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Defining Imperatives for Successful Global Engagement

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A few years ago, here in Seattle, I participated in one of the largest global new business pitches for which my agency had ever competed. The client’s business, which was very complex within a rapidly changing industry, reached every major market around the world. Needless to say, a lot hung in the balance.

As the pitch approached, I was in the office seven days a week for six straight weeks – fielding research across dozens of markets; creating, scrapping and recreating creative platforms; and agonizing over who to put in the room. With only an hour to present, I faced a strong internal debate. Should we bring in only a few select star presenters to not overwhelm the client? Or, should we bring in our global team to leave no doubt in the client’s mind that we had capable people in every required location? In the end, we included individuals from twenty-three countries, and we gave everybody an opportunity to voice their local perspective on the client’s business.

We won the pitch. When we asked for the rationale behind the decision, the client informed us that we struck the right balance between a core creative idea and recognizing the vast differences among their markets.

Global engagement is not new. But as our industry continues to be transformed by the impact of new technology and a hyper-connected digital world, clients with global businesses are rethinking their agency requirements. Over the past several months, I’ve spoken with several senior corporate communications executives from large multinational companies who have provided their perspectives on everything from global resource allocation to global integration. I’ve boiled their thoughts down to the following three imperatives.

Global Imperative #1: Invest for the future, with an eye toward measurable results.

The annual budget dance can be complex. Often, funds are allocated automatically based on current revenues, then adjusted down or up to reflect current priorities.

In speaking with these communications leaders, it quickly became clear that nailing the geographic allocation means considering two things:

  1. The first big question we need to ask is, “how important is a given region to the company now?” However, we should also be asking, “how important is that region to our future?” Nearly every company considers its current revenue footprint when setting communications budgets. Nonetheless, participants also told us that they equally consider what the company wants the revenue footprint to be in five or ten years. In other words, they see communications as part of what will help their organizations achieve their future footprint and revenue growth.
  2. The second key question is not just “what do we want to accomplish this year in that region?” but equally “what do we need to deliver this year in that region?” The executives we spoke to are focusing their budgets on winning the winnable; a project or objective must not only make strides towards the future, it must also be demonstrably and quantifiably achievable.

Global Imperative #2: Expect emerging markets to cost more, not less.

Those of us in global roles have all been in a similar situation. We are asked to expand a project into a new market and subsequently expected to deliver as much coverage as we’re securing in the U.S. or Europe for a fraction of the budget. This reflects a common assumption that large emerging markets are somehow “cheaper” for program development and execution.

Global communications leaders view the world differently. They rarely adjust budgets based on market-by-market cost differences. All leaders recognize that where communications is concerned, there is no such thing as a “cheaper” place to do our work. Some markets are less expensive while inevitably, other markets are more expensive.

What drives budgets for these leaders has almost nothing to do with relative labor costs or currency strength. Instead, the core budget driver is the strategic importance of the work. And because emerging markets are of paramount importance to the future growth of many of these companies, the budgets for these markets are growing rapidly.

Most global communicators have faced frustrating assumptions about how far the dollar or euro will go in developing countries. It’s not uncommon for them to encounter executive decision makers who expect full-blown communications support in China or India for substantially less than what they invest in the U.S. or Europe — which are less than half the size.

Rectifying this issue requires taking a lesson from the communications leaders we interviewed: to secure appropriate budgets around the world, we in public relations need to understand global business strategies and objectives and need to present clients with realistic plans. Furthermore, these plans need to be attached to achievable and measurable deliverables with budgets rooted in the strategic importance of that market in the years ahead. We also need to listen carefully to our local markets to appreciate how the nuances of those markets impact how work needs to get done.

Global Imperative #3: Globalize strategies and standards, but keep tactics local.

“Global integration” is a common buzzword today. The communications leaders I speak with every day all agree that whatever it is called, “global integration” is important. What “global integration” means to them is that their corporate brand is positioned consistently, with disciplined messaging around the globe. Secondarily, “global integration” means that knowledge transfer is both ongoing and seamless within their teams, between their teams and across their agencies — that is, best practices, knowledge and skills-sharing must flow quickly around the globe and infuse all communications. Third, global integration means that objectives and metrics are consistent from place to place — that teams around the world have a shared and common understanding of what communications should achieve and how it should be measured.

Notably, there is one thing that global integration does not mean to these leaders. It rarely means using the same content around the world. Replicating tactics blindly in multiple countries is rarely a smart approach. This is where the world remains very local. This basic tenet of respecting global strategies but being mindful of local cultures is widely supported in these communications officers’ domains.

The value of global agencies is very clear to those responsible for global brands:

  1. Global agencies are said to bring big-picture thinking and high-level strategy. Their wide breadth of client experience and their cream-of-the-crop talent enables them to bring both broad and narrow perspectives, new ideas and strategic sophistication.
  2. Global agencies provide access to global influencers. While local agencies are more likely to own relationships with local media and policy-makers, global agencies can tap the Davos crowd and complement that with local luminaries.
  3. Global agencies have staff in many geographies. The benefit is seen not only in the ability to provide day-to-day arms and legs throughout the world but also in the capability to instantly deploy additional people with distinctive skills and knowledge. As leaders see it, the breadth and depth of staff at a global agency equips the company to move rapidly to fill in gaps and respond to changing circumstances.
  4. Global agencies can (sometimes) help drive even higher standards and consistency around the world, across company business units and agency teams. Importantly, this deployment is said to be rooted more in agencies’ ability to provide oversight, knowledge and skills-transfer because their own staff is doing everything.
  5. Global agencies offer both breadth and depth of specialist talent. Jacks-of-all-trades will not suffice. They provide experts in specific industries, in the most up-to-date and proven communications tools, in reaching different kinds of stakeholders and in execution that can flawlessly apply and execute on-the-ground knowledge in local markets as necessary.

The new global world of communications suggests a demand for truly global agencies — agencies with a wide network of best-in-class subject matter experts, a multi-market footprint, the culture and infrastructure to seamlessly connect all the pieces and local expertise rooted deeply in markets worldwide.


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