One of the common perceptions that many big global brands have is that they can position themselves in very consistent ways in markets all over the world, and their brand will be received similarly in all of those markets.

Actually, that perception is often wrong. We’ve recently done a number of pieces of work with global businesses, helping them understand the way that different cultures mean that sectors and brands are perceived differently. As a brand owner, you really need to understand that and be able to react to it.

To give you an example of that, we’ve recently done some very interesting work with one of the world’s biggest baby care suppliers operating globally, and our work has shown them that being a mother has different types of emotional rewards in different cultures. We showed them that there are certain parts of the world, certain cultures, where all the emotional engagement is invested, particularly at the baby stage when babies are tiny—first six months, maybe the first year. That’s where the emotional rewards for the mother particularly lie, so the brand needs to be present there.

There are other parts of the world, though, where the emotional engagement of parents and mothers is invested mainly in older children, toddlers, or older than that. And so we were able to show them the difference between baby-centric countries and child-centric countries. Now, you can imagine, as a baby care brand, understanding which is which is critical to the way that you position and emphasise what your brand brings.

So the point here is, don’t make the mistake of assuming you can project your brand into every culture, and it’ll land in the same way. It really won’t. And you need to understand how those cultural differences impact perceptions of the brand at the subconscious emotional level, where we do all our work. This is critically important for global brands, and I would strongly advise you to ensure you have a really good understanding of it.