Adapting to your audience: How do you localise your global campaigns?

We certainly live in a globalized environment, with the products, information and services we consume on a daily basis coming from all over the world. Even before we leave the house in the morning, we have likely put on clothes that have not been produced in the country we live in, drank a cup of coffee or tea, imported from Africa, Asia or South America, and looked at international news feeds or social media posts from far away. But even with such a global interconnectedness, when it comes to communicating your brand and marketing messages, it pays to adapt your materials and content to your local market and audiences.

From translating into local languages, adapting the content to cultural norms or using imagery that reflects the local environment, showing that you care and understand your target audience will create much greater brand awareness and ensure that your message really speaks to them, whether it is to sell a product, promote a service, provide useful information or otherwise influence them. And even when you are only looking to roll out your campaign or messaging in a single country, it is still worth incorporating regional differences into your campaign.

But when first looking at a multi-location project, localisation can appear a daunting task, especially if you don’t have any local marketing teams in place.

So how can you turn this complex process into an efficient way of rolling out a campaign across multiple locations?

A campaign can have any kind of elements that need to be personalized – from logos to language, images or even braille inscription. The toolkit’s aim is to simplify and minimize the area where this personalization occurs – so that the main part of any artwork or content stays consistent and adheres to any branding guidelines across all versions.

Generally speaking, a toolkit will present the common overall concept that defines the campaign and gives it the look and feel it was designed for, and provide consistency across countries, locations and sites. It will define the areas and elements that are to stay the same, as well as any aspects that can be personalized. It will also specify any project management factors, such as setting consistent timelines from ordering to production and installation, consolidate the materials and processes used, and indicate fulfilment and implementation or installation arrangements.

For the adaptable elements, the toolkit will specify what can be changed, for example what languages are available for translation, which pictures or graphics can be swapped out, which sizes, media and materials can be used, etc. It will also include any general implementation or installation notes, with consideration to the location’s and/or site’s needs.

The toolkit will always be developed in close cooperation with you to ensure brand consistency, compliance and correct approvals, before then being used when contacting the individual locations to manage the local rollout of the campaign. It can be completely adapted to your needs, from a very broad, pick & mix approach where the individual locations can pick exactly what they want, to a more defined campaign, where the input of the locations is limited to the specific individualizations needed.