Peter Shackleton, Managing Director
This week has been extraordinary. One client needed last minute support for a trade delegation to Qatar, interviews at an event in India, a strategy to influence regulatory bodies at national and European level and PR support for announcements in Germany, France and Spain. Oh, and our normal work supporting them in the UK of course. Plus, this is just one of our clients!
The beauty of being part of an international network of agencies is that this sort of requirement can be met with relative ease. However, it does take more than the wave of a magic wand. Time has to be spent with each partner agency to get them up to speed so that they can deliver what is needed. Co-ordination of international activity is often seen as easy and cost free on the client side, it isn’t.
Time zone issues, cultural/language differences and a varied media climate do still exist in today’s world. Just because a PR campaign works in the US does not mean it will anywhere else. Even in a supposedly global market, and with internet communication seemingly seamless across the world, the PR methods, messages and approaches for success differ widely.
Industries like technology, security and telecom often treat the world as if it is a single entity/market, or at best they invent regions (like EMEA, AsiaPac, Eastern Europe or ‘emerging markets’) terms that mean nothing to real people in the real world. At worst this creates the internal myth that global PR is being implemented for a brand when it clearly is not. A good thing is when this thinking leads to a regional structure with marketing savvy people in each area of the world. They are often aware of the differences and, with luck, have the influence and budget to make the PR really succeed.
So here’s to diversity, localisation of campaigns and greater success.