THIS WEEK: MANAGING A GLOBAL BRAND

Dear DOYLE,

I’ve recently changed jobs, moving from a local fashion retailer to a global clothes manufacturer.?The core of the job should stay the same (it’s still marketing) but I’m conscious that my professional life thus far has been centred on my own country, and there may be some blind spots now I’m selling to the world.?What do I need to think about?

Elias, Beirut

Congratulations on the new job; adding some global campaign development to your CV will make your experience more rounded and CV more impressive.?If you enjoy this, consider a stint abroad at some point too (for personal as much as professional reasons). ?

You’ve already got a great foundation to build on and the good news is that yes, you’re right – the differences between the job you have left and the one you are joining are minimal, and certainly not something that can’t be learnt.?

Central to success is having a deep knowledge of your new brand and consumers in each and every market you cover, starting with what they think of the brand now but including as much of their character as possible.?It’s really important not to fall into the trap of thinking that everyone thinks and feels the same everywhere you go (or in this case, sell).?People are people all over the world and it’s true that we share many of the same hopes, dreams and thoughts on life, but in order to maximise your chances of success you must recognise that how individuals feel about your brand can and likely will differ depending on where it is sold.?You can be a company that trades abroad, but to properly call yourself a global business you need to flex the brand and sell the company and its products to each country or region individually, not just pick up customers through distribution contracts and wide-reaching media buys.

Regardless of how you choose to run a global brand the aim remains the same: to have one brand that is the same everywhere you find it (country, media, etc), even if it is expressed differently (more on this later).?In the author’s experience there’s more than one way to skin a cat, depending on your mindset and the maturity of the brand.?

Think of brand management like a pendulum – on the one side is a very centralised approach, on the other a more localised one.?For the former, this would involve all origination (from strategy to creative) coming from one team, likely based in the company’s headquarters.?For the latter, the regions will be responsible for their own marketing, from strategic development through to asset creation, with your role to approve their work and ensure it fits into an overall ‘brand’.

There are pros and cons to each approach.?A highly centralised approach will give you ultimate control and consistency, and is perhaps best employed when establishing or refreshing a brand.?As assets are created by one team for rollout across the world all that is likely to change is the language you see or hear, and perhaps any cultural red flags.?This certainly appeals to the control freak in all of us, but there are downsides too; will the very best staff in local markets want to work in such a way, with limited freedom??Also, the competence of those learning their craft will be hindered by them not having practical experience of building a brand, rather just executing your wishes.?This could be bad in the medium and long term.?

The more regional approach relies heavily on very capable local lieutenants, who get what the company as a whole is trying to achieve and aren’t swayed by their own ego, ambition and office politics.?It’ll need a light touch from you and trust that your colleagues will stick within relatively wide guard rails.?On a practical level, it might be that you build from the same strategic base (for example, empowering women) and use the same brand assets, but fundamentally they will be responsible for creating work especially for their market or region.?For obvious reasons the regional approach can be more expensive as you are creating multiple pieces of copy, but, that may be more effective too as it is bespoke (a criticism of global work is that is often quite bland and generic).?An established brand, one that needs to solve a specific market challenge or operates in a unique market may utilise this approach.?

I have also seen examples that sit somewhere in the middle of these two options (where local markets use their own consumer insights and re-edit a central asset to fit), which can work well as long as it doesn’t look too forced or Frankenstein.

There isn’t really a right or wrong answer to this scenario; to repeat myself, it depends on your brand, the markets you’re operating in and the challenge you face in each.?Consider the team you are working with, the situation on the ground, the budget, and make a decision from there.

DOYLE

NEXT WEEK: DOES SIZE MATTER (PART II)?

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