Global Brand Building Tips

There is a lot of debate on the hypothesis of smaller brands gaining share from bigger brands, with later ones being fading away from the global arena.

Although Byron Sharp clearly showcased, there is no empirical evidence stating this to be true, regardless I would like to reflect and share few tips on successful Global Brand Building from my experience:

1. It all starts with having a Rock-Star Global Brand Team:

• By design the role of Global Brand Builders, are to serve as the “Consultants” to local colleagues as well as X-functional teams, hence they need to become opinion Leaders & exercise “servant leadership”
• The structure of brand team depends on complexity, but most global brand function team set-up is divided between Innovation vs Equity vs Media/Digital Teams

2. Bring clarity what to Fix vs Flex:

• Positioning should be consistent across (universal values are transversal)  vs take a creative license to localize execution based on human insights. i.e. Dettol stands for Protection across the world, but how does protection is communicated slightly varies x-geographies.
• Understand what are strategic Claims that need to be fixed vs what can be adapted by the market. E.g. The strategic claim of Chewing Gum brand Clorets was “Fresh Breath Expert”, but the active ingredients that delivered “Fresh Breath” varied across.

3. Bond with your local marketing colleagues:  

• Global marketing deals with a lot of politics day to day basis and involves loads of stakeholder management especially from the local team POV. At the end of the day, they will be executing your global campaign, hence you need their full buying:

a) Get their inputs on Comms Brief Upfront

b) Take them through the journey. i.e. arrange Creative Idea and STB presentation together with Creative agency and try to listen and consider their builds

4. Identify Market Proxies:

• You cannot have all the monies in the world which is especially true in global marketing. One of the merits of global brand building is to try to find as many synergies as possible:
• Understand what are key market clusters, which share similar consumer profiles, characteristics, cultural settings, and tailor your global marketing accordingly.

5. Be Bold and Fearless in Execution: Research shows that proven Ad recall is on average 20%, which is triggered by the high amount of brand and media clutter. Therefore, unless you really disrupt the category, your campaign will remain unnoticed. To deliver excellent creative output it requires:

• Excellent Comms Brief with a very strong human insight (advise to quickly test the relevance of insight @ online, qualitative platforms with market Proxies)
• Work on BIG IDEA (THE Creative Platform) which will enable you to create multiple copies within the same space in the long-term (e.g. Toilet paper Zewa’s Village Ad Platform, which created many series)
• If you are not able to create a long-term creative platform, think about leveraging your brand purpose  (e.g. Bodyform empowered women through multiple campaigns - “ blood is normal ” and later “ #Wombstories” execution)
• Don’t Limit with Traditional TV first thinking. Ask the agency to come back with Non-traditional media, which harnesses the power of media as such. E.g. Activia Germany launched a new Plant-Based product with an Influencer Campaign.
• Be relentlessly consistent with the usage of your distinctive assets (think of M&Ms characters, Scottex Puppy; etc), but try to refresh your narrative to be more relevant (Heineken new Covid Ad – “Back to Bars”)
• Create strong, always Content on social media and optimize as you go

6. Innovate or die:

• There is a very famous new mantra on “up or out”, there is no room for being steady and flat due to this VUCA environment, hence to survive into the New World you need to have to constantly keep your hand on the consumer’s pulse. Be consumer obsessed. No need to do huge Quant Studies, sometimes simple (free) social listening tools give more insights.
• Being Innovative does not also necessarily mean literally launch a new product every quarter. This also means to think innovatively, communicate in an innovative manner, and so forth.