Millward Brown: Point of View

Ads That Travel: Planning a Safe and Profitable Journey for Your CampaignFor those of us who love to travel, the variety of cultures around the world is endlessly

fascinating. The Pyramids of Giza, the bright lights of Ho Chi Minh City, and the Gaudi

architecture in Barcelona all attest to the rich and unique history of each place.

Yet in countries and environments as different as Mumbai and Miami, a global traveler will see many familiar brands. It’s no mean feat to maintain a successful global brand; managing brand positioning and communication strategies across countries is a tricky business. And in recent years, global media, the Internet, and an increasingly well-traveled population of consumers have made it more important than ever for brands to have a consistent tone and message. In addition, if they can harmonize a brand’s position across regions, marketers can save money by reducing the number of campaigns and executions that must be developed. But with the world’s cultures so diverse, can advertising communications really cross borders effectively?

The answer is that developing such communication is a challenge. The dream of reaching a worldwide audience with just one ad is rarely realized. Very often, something important gets lost in the translation. But with a bit of due diligence, campaigns can be developed that will work effectively across many geographies and cultures, allowing advertisers to realize great efficiencies while establishing seamless brand positionings.

To create communication that can cross borders effectively, marketers must follow a three-step process:

1. Determine the global brand promise, based on applying the unique product benefits to a universal human need.

2. Identify the marketing task that faces the brand in each geography.

3. Implement the creative idea with sensitivity to differences across countries and cultures.

By following these steps, described more fully here, an advertiser can leverage the economic power of multi-country scale while achieving a cohesive brand position around the world.

The dream of reaching a world-

wide audience with just one ad

is rarely realized. Very often,

something important gets lost

in the translation. But with a

bit of due diligence, campaigns

can be developed that will work

effectively across many geogra-

phies and cultures.

Sana M. CarltonManaging DirectorMillward Brown Switzerlandsana.carlton@millwardbrown.com

Millward Brown: Point of View Ads That Travel

©2009 Millward Brown

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standing varies significantly by country. For example, the image-building campaign that will benefit a brand in countries where it is well established will do little good in countries where the brand is not very well known and needs awareness-building communication.

A brand’s standing in relation to its advertising needs can be defined by two things:

• The brand’s position within the category — that is, whether it is a “Classic” or “Olympic” market leader, a medium-sized “Defender, ” a “Specialist” brand occupying a niche, or a recently launched “Little Tiger” or “Clean Slate. ”

• The maturity of the category itself.

Various combinations of these two parameters can point to very different needs. Advertising for a medium-sized Defender in a mature category usually needs to reinforce product benefits, while advertising for a Clean Slate in a new category needs to introduce both brand and category while driving awareness and trial.

The women’s hair removal category provides an example of a need to cluster markets due to category differences. In some markets, such as Turkey, waxing is the norm, making the removal of root hair well known and accepted, while in others, including Russia, waxes play only a nominal role, and use of razors is more broadly accepted. Therefore, the messaging for a brand such as Braun’s Silk-épil, an electrical epilator (root removal), may need to be adapted to account for the different competitive environments. The benefits of a razor versus wax or epilator are quite pronounced, so in Russia the challenge is to communicate about the benefits of changing your habits to the root removal of the epilator. In markets where waxing is the norm, root removal is not the benefit, and instead the unique benefits of the Braun Silk-épil versus waxing is of critical importance. Once you’ve finished the process of classifying your markets according to brand status and category maturity, you will have done most of your due diligence for developing a successful multi-country campaign. At this stage, you should focus your attention back on to the local nuances of the marketing environment.

Determine the global brand promise

A successful brand has unique and distinctive benefits that set it apart from other offerings. Coca-Cola appeals to our emotions with its promise of happiness through refreshment, while Gillette Fusion offers the functional advantage of a fifth blade. Whether their advantages are tangible or intangible, most brands that succeed on the world stage do so by building on a consistent brand promise that transcends cultures and countries by tapping into some universal human truth.

If a truly relevant global promise can be identified, it is very likely that a campaign based on that promise can successfully travel. Working together with your research team, you need to identify the brand promise that can be used around the world.

However, this will not always be possible; the needs and wants of consumers do vary from country to country, and different approaches may be needed when a brand’s standing is not consistent across regions. But even in those cases, clusters of markets that will respond to a single brand promise can often be identified.

Identify the marketing task in each geography

As always, the key to developing effective marketing communications is to first identify the business and marketing objectives. For an international brand, this includes determining whether those objectives are consistent across markets. While this step may seem obvious, it is sometimes overlooked and can lead to inefficiencies when a brand’s

3Millward Brown: Point of View Ads That Travel

©2009 Millward Brown

where commercial advertising has a long history, viewers are typically more receptive to emotional nuance and subtle or coded messages. For example, an advertiser in France can expect to transmit the exquisite taste of a luxury food product through sensual images of people in an elegant dining room, while in other markets that message might not register.

