Global Marketing Insights: What's an international issue?

In global marketing, as in all types of creative testing and concept testing, you often find that people’s opinions differ. These differences need to be assessed and evaluated before you start a global marketing campaign because what works in Country A might not work in B, which means you risk launching an unsuccessful marketing campaign.

This can be seen as common knowledge, and I bet that there aren’t many marketers that ignore this. At least not the good ones.

But people really so different? Is there no common ground? Not even on one topic?

GLOBAL MARKETING AND DIVERSITY

Diversity is good and something we should strive for. However, our thinking nowadays is so trained to see differences and bridge boarders, that we tend to forget about similarities. There are topics that the majority of people will have the same opinion on. Peace, for starters. Survival is another. Survival of our planet, for example.

We’ve recently run a study in four countries about global issues. We asked how concerned they are and how much they care about it. The result? The people mostly feel the same way.

In the graph below, you can see that we asked people in the UK, Sweden, Germany and South Korea how much they care about international laws to protect the environment, preserving areas for animals and wildlife and saving species. What you can see is a global consensus. Swedes care as much as Koreans, we all do.

We recently published an article with more global marketing insights about attitudes towards environmental conservation which you can read here.

GLOBAL MARKETING: THE SIMPLE SOLUTION

Even when giving them options for solutions, all of the four countries agree that creating sanctuaries or binding agreements is the way forward.

They are all prepared to sign petitions (UK: 71%, GER: 72%, SWE: 68%, SK 63%) or boycott brands that are not supportive (UK: 56%, GER: 72%, SWE 77%, SK 50%).

These are, perhaps surprisingly, active responses that demonstrate the peoples’ strong beliefs. More importantly, these are actionable suggestions that four different countries can agree on.

So it’s not all differences and boarders, global marketing is also common grounds. And even if it takes going back to our roots, and subjects such as our own survival as a species – is that not the biggest hint for all marketers here?

We have worked on a lot of international projects but so far we could not have guessed the outcome before launching at study right once. How could we have, in this fast-paced environment and ever-changing world we live in?

One cannot predict how people will react to a certain campaign, otherwise all marketing campaigns would be a big hit. Creative testing, however, can give you a steer in the right direction, by asking the right people at the right time.

This post was written by Renée Karsdorf, Head of Analysis and Operations at fastmap. For more information about how fastmap can help you with your global marketing and creative testing visit www.fastmap.com. You can also get in touch with David Cole, Managing Director, fastmap on +44 (0) 20 7242 0702 or david.cole@fastmap.com.