This morning I read a @MarketingProfs
article by Bob Boehnlein on how to market more successfully to European
audiences. He makes five good points and
reading them took me back to the days when I was responsible for worldwide
corporate advertising at Prime Computer, a global technology company. As Mr. Boehnlein points out in “Stop
Saying Awesome: Five Best-Practices for Americans Marketing to Europe,”
there is no such thing as pan-European marketing, much less global
marketing. To be successful, one must
customize messages, images, cultural references, color usage, legal
requirements and spelling on a country-by-country basis.
This is neither simple nor easy,
especially when one is dealing with multiple countries in Europe and Asia. Black is the color of mourning in Europe, for
example, but white is what the Chinese wear to mourn. Red is associated with Communism in Europe
but red is the color of luck and very auspicious in China. I found that the task was made more difficult
by what I experienced as hyper-sensitive marketing people, particularly in
Europe. They were more than ready,
almost eager, to find evidence of American cultural ignorance and American
chauvinism in anything we did.
Sometimes the Europeans were right,
of course. In those more innocent days,
America was a terror-free zone while Europe had its own problems with Sinn
Fein, the Basque group ETA, Germany’s Red Army Faction and Baader-Meinhof gang,
and other groups. So an American direct
mail program that involved sending red mailing tubes though the mail designed
to look like sticks of dynamite with white twine coming out of the end worked
very well here but evoked cries of horreur
from the Europeans. These days, of
course, Americans wouldn’t imagine such a program, either.
Sometimes the international
marketing teams took American programs and adapted them for use in their own
countries. Sometimes they developed
programs locally and asked us to adapt them.
Funny thing, though, the European programs were rarely applicable to US
audiences. That was one lesson in
cultural sensitivity for me. I remember
being in our London office when the head of marketing for the UK proudly
announced the slogan for their sales meeting: “Prime Hits for Six.” Surprised to be met with blank faces, they
then explained the reference to the cricket-challenged, and unexcited, American
team.
I tried very hard to be aware of
their cultural sensitivity but sometimes it was difficult to overcome what
seemed to be a reflexive negative reaction to anything created by Americans. One advertising campaign involved using
mythological figures or characters from fairy tales. I made sure that our ad agency used
characters from European fairy tales: a mermaid, a unicorn, a leprechaun,
etc. No Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, or
Johnny Appleseed would raise screams of outrage from our friends across the
pond. No sir.
 | |
| Unicorn by Seymour Chwast |
We selected a well-known and highly
regarded—if American—designer, Seymour Chwast,
to do the illustrations. I also made sure the illustration of the unicorn was
true to the myth and not just a horse with a narwhal horn. The campaign ran very successfully in America
but met a lukewarm reception in the UK.
I went over to London to discuss
the “problem” with our UK team. The
meeting was in the office of their ad agency, which was located on the second
floor of an office building. As I
climbed the stairs, I noticed that the wall alongside the stairs featured an
exhibition of the work of Seymour Chwast.
Hmm. That seemed like a good
sign.
The meeting started and I was told
that the ad campaign was not usable in the UK because the characters were “too
American.” I calmly (I hope) pointed out
that the characters all came from European fairy tales that had nothing to do
with America. Mermaids are associated
with Denmark, leprechauns with Ireland, etc.
Stymied, they went on to their second point: the “style” of the illustrations
was too American. At this point, steam
was coming not only from the pot of Earl Grey on the table. Grateful that I had taken the stairs instead
of the lift, I directed them to the wall outside their office where they had
posted an exhibition of this American illustrator’s work. Grudgingly, they conceded the point.
It was a rare victory and it was a long
time ago. So I wonder: have things changed? Do European companies marketing to an
American audience ponder articles about how best to do it? Do they explore American culture to determine
the best messages and images to achieve their goals? Do they worry about whether Americans
understand a cricket reference or a quote from a British TV programme? Is European cultural sensitivity still a
one-way street or have things changed since then?
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