Creative Focus: PASSPORT TO SUCCESS - IN A GLOBAL-VILLAGE WORLD, ALL ADVERTISING IS LOCAL

By JEAN-MARIE DRUA country's uniqueness expresses itself here and there, like brushstrokes on a canvas. Faced with an increasingly uniform world, each country strives to preserve spaces of freedom, oases of resistance and cultural particularities--in the arts, politics, even advertising. Indeed, 30-second spots are snippets of a country's soul, glimpses of a collective culture.Yet in search of the 'global consumer,' the likes of Nike, IBM, Pepsi and Microsoft create ubiquitous 'globalized' campaigns. Maybe this global consumer does exist, but, as long as we have local cultures, brands must speak the local language. The content of what they have to say might not change, but, for the most part, the expression of that content must.As a result, advertising agencies must be more than multilingual. They must be multicultural--able to interpret an idea or an execution within a local context; able to see an idea or a strategy's relevance for one product and transfer that knowledge to another brand in another market; and, most importantly, able to give a brand a voice that creates a language, which in turn slowly builds the brand a culture of its own.Take Dannon, for instance. It promotes itself as the brand that understands the relationship between health and food better than anyone, in any market. Because that relationship is different across cultures, each market must find the formula that reflects it best. In the U.S., where Dannon yogurt is seen as a healthy, vibrant food, the brand celebrates its indulgent side. In France, Danone was seen as too pleasure-oriented. Therefore, Danone created the Institute of Health, a real research center dedicated to food and education. The end result, in both countries, is the same--a careful balance of health and pleasure. For brands to be global, we must take each brand and each country's particularities into account, without reducing everything to the lowest common denominator. We must remember there is a difference between global brands and global advertising.Today, information technology has made it possible for local ideas to have global import. We must encourage local thinking and identify those local ideas that have broader relevance and appeal. In the U.S., Oil of Olay was the first beauty product to say a woman can be beautiful at any age, but it's an idea that speaks to women the world over. So does the idea that created Virgin Megastore in France--that it's a temple of culture and should act as such. Because both ideas overturn conventions that transcend cultural boundaries about how a brand is supposed to speak and act, they have the power to build the foundations of a global brand culture. Think local, act global.And look beyond next door for inspiration. Whoever thought a business campaign in Japan would inspire a planner in Paris to develop the strategy that introduced Polaroid in Europe as a visual memo? Today, the campaign in the U.S. pushes this idea by marrying the product's practicality with an emotional benefit. A seemingly small execution can have a large impact on the life of a brand. When you think about it, the truly global brands are those that will be strong enough to forge a culture that transcends national boundaries. For a brand culture to take root, the brand must create a language and a common body of knowledge built on an idea. An idea that speaks to us all.That's where what I call 'disruption' comes into play. Disruption finds the idea that breaks and overturns a convention in the marketplace, and then makes it possible to reach a new vision or to give new substance to an existing vision. It is a tool that uncovers conventions, local or transnational. And nothing is more global than conventional thinking. Disruption is about coming up with those ideas that fuel initiatives, which, bit by bit, create brand cultures. Culture can infiltrate; mere presence cannot. Chairman of Paris-based BDDP Group, Jean-Marie Dru is the author of Disruption, published by John Wiley & Sons.Copyright ASM Communications, Inc. (1997) ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Brand Marketing

Creative Focus: PASSPORT TO SUCCESS - IN A GLOBAL-VILLAGE WORLD, ALL ADVERTISING IS LOCAL

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