Will a simple translation have the rhetorical effect you need in another market? If not, you might consider developing content from scratch to meet the expectations of the audience to which you’re selling. Here are a few general items that every buyer should know before engaging in projects that require transcreation services:

• Purpose. Unlike translation, the purpose of transcreation is to evoke a specific desired reaction or emotion from the buyer. If the message does not sound right from the beginning, the buyer will carry the negative connotations all the way through the marketing and sales process. Especially in sales and pre-sales settings, poor communications can negatively impact the buying process.
• Project types. The jobs that most typically require transcreation are usually related to marketing and advertising. Frequent projects relate to branding, corporate identity, manuals, brochures, sales materials, some types of user manuals, press releases, and websites – content which is usually meant to elicit an emotional response. Some regulatory filings, such as annual reports and listings, also require transcreation due to legal requirements and the sequence of how information is displayed, as in a Form 10-K report.
• Providers. The companies that offer transcreation fall into three major categories:

1) niche players that specialize in transcreation;

2) large language service providers with experience doing advertising/marketing translation;

3) advertising agencies, especially those that specialize in multicultural domestic markets (see Figure 1)

• Volumes. Transcreation projects tend to be quite small – just 2,000 to 5,000 words instead of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of words. Smaller niche transcreation providers will undertake these smaller efforts, while larger projects with a mixture of transcreation and “straight translation” requirements typically go to the bigger, more generalist suppliers.
• Turnaround time. Because clients often fail to plan appropriately and provide sufficient time to their suppliers, most transcreation providers work with timeframes of hours and days instead of weeks and months. However, for larger jobs, such timeframes are not possible.
• Starting point. Instead of getting the source files from the client, a transcreation project typically requires the client to give the transcreation provider a creative brief, including all the background information about the target market – such as any market studies or focus groups that they have conducted. The more information the firm has about the intended audience, the better prepared they will be to do the work.
• Resources. Transcreation firms typically work with bilingual creative writers, not with translators. If translators are engaged for transcreation projects, they most often have a literary translation or advertising background, and are therefore accustomed to dealing with work of a more creative type. Because the freelancers do not usually agree to be paid on a per-word basis for this type of work, they often bill out their services by the hour.
• Costs. Transcreation is far more expensive than translation. They commonly bill such work on a project basis, or by the hour. While they do not price jobs on a per-word basis, some providers charge for a set number of words (for example, US$500 for every 1,000 words). However, if the provider does charge by the word, text type may determine the cost. For example, they may invoice more for headlines and titles than they do for copy, because the former needs to capture the attention of the reader faster.

Verztec is a leading ISO 9001:2008 Global Content Consulting Services Company. Verztec assists companies around the world to design, develop, localize and publish their global communication messages in over 60 languages across various channels. For more information as to how Verztec may partner and assist in your next localization project, kindly contact us at info@verztec.com or call +65 6577 4646 now!

*Sources: Best Practices for Purchasing Transcreation Services: November 2009  by Common Sense Advisory, Inc

• Use more video and other interactive (non-text-based) content. Today, most companies that deliver video assets via their web properties are producing unique creative for each market. That works for one or two international markets. But now think about producing unique video assets in more than 30 languages. Smart creative can be adapted in various ways, using voice-over, dubbing, or subtitling in ways that build the local language right into the design. Do it. Be smart. Produce some local creative; then deliver the best assets in all markets.
• Add participation features. People in emerging markets often feel ignored by big companies. But participation options can quickly overcome geographic and cultural distance. Engagement is critical for entering new markets, growing market share, and maintaining good customer relationships. Global websites as a class almost all require better engagement through participation. How can you get your audience involved? Or is this not your job? If this is the case, then make it somebody’s job in your organization. The sooner the better.
• Jump into social with both feet. Social media is no longer new. It’s another form of communication, and one that is here to stay. You need to consider it as just one more tool in your marketing and customer engagement toolbox. Don’t ignore the social network effect any longer. Use it.

Verztec is a leading ISO 9001:2008 Global Content Consulting Services Company. Verztec assists companies around the world to design, develop, localize and publish their global communication messages in over 60 languages across various channels. For more information as to how Verztec may partner and assist in your next localization project, kindly contact us at info@verztec.com or call +65 6577 4646 now!

*Sources: How to Get Your Brands on Video and Social Media: 1 April 2012 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.

