We’ve seen a lot of creative agency red flags over the last 30 years working on international campaigns.
We have worked with and around every type of internal and external creative team and agency so we’ve seen it all… different stakeholders ignored, egos clashing, chaotic approval processes, and that’s before any creative sparks have started to fly!
It’s time we shared some inside trade watchouts to save you time, money and energy. Here are our top 5 things to watch out for when working with creative teams or agencies to develop concepts that work for international campaigns.
1. “Just send the brief we can take it from there”
Ok, this is a red flag – creative briefs should be the single source of truth for every creative project. This is where you have detailed what you need, shared insights into your audience, agonised over timings and articulated how you want your brand to show up. This should also be the time to include cultural insights but we will come onto that.
The briefing process is also the perfect opportunity to get all the key stakeholders together (including the agency/ team responsible for your localisation strategy), look them in the whites of their eyes and share the knowledge from which this campaign will grow.
It sounds simple, but you will be surprised how often it is missed. In our experience the teams who take the time to bake this into the process save hours of pain later down the line, have a more coordinated team and experience lower stress levels as a result.
2. “We have loads of local insights”
Jack, who once went to Thailand on a gap year does not constitute as a local expert. This might sound extreme but we have heard it all before. Make sure you interrogate cultural insights and assumptions – where did they get them from? What are their sources? How are they assessing cultural commonalities? These insights can spark amazing creative ideas, but they can also take you down the wrong path. Check out our Art vs science – the secret to local insights blog to find out the insights to look out for and how to get them.
3. “We can handle all the localisation”
Ok this is a big one and yes we are in the business to be super sensitive to this one in particular – but localisation is a complex, multi-faceted part of the campaign process not to be skimmed over. Let’s have a look at just some of the components:
Language
- Getting it right (really right) so it makes sense and ultimately the tone of the brand and campaign lands (and importantly you have the confidence that you are sharing something that won’t offend or alienate your audience). The last thing you need is fame for the wrong reasons!
- Making sure the copy works across all the assets (the small ones and the big ones). Don’t forget about any legal claims!
- Building a glossary of terms across key markets to ensure consistency.
Production
- Resizing sometimes means dealing with thousands of assets accurately and within tight timeframes each being meticulously checked from a spec and market POV (by an in market expert)
- Choosing and managing VO talent and recording to ensure brand authenticity in every market.
- Saving assets in a logical and consistent way in a DAM so they can repurposed.
Management
- Approvals, less time, more time, different channels, more channels, delivery, feedback, extra assets, extra markets, different stakeholders, creative changes, rapid response…
The list goes on…needless to say it takes a team of experts who know the drill, know the work arounds, know the solutions to make it all happen.
This is not a creative team/ agencies speciality – leave it to the experts.
4. “We’ll get the local teams involved later down the line”
We understand the need to not manage by committee, that sometimes having fewer people involved can help streamline the process and enable more space for creative exploration, however while this will feel comfortable and necessary to start with, it will ultimately end up causing problems later down the line. In order to make a campaign work in market you need the buy in from the local team. This collaboration can be as structured as necessary, but gathering thoughts and feedback as early as possible in the process will build trust, limit pushback and hopefully deliver a campaign that works.
5. “This is such an awesome creative idea for the US/ UK! We can make it work for other markets later”
This is probably on of the most common ones and incorporates a little bit of all of the above. The temptation to ignore the rest of the world when you are in your creative bubble, riding on an animated, passionate creative director’s wave of enthusiasm is overwhelming – we get it. But if market expansion and international scale is important you need to keep your feet on the ground and be the voice of the audiences around the world.
- If humour is used – will it work in all markets? Or what is the workaround?
- If religion is mentioned – how will this land for every audience?
- If set in a home environment – how can we make sure the home looks like it could be any home around the world? How can we build this in early into the shoot?
- Who are we casting and can we create efficiencies by casting the same actor for every market?
Building and launching an international campaign is messy and everyone needs to be pulling in the same direction. Hopefully these creative agency red flags to watch out for help guide your conversations and prepare you for success because there really is nothing better than an international campaign that takes off!
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