The Limits of Globalisation.

In April last year began for me, more as an anecdote than as a fully planned project, an experience that made me rethink what I had thought until then about globalisation, particularly about global brands.

They say that leisure is the mother of all vices.?In my case, it took me to Qatar.?

It was the beginning of the second quarter of a year that, at least from a business point of view, had yet to get off the ground.?Finding myself one afternoon with little to do, which was about to become the modus operandi of my studio, I set about filling out as a "bot" (read: "on automatic") an application offering my services as a volunteer for the FIFA Arab Cup Qatar 2021: the full-dress rehearsal ("full-dress rehearsal", theatre fans would pedantically say) of the first Middle Eastern edition of the world's biggest sporting event.

After a lengthy process of selection, planning, and preparation, as exhausting as the desert treks (literally) that I had to make on more than one occasion to find my way out of the stadiums, I arrived in Doha.?At that moment, I began a three-week immersion in cultures, languages and customs that, despite their foreignness (or perhaps precisely because of it), seduced me.

For a brand to transcend geopolitical borders, and compete effectively in a territory that spans across different markets, there must be needs, interests, and tastes that do so as well.?Thus, the starting point and destination of a global brand is a consumer whose behaviour responds to beliefs, habits, and customs that transcend the locality where he or she lives, and are shared by others elsewhere.

The formula sounds simple; its implementation, however, can be a little (sometimes a lot) less so.

I was arriving at my first assignment as a Spectator Assistance Volunteer, at the Ahmed Bin Ali Stadium: one of the eight stadiums that were purpose-built for the World Cup in Qatar.?Everything in the stadium, as in Qatar at the time, was brand new: the seats (I was the first person to sit in seat 10A in row 001), the sound system, the building, would be enjoyed by the public during an official match for the first time.?And just as new were the metro, the motorways (with more lanes than cars on them), and the airport.?

Nothing like attending the premiere of a country.

My role as a Volunteer was to be the first filter for spectators entering the stadium.?I had to check the authenticity of the tickets, prevent spectators from bringing in non-standard objects into the stadium, and direct them to the appropriate access tunnels.

It was in this context that I had my first in-depth interaction with a person there, and my first reflection on the globality of a brand.??It was a soldier, who, along with several hundred others like him, constituted the main security barrier of the stadium.?

During the hours in which we waited for the spectators to arrive (our work shifts began four hours before kick-off), my new friendship and I began to converse, despite the fact that our respective versions of English had absolutely nothing in common: grammar, syntax, and vocabulary separated us, rather than communicated.

After an initial awkward exchange about our respective generalities, followed by an analysis of the majesty of the stadium (very majestic), and ending with a calculation of the capacity that the match that morning would attract (Tunisia vs Mauritania: you name it...), we began to contrast our cultures.

If I found it "curious" - to say the least - that my soldier friend did not have to go through the romance-dating-wedding ordeal (because in the tradition in which he lives, couples are arranged beforehand by the parents of the bride and groom), let alone how intrigued he was by the concept of being the one who chooses the partner with whom, at least in principle, he will spend the rest of his life.?And the punch line was his "does that work?", to which I could only feign selective deafness, and divert the conversation to another topic.?

I did not want to be responsible for the failure of the expansion of one of the cornerstones of the Western model of family organisation to the Middle East.?The second great divide between us was thus established.?

He: soldier; young; Muslim.?Me: part-time volunteer; halfway through my life; atheist by all accounts.?Strike three.

And so the trifecta was completed that would make any idea of a global brand unthinkable: different languages, opposing cultures, alien lifestyles.

And yet we were there.?Talking, living together, sharing.?Homologated by a sense of loyalty that neither of us had (he as a Saudi soldier, hired by the Qatari Army; me as a Mexican Volunteer); brought closer by the premise that a smile detonates another smile; and united by the experience that nothing, nothing, nothing transcends the barriers that football transcends.

Still think your brand is global?

The author is president of Barracudaworks, a firm specialising in brand strategy.

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