Once upon a time, international advertising could fairly be accused of being unexciting, needing to appeal to a broad target market and so lacking the great ideas that local campaigns were able to implement given a better understanding of the humour or nuance of local audiences.\u00a0 Some of us are old enough to remember those awful TV ads where you could instantly tell it was an international campaign by the bad dubbing and bland creative, and few truly global campaigns would be lauded at Cannes.\u00a0 Digital, of course, has changed this \u2013 making it ever easier to think global but tweak for local, and enabling international advertisers to target audiences more precisely on an international scale.\u00a0 The World Media Awards have been set up to recognise the growing creativity and innovation in international advertising, particularly those campaigns which engage with audiences with a content-led idea.\u00a0 Given that our independent jury represents a broad range of expertise in international communications strategy, we\u2019ve been asking them about the new \u201cglobal \/ local\u201d approaches and how you make them work.<\/p>\n
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What do we mean by \u201cpersonalisation\u201d in international advertising?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Our jurors are excited by the \u00a0notion of personalisation \u2013 of taking an idea and adapting it across different markets so that it is still recognisable as the same campaign despite the regional variations.\u00a0Brodie Reid, Global Brand and Content Manager at<\/strong>\u00a0Tourism New Zealand<\/strong>, says that their international campaigns \u201ctake a global view of the macro trends happening in the industry and then apply a local lens to tap into what\u2019s relevant and specific for that market\u201d.\u00a0Annie Granatstein, Head of WP BrandStudio at Washington Post,<\/strong>\u00a0supported this idea, explaining that a successful and profitable marketing campaign may involve the creation of multiple versions of the content, \u201cnot just translations, but accounting for differences in cultures and interest.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Is there such a thing as an \u201cinternational\u201d audience?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Richard Stokes, Global Head of Content at Wavemaker<\/strong>\u00a0questions the notion of an \u201cinternational\u201c audience, before suggesting that \u201cwe should apply all that we know of an audience group and ensure we personalise content to the greatest extent possible\u201d.\u00a0Iain Jacob, Director, Advisor and Investor,<\/strong>concurred, explaining that \u201cnobody is \u2018international\u2019 or \u2018domestic\u2019 in today\u2019s world. This is about targeting a mindset \u2013 and it is context that delivers mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Is it all about the data?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Raquel Bubar, Director of T BrandStudio at The New York Times<\/strong>\u00a0said that \u201cthe more we can tap into performance metrics, the more we can predict which types of content will work well with different audiences in different regions around the world.\u201d However, whilst data is increasingly essential to the success of a campaign, including the local expertise is still a crucial component.\u00a0Caroline Foster-Kenny, CEO of the EMEA region at IPG Mediabrands,<\/strong>\u00a0stated that \u201ctrusting in the knowledge of local teams is key to the development of any successful campaign running across multiple territories\u201d whilst\u00a0Thibaut Portal, Global Media Hub Leader at Pernod Ricard,<\/strong>\u00a0explained that \u201chead office enables you to consolidate and bring coherency across many activated markets [whilst] local is fine-tuning and adapting strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n