International Brand of Mystery

John V Willshire on April 28, 2008

I was out walking with Helen on the South Coast this weekend, which was (as usual) mentally refreshing… there‘s something about not thinking about any work or study that makes you idly think about some work stuff…

And it can be triggered by the simplest things; for instance, I appeared to be picking up the French version of the Orange network on my mobile phone, which when standing on the chalky white cliffs of Britain is an interesting juxtaposition.

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Which is a nice metaphor for any of us who works on international brands; try as you might to keep the communications you do to one country, they will inevitably spill over into other countries around the world.

For instance, the BMW work in the UK for the 1 series isn’t the same as the work that BMW’s US agencies put out there… their sponsorship of the Onion TV for instance (which has stopped now, but any excuse to show The Onion…) was pretty different to the work seen in the UK

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<embed allowscriptaccess=”always” flashvars=”file=http://www.theonion.com/content/xml/72981/video&amp;autostart=false&amp;image=http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/conentric_circles.jpg&amp;bufferlength=3&amp;embedded=true&amp;title=Breaking%20News%3A%20Series%20Of%20Concentric%20Circles%20Emanating%20From%20Glowing%20Red%20Dot” height=”355″ src=”http://www.theonion.com/content/themes/common/assets/videoplayer/flvplayer.swf” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”400″ wmode=”transparent”/>

Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot

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However, whilst their sponsorship was on, The Onion TV was the subject of a two page celebration in the Guardian Guide… therefore pointing lots of people form the UK in the direction of BMW sponsored content.

So, should all ads be the same across all countries? Or just the communications that can be seen across these territories? But then how do you interpret local context, languages, social traditions and the like? And make each local client & agency team feel like they’re contributing valued work in their areas?<o:p> </o:p>

Tricky, isn’t it? I don’t know what the answer is (something around ‘global principles, locally interpretted’ perhaps…), but as more and more people cross international boundaries for their entertainment, it’s becoming vitally important.

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