In markets that are relatively new to advertising, direct and rational messages about product benefits are typically more successful.

Interaction with various media

Finally, the ways in which people interact with advertising and media in different countries are perhaps as diverse as the cultures themselves. If we followed a young woman in Los Angeles throughout her day, we might observe that she has an hour-long commute in her car on billboard-strewn highways; she listens to radio stations that have not only audio ads but also written ads on the radio display; and she spends most of her day online. When she’s home at night, she has access to over 500 TV channels.

A woman of similar age and socioeconomic status in Madrid would spend much more time walking outside and commuting

Implement the creative idea with sensitivity to differences

Finding one ad that suits all markets is rare indeed. An analysis of our Link™ pretest database shows that ads that perform exceptionally well (that is, score in the top 5 percent) in their country of origin do not usually replicate that level of success in other countries. These findings support the point Nigel Hollis made in a recent Point of View on cultural differences.

“The world is not yet a global village,” said Nigel, “and in all likelihood is not going to become one.” In other words, though there may be global brands, there is not one global culture. Therefore, those who adapt a creative idea to different markets must have a thorough understanding of the cultural differences that come into play.

Marketers must consider cultural differences that are manifested in:

• Attitudes and values

• Levels of sophistication about advertising

• Interaction with various media

Attitudes and values

Attitudes and values vary by country; as a result, advertising that might be highly successful in one region may fail in another. For example, the value placed on the concept of “face” in China makes certain kinds of humor unacceptable in advertising. (In China, to get a laugh at someone else’s expense causes him to lose face.) In the Middle East, it’s inappropriate to use dogs in advertising because they are seen as dirty. Clearly, sensitive topics such as sexuality and religion present issues, but so too do some seemingly more innocuous elements such as numbers and colors.

Though cultural differences can create pitfalls for advertisers, they may also present opportunities to enhance a brand’s message. For example, in Switzerland, Swiss produce is highly respected. Therefore, the universal idea “I’m lovin’ it” is adapted in Swiss executions to highlight the fact that McDonald’s French fries are made of Swiss potatoes.

Levels of sophistication about advertising

The sophistication of the target audience in relation to advertising is another key difference to consider. In countries

There may be global brands, but there is not one

global culture. Those who adapt a creative idea to

different markets must have a thorough understand-

ing of the cultural differences that come into play.

Gaudi architecture in Barcelona

Millward Brown: Point of View Ads That Travel

©2009 Millward Brown

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Adapting a global approach for local relevance can take a variety of forms, including:

• Relatively minor changes such as translating a tagline and recutting an ad to fit local norms for ad length. The Nescafé Dolce Gusto coffee machine launch utilizes this approach. Product benefits are at the center of the communication story as a variety of coffees are shown dancing around the Dolce Gusto machine to James Brown’s “Sex Machine.”

• Utilizing the same consumer insight and creative idea while reshooting the ad using local talent to provide more identification with the target consumer.

• Evolving the creative to work within a new cultural context. An exceptional example of this is the global campaign for IBM Websphere Integration Software. In this campaign, the idea of linking parties together is represented in China by a spiritual man talking about the magical integration thread of connectivity, but in the United States, it is depicted as an electricity adaptor that can connect all inputs together.

Avoiding the extremes of being mindlessly global or hopelessly local requires striking a balance between global synergies and local relevance. Organizing insight around the brand equity and category status in each country is the key first step. Developing communications around market clusters brings the insight into action. Then, adapting the creative idea in light of cultural nuances maximizes the efficiency of each execution.

on the metro, where she’s exposed to poster and video ads as she waits. She arrives home much later in the day, and if she decides to watch television, she has just a few dozen stations to choose from. Clearly, the touchpoints for the same target audience may be very different across the countries in which you market your brands.

Similarly, different communication opportunities will present themselves near the points of purchase. For example, shoppers in the United States are likely to buy shampoo in a large store such as a discount drug store, supermarket, or Wal-Mart. In

those retail outlets, they might encounter in-store video. In Spain, however, shampoo is more likely to be purchased in a perfumeria, and ads are more apt to appear in metro and bus shelters. Consumers in Vietnam would probably visit a local one-room shop to make their purchases, where they would find communication on the packaging that explained product benefits.

The efficiency of individual media also varies across countries. For example, in the United States, the use of relatively short, frequent ad breaks encourages viewers to stay tuned. In Denmark, there are fewer ad breaks within a program, though they are also relatively short. In Spain, however, a 22-minute show would be broadcast in its entirety, followed by an eight-minute run of ads. So for an ad to be noticed in Spain, it might need to be more actively engaging than an ad intended to air in Denmark. The implication for maximizing the value of your communications is clear: One size does not fit all. Both your media plan and your ad executions must be developed with the local media environment in mind.

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To read more about advertising for global brands, visit www.mb-blog.com.

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