Businesses communicate to a wider and more international audience these days. Defining an international PR strategy is a very important step as perceptions in one part of the world can have an immediate impact across the globe.
Before you start writing, emailing and tweeting, take the time to ask yourself: “why am I doing this?” and “what am I trying to achieve?” “What is the aim of this challenging international PR campaign?” Most of the time, the ultimate goal is to make an international brand shine across countries, engage in new conversations and attract new clients across cultures.
Today, I invite you to take a ride into a new PR mindset and adapt a glocal perspective!
Glocal: a connection between global and local. In business, being glocal is having a worldwide strategy while adapting it to local cultures.
- Differentiate global and local: First identify and differentiate your global strategy from your local initiatives in each country. Global is your brand’s overall personality while local is your cultural characteristics.
- Divide responsibilities: The head of global reputation shouldn’t execute any local initiatives as it might affect his vision. Beware of conflicts of interest in communication. One or two heads maximum should lead the campaign in one central city and define responsibilities in each country.
- Execute locally: If the brand is targeting the European market, you will need to define mini campaigns for each country. You might be aware of the diversity of food in Europe? Well, for media, it’s quite similar. Media landscapes and cultures in Europe are as varied as national food specialities! Pitching a journalist in Germany, France, the UK or Switzerland is totally different. The best way forward is to coordinate with local PR professionals with strong media relationships.
So what’s next? Now that you are involved in an international campaign, ask yourself the following questions before pushing the green light:
- Does this local initiative respect the global corporate messages?
- How will the product/service adapt to the local market?
- Can we push the product through the same channels in each country?
- What social media outlets should we use?
- How and when will we translate content to impact local markets?
A few answers and tips:
- Work with locals: As you can’t be everywhere, liaising with local experts will help you understand habits and attitudes of your audience. In addition to this, even if English is a leading business language, speaking other languages can be beneficial in communication. Your impact with be much bigger if you speak a fluent German to German journalists.
- Build conversations: Shaping a reputation is less about what companies say about themselves but more about what people say about them. In this context, it’s vital to initiate conversations globally. Create a consistent brand internationally through traditional tools (website, blogs, press releases, by-line articles) while engaging with local audiences on traditional and social media. Let your market influencers become your brand ambassadors!
- Communicate among teams: As information travels fast, give priority to transparency and dialogue between your teams. It’s better to over communicate. Even if meetings can be laborious sometime, daily updates guarantee that nothing is missed.
Think cross-cultural, think glocal.
Diane Gaillard is an International PR Consultant with experience in the financial, real estate, hospitality and B2B sectors after having worked in London and Paris. She develops cross-cultural communication campaigns and raises the profile of international companies and startups in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the U.S. To learn more about Diane, visit her website at www.dianegaillard.com.
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Rebecca Odell manages marketing and communications at 
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