Networks come in many shapes and sizes, but at their cores they should comprise partners that deliver extremely relevant local insights, proven processes, locked-down execution, and deep data capabilities--and all within the context of global-marketing best practices.

1. By Ted Kohnen, Vice President, Integrated Marketing, Stein + Partners Brand Activation
'Make Our Brand Come Alive Worldwide'
Brand activation is hard–and global activation is branding’s Mount Everest.
But, rightfully, that doesn’t stop clients from asking for it. The plea embodied in this post’s
headline has been uttered by brands since the dawn of cross-border communications
and commerce. And just such a client request was described earlier this week by GudmundSemb,
head of German agency WOB AG, to the agency leaders attending the Business Branding
Network's (BBN) annual meeting.
Stein + Partners Brand Activation (SPBA) recently joined BBN, and the group’s meeting, in
Chicago during the Business Marketing Association’s (BMA) International Conference, turned
out to be the perfect place to explore this anything-but-simple request. After all, how often to you
get to share a day with the top guns of elite agencies from London, Manchester, Paris, Moscow,
Munich, Madrid, and Stockholm–among other destinations I hope to visit soon?
One reason it's not so simple is because this phrase is incomplete. What smart agencies or brand
marketers hear is, "Make our brand come alive worldwide...relevantly and sustainably.” But too
many of even the largest brands still think that global marketing is just syndicating campaigns
across multiple markets.
And that’s what causes the cautionary tales we’ve all heard from brands that entered new global
markets--only to fail spectacularly because the product didn’t match local needs, colloquial
phrases didn’t come through as intended, or a global design gave the campaign the wrong feel
for a particular local market.
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2. Drawing on the presentations, panels, and conversations of the day-long BBN meeting, I began
to see a three-point pattern emerge for answering the charge to "make our brand come alive
worldwide":
1. Planning process: For agencies/marketers, this is not your typical process for a single-market
launch. This process must extract relevant and necessary insights from global-local markets. For
example, the research question you ask to a target in New York isn’t the same as the one you ask
a target in Berlin. The diversity of personalities, cultures, business fundamentals, etc., requires
that the manner in which you extract information is locally sensitive.
2. Execution: This is where we can talk about transcreation. Adapting content is simply not
enough. Brands must localize the call-to-action, delivery channels, images, and other design
elements, as well as the text. With a sound global-planning process, brands can ensure that
transcreation carries through the essential messaging and brand elements.
3. Optimization: Sustainability depends heavily on the ability to analyze and optimize on a local
level. A particular call-to-action may resonate with your target in Sao Paolo, but it’s unlikely to
do so in Shanghai.
All three buckets imply that a critical component to making a “brand come alive worldwide” is
the network of partners that help orchestrate and execute. Networks come in many shapes and
sizes, but at their cores they should comprise partners that deliver extremely relevant local
insights, proven processes, locked-down execution, and deep data capabilities--and all within the
context of global-marketing best practices.
Essentially, that’s the reason SPBA is now part of BBN.
The next time you meet with your agency or internal marketing and communications teams, put
the request out there to "make our brand come alive worldwide." Do their responses put you on
an optimal path?
Read more: http://www.cmo.com/branding/make-our-brand-come-alive-
worldwide#ixzz1wqNYwmfx
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