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Comparative Thick Description
To compare is to put side by side two objects or phenomena to study their
similarities and differences. In international marketing we often implicitly
compare cross-nationally or cross-culturally. The question seems to be “Is the
phenomenon similar or different?”, implicitly assuming that the object or
phenomenon cannot be similar and different at the same time.
 However, what looks similar in the eyes of marketers (researchers) may
actually be perceived as different by consumers (respondents, informants). This
may result in marketing blunders, often treated as mere anecdotes that cannot be
generalized, and are assumed inevitable.
 From a pragmatic perspective, the issue is whether overlooked difference will
result in marketing policy failures. However, similarities can be self-fulfilling
prophecies, the global solution being imposed on the local context without too
many problems.
 The anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1983: 41) writes about differences and
similarities (his emphasis on do and are) as follows:
“The differences do go far deeper than an easy men-are-men humanism
permits itself to see, and the similarities are far too substantial for an easy otherbeasts, other-mores relativism to dissolve.”