Use Social Media Platforms with a Strategic Purpose in Mind

Your company’s social media profiles are a window for the rest of the world to learn more about you. Increasingly, your most recent tweets or status updates might be among the first search results that potential customers find. In other words, their very first impression of your company may come through one of these channels. Most LSPs agree that a social media presence is important, but very few stop to consider what kind of presence they want to create. Consider these questions:

• “Are our customers actually here?” Many companies assume they need to have a social media presence before they’ve conducted the basic research to find out whom they want to reach online. Are the decision-makers and influencers you really want to reach using these platforms? If so, which ones? What type of content are they looking for, and how can you provide something better than what others have on offer? Random thoughts on a wide range of topics will not make you the go-to source of expertise. First, find out where your customers are – what groups they belong to, what pages they are fans of, and which companies or individuals they follow. Then tailor your content to fit those channels.

• “What do we really want our brand to convey?” Social media platforms are not necessarily a place to adhere to a strict brand voice guide – in fact, services like Twitter demand you to keep your tweets concise and to use hashtags (#) to flag your topics so that other users can find them more easily. That said, you still need to develop basic rules regarding what type of image you want to convey. Is the person who controls your brand presence on social media familiar with your most salient marketing messages and your brand attributes? Review your company’s last 30 status updates and tweets. Is there a common theme, or is it scattered? Does the company put forth an image consistent with your marketing goals?

• “What type of information will we provide?” One of the most common mistakes we see LSPs make is that they use social media platforms as soapboxes to brag about themselves. While an occasional “Hooray for us!” update isn’t harmful, a steady stream of self-centered updates will turn people away or simply cause them to ignore you. Instead, focus on what you can deliver that is of value to your customers. What kind of information can you provide to them that will be helpful in their daily work? Can you provide a daily datapoint relevant to their work, or a helpful tip that will make their life easier? Make sure that the resources you link to are worthwhile for your customers and prospects. Don’t link only to your own website – this will be seen as the overt self-promotion that it is. Link to your own web properties only when you really have something valuable to share.

• “What is our network growth strategy?” Social networking is about building networks of individuals with shared interests. What are those interests? Are they clearly stated in your profile or description so that potential contacts can easily find you? Do you conduct a daily search for new contacts with the same interests? Do you use these terms frequently in your status updates? Do you frequently re-tweet items from the “social media celebrities” – individuals who specialize in these fields and boast the largest number of contacts? We’ve spotted many LSPs who focus extensively on the content but not enough on the contacts – meaning that while their updates are good, their network size fails to grow much. This usually means that they are not focusing on the basics – building their networks.

• “Are we engaging our employees and partners?” Invite your staff – including your network of freelancers – to become a fan, connect to you, or follow your firm. Set a goal – can you get 50% of your employees connected to your social media platforms in the next six months? Launch an internal campaign to get as many individuals connected to your company as possible, thereby increasing your reach – and making you a more sought-after contact in the process. Encourage them to use your company hashtag – if need be, set up a quick internal webinar to teach them how to use the platforms and to communicate your goals to them. Consider offering a prize for people who build their networks with the company’s interests in mind – for example, offer an incentive to the first person to connect to 20 localization managers in a given industry.

• “Are we a contact worth keeping?” Don’t forget to give people a reason to connect to you and stay connected – content is not necessarily sufficient. Action and interactivity are more important. Do you have periodic giveaways, raffles, or contests? Are you planning a local get-together? Are you offering a free webinar on a topic that will help the people you most want to reach? Do you provide an interesting brain-teaser or something else that will entertain people and keep them coming back? Make sure whatever information you’re providing is of sufficient quality to keep people returning to you.

Additional Considerations for Social Media-Savvy LSPs

Has your language services business already covered many of the fundamentals? If so, ask yourself the following questions:

• “Are we using the right tools?” If you find yourself struggling to constantly keep your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn profiles updated, chances are you’re failing to take advantage of tools that enable you to automatically send out the same messages across multiple platforms. The mechanics of keeping a prominent place in the social media stream are becoming easier all the time with tools such as Brizzly, Buzzom, HootSuite, Seesmic, TweetDeck, and TwitHive. Today, you can easily populate your Facebook and LinkedIn pages using your Twitter feed with such tools. In fact, they are essential for ensuring a consistent brand presence across multiple social media networks.

