi television channels present women in a modest way with full hijab and even edits the ads shown in the rest of the world before they telecast on Saudi television (Abdul Cader, 2015). These practices portray a high level of harmony between Islamic teachings and the views of Saudis.
Purnama and Zafira (2017) scrutinized the apparent differences of ad in one religion separately for two Islamic countries, namely Indonesia and Malaysia. The results showed that the ad in one country could not be consistent with the other, especially if they are different cultures. So even if two neighboring Islamic countries have the same ad, it may fit one community alone and may not be suitable to the other due to sub-cultural differences. The buyers who are less familiar with foreign culture might not fit into the advertising of international products. So, it is the culture that shapes people's behavior in a particular society. Thus, in many nations when the firms want to grow internationally, they work closely with market research firms or marketing agencies to assist them in providing the insight to understand the similarities and differences of customers in those nations. Since most ads are verbal and screen played language, local culture and images will influence the socio-cultural behavior of customers in respective countries (Hollensen, 2011).
Research studies demonstrated how to convey the ad message to customers in order to segment the market. DeBono (2006) concentrated on understanding the magnitude of the message and found the recipient pays more attention and gets motivated if it matches them. According to Lammers (1991), various motives highlighted in ads, will attract them. Similarly, Rossiter et al. (2000) recommended the product ad must be appealing and supportive with many arguments and convey a low perceived risk by using only one or two claims to create curiosity about a product. Bajaber (2020) revealed that Saudi customers evaluate cultural aspects in ads. The same study stated that customers also take seriously the national ads compared to other nations. Al-Olayan and Karande (2000) stress people having collective cultures will have relatives and friends with common beliefs. Conversely, given people value cultural messages, an individual recipient may perceive them differently and develop other ideological references, and may not distract from cultural values. Therefore, sometimes advertisers may get miss led by the public trend and would not guarantee individual purchasing behavior. From this point of view, it is essential to globally understand the customers' perception of ads based on their cultural values. Therefore, given the prevailing literature on ad segmentation, the study provides the following framework for understanding the relationship between the customer demographic variable, cultural values and ad segmentation (Figure 1). strategies and firms segmenting them accordingly were least emphasized. Therefore, this study aimed to fill the research gaps that exist in the literature. Therefore, the main objectives of this study are as follows: 1. To understand the role of customer demographic profile (gender, marital status, education, social status, income level on advertisement segmentation (AS).
2. To understand the relationship between cultural values and advertisement segmentation (AS)).

Research hypotheses
Based on the literature review and above objectives, the following hypotheses were formulated: H1: There is a significant positive relationship between customer gender, marital status and advertisement segmentation (AS).
H2: There is a significant positive relationship between customer education, income level, social class and AS.
H3: There is a significant positive relationship between customer cultural values and AS.

METHODOLOGY
This study proposed to determine the impact of demographics and cultural values of Saudi young customers on the ad. Based on these objectives, it was decided to collect the opinions of young Saudi customers. An online survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire to analyze their demographics, cultural values, and their attitudes and perceptions towards watching ads. The questionnaire was adopted from Bajaber (2020), with slight modifications, and circulated both in English and Arabic versions to obtain accurate opinions of customers and avoid any misunderstandings while filling the questionnaire. The variables and their items are explained below. The data was collected from a sample of 284 young Saudi respondents who are within the age group of eighteen to thirty-five. An online questionnaire was sent to their emails using Google forms. Since this study adopted the questionnaire from Bajaber (2020), the exploratory factor analysis was not conducted as the underlying factor structure of the measure was previously identified and validated by the respective authors. Therefore, this study analyzed the collected data using Software Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and presented the demographic profile of the respondents (Table  1), mean and standard deviation of the constructs (Table 2), and correlation between cultural values and advertisement segmentation ( Table 3).

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
The frequency and percentages of demographics were illustrated in The correlation matrix (Table 3) shows that gender (0.054) and marital status (0.186) do not have any positive relationship with AS due to the insignificant value. Therefore, hypotheses H1 was rejected and not supported by the data. Similarly, income level (0.386, p < 0.05), education (0.567, p < 0.001), and social class (0.406, p < 0.001) obtained a moderately significant positive relationship with AS, which shows that hypothesis H2 was supported by the data and accepted. The other variables, Table 2. Cultural values of customers towards ads Source: Survey questionnaire adopted from Bajaber (2020).

Variables N Mean SD
Religion (Reli) 284 3.66 1.16 1. I am a Muslim. 2. I am interested to watch the ads that are Islamically acceptable. 3. I pay more attention to company ads whose products interests me. 2. I will no longer watch the ads that try to change the social role of women through their ads. 3. I shall not trust the companies whose ads are against the Islamic principles. 4. I will not entertain the company ads who exposes the women in undesirable images. 5. I will not entertain the company ads, which detracts the Islamic manners. Social institution (SI) 284 2.98 1.14 1. The advertising messages shape the direction of my relationship with the advertiser.   (2015), and Kalliny and Gentry (2007) who consider the use of women as a weapon in promoting the firms' products and a negative impact of customers' loyalty on firms. Also, the ad that conveys an appealing and modest message to family, friends and relatives will be valued more in the view of customers and may foster a decent relationship with the firm. The respondents expressed they did not encourage the ads that promoted a rivalry message or products that are Islamically prohibited. Obviously, advertisers should segment their customers based on the aforementioned cultural variables. Failure to consider them can also lead to the failure of their advertisement efforts and new product launches. Thus, it is believed that the majority of Saudi young customers are Islamists and may not change soon in the future.

CONCLUSION
This study examines the conceptual content of ad segmentation as applied to young Saudi citizens in Saudi Arabia. The study demonstrates the high cultural values of the citizens and illustrated that the perception of Islamists differs significantly from the perception of liberals. With regard to cultural values, the study paid attention to religious, social, manners and customs, language, tradition, and aesthetic aspects of Saudis along with some other demographic aspects. The study was limited to local citizens who reside in Saudi Arabia and did not include other social groups like families, teenagers, and old customers. Further research could explore the advertisement perception by these groups, as well as Saudi nationals in foreign countries, to provide a broader view of whether they are open to different cultures in other foreign countries. The study contributes to providing international firm advertisers with some useful insights into Saudi culture. Therefore, firms must focus on segmenting Saudi customers while advertising and cannot broadcast the same advertisements they present to other citizens in another country.