How do we prioritise global versus local marketing?

North America – for many organisations their largest market – is, broadly speaking, an homogenous territory relative to other geographies. It can be activated with marketing assets in one language, has broad cultural consistency and though multiple time zones are covered, they are all within a few hours of each other. EMEA is a very different affair. In Europe a small sample of the language requirements of larger economies alone includes UK English, Dutch, French, German, Spanish and Italian. Some areas such as the Nordics may be comfortable reading and engaging in content in English, but some regions like Switzerland may need to see content in German and English if the market is to be fully engaged.

Beyond language, customer references may not be so applicable and case studies less resonant between areas. With a smaller target addressable market, headcount for these markets may not be the biggest priority. This can lead to geographies with the most complex activation requirements having the least resource to be able to execute. Informed decision making on how global scale, including localisaion, supports different Geographies is required to ensure that, as the prophet Mick Jagger said, they may not get what they want but they get what they need.

Efficiency requires leveraging the benefits of scale engines across different markets to maximise coverage from the constraints available.