Hitting The Mark in Multiple Markets – The Value of a Cultural Consultation
Companies have a lot to navigate when it comes to marketing across linguistic and cultural borders.
Too often, things can get lost in translation.
A concept that doesn’t quite connect. A brand name that’s too difficult to pronounce. A visual that is unrelatable. A headline that feels too…well…translated.
And that’s all without even thinking about translation hurdles and cultural red flags.
With so much to consider when promoting your brand or products overseas, access to market-based advice and local insights can be the difference between a campaign that resonates and a campaign that misses the mark.
Here we look at the value of market insights in the form of a cultural consultation, and how this key step can support any company looking to have an impact on a global scale.
What Is a Cultural Consultation?
In essence, a cultural consultation is a tailored report on how suitable your brand and marketing messages are for your key overseas markets – and advice on how they could be adapted to better connect with your target audiences.
Carried out by in-market strategists and linguists, a cultural consultation can look at an individual tagline or asset, an entire campaign or your whole brand identity from both a linguistic and cultural perspective.
Typically, a cultural consultation can help you answer the following questions.
Linguistic – are there any negative (or positive) linguistic associations you should be aware of? Are there any challenges when it comes to translation? Can they be overcome? Are you using any slang or offensive terms in the local language?
Cultural – will audiences grasp the concept? Are there any references that won’t come across? Are there any cultural red flags? Do the colours have any specific meaning? Are the visuals relatable?
This can also be supplemented by key research on audience behaviors, the competitive landscape and market perceptions of your brand or industry.
Crucially, a cultural consultation doesn’t just analyse, but can also offer advice in terms of how best to adapt or overcome challenges to fully resonate in the market.
When You Should Use a Cultural Consultation
While a cultural consultation can support a range of overseas marketing activities, we typically recommend one for the following scenarios.
When you are entering a new market – a cultural consultation can look at your brand and messages to see how effective and relatable they are from a local perspective, and how they can be adapted to have the biggest impact.
When you are developing or adapting a campaign for other countries and languages – a cultural consultation can do a deep dive on your concept and creative assets to ensure they are effective for the local market, from headlines and taglines, to colours, imagery and logos.
When you are creating a new brand or product name – a cultural consultation can advise on the suitability of your proposed names, from how easy they are to pronounce, to whether the name is already taken locally.
The Colour Purple
Perhaps the true value of a cultural consultation is when it provides insights that are somewhat unexpected – that can only come from a local perspective.
Take a recent cultural consultation for a new app looking to launch in different markets.
While the key focus of the report was to test the suitability of a campaign headline, each market report commented on another key aspect – the use of purple as the brand’s main colour.
These insights ranged from the interesting – how in France and Germany, purple as a brand colour will always be associated with a leading chocolate brand – to the political – how in Spain, purple is commonly associated with the feminist movement, and is used politically to represent that movement – to culturally negative – how in Italy, purple is always seen as unlucky due to its links to financial hardship.
In this case, we can see how a cultural consultation ensures a company has total visibility on the suitability of its brand and messaging before entering a new market.
How Mother Tongue Can Support
Mother Tongue offers three levels of service for cultural consultations.
Basic – an in-market copywriter works independently to analyse the suitability of copy for their market.
Standard – a local strategist and copywriter appraise the suitability of copy, visuals and campaign strategy for their market.
Complete – a local strategist and copywriter work together to provide a comprehensive assessment of the suitability of the proposed work for their market. As well as analysing copy, visuals and campaign strategy, they provide an overview of the local competitive landscape, brand perception and media mix.
All of our cultural consultation insights are presented in easy-to-digest findings – you’ll receive a polished report for each market, plus an executive summary, giving you an overview of the key findings across all markets.
Get in touch to find out more about our cultural consultation services.