• “Is our social media content aligned with SEO?” What search terms and keywords are you using on your web pages and in your press releases? Are you using the same terms in your social media messaging? Many companies fail to recognize that much of the same work they are doing for search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing can yield good results with social media campaigns as well. If you’re not already in close contact with your webmaster about these issues, you need to be. Find out which pages of your website are most popular, and what search terms most frequently bring people to those pages. Make sure you are integrating this information into your social media marketing work.

• “Are we setting micro-goals?” One of the best features of social media for marketers is the ability to track specific information and tie it back to specific campaigns or objectives. Make sure that you are setting micro-goals – for example, achieving a set number of members of a LinkedIn group, a high number of re-tweets or expanded following on Twitter, a specific number of views or embeds of a YouTube video, or a number of fans or Likes on Facebook. You can also use unique URLs to track which channels are most successful. Micro-goals should tie to other concrete goals – such as an increased number of subscribers to a blog and, eventually, the number of actual sales leads generated.

• “Are we engaging younger generations?” Don’t overlook the power of Generation Y when building your networks. The individuals you sell to today are likely in their 30s or 40s. But are you reaching the 20-somethings who will be your customers a few years from now? What about the freelancers who might still be in college now, but could be among your most talented and trusted resources in the years to come? Think creatively to find ways to engage younger generations. Conduct outreach to translation and interpreting programs at universities. Join social media groups for students in the areas that commonly produce individuals with localization manager titles. Find ways to reach these important contacts earlier in their career paths, so that they are fully familiar with your brand – and have positive associations with it – later in life.

• “Is it time for a social media policy?” For better or worse, most organizations have to develop social media policies at some point, or they risk their brand being associated with the random electronic mutterings of employees regarding everything from their favorite soccer team to their spats with family members – none of which will help you accomplish your business objectives. Who will be allowed to represent your brand officially through social media channels? Will anyone review their messages prior to posting? What happens if they leave the company – will you gain control of their public profile, or do they retain it? Are they encouraged to re-tweet, share, or re-purpose your messages? If you do decide to leverage your employees, provide them with detailed examples of what type of behavior is appropriate in these platforms – and what isn’t.

• “Are we over-doing it?” It’s fine to be excited about new ways to reach your target marketers – in fact, social media is in many ways a marketer’s dream, but it can also turn into the target’s nightmare. Beware of bombarding your contacts with too many messages – a steady stream of useful information is great, but if you are not careful, your constant updates could easily be regarded as spam. Take care – and enlist others to obtain feedback about your social media presence. Ask some of your contacts and followers for their suggestions and advice – not just regarding the content but regarding the frequency of its distribution.

Social media is definitely fun, interactive, and dynamic. But we see too many LSPs take the plunge without developing a strategy or thinking about how social media will help them advance their larger marketing objectives. Too often, they have “joined the conversation” without thinking about what they really want or need to say. To build a social media presence that will help your company grow, remember that social media platforms are just part of a much larger marketing strategy. Make sure to keep your overarching marketing goals front and center to determine how social media can help you achieve them.

Verztec is a leading ISO 9001:2008 Global Content Consulting Services Company. Verztec assists companies around the world to design, develop, localize and publish their global communication messages in over 60 languages across various channels. For more information as to how Verztec may partner and assist in your next localization project, kindly contact us at info@verztec.com or call +65 6577 4646 now.

*Sources: Using Social Media to Boost Language Service Business: 26 July 2010 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.

A hyperpolyglot is blessed with the aptitude to converse and write in at least six languages. Accurately mastering several fundamental languages are no longer a mandatory in order to stand out and stay competitive in the rat race, but hedonism in the eyes of the hyperpolyglots. Blessed with astute language acumen, language learning is more of a leisure pursuit to the language superlearners.

An average hyperpolyglot is able to master a range of 12 to 30 languages. There are still some hyperpolyglot extraordinaire that could comprehend and correspond in above 30 languages. They have a vast repertoire of language proficiency albeit not all are active languages due to mankind’s finite brain capacity. Nevertheless, provided with a little warm-up, the hyperpolyglots could effortlessly amaze you without even trying.

The late hyperpolyglot of Bologna in the 19^th century, Cardinal Mezzofanti, was a real secular saint who could switch between 40 and 50 active languages with ease. Mezzofanti was believed to have a flair for 72 languages. If you think 72 languages is already a mind-boggling figure, then you are definitely wrong. The current world’s record holder of hyperpolyglotism is Professor Carlos Amaral Freire. Professor Freire does not speak all 115 languages which is humanly impossible. Nonetheless, he could adeptly translate texts into 115 languages without a dictionary!

According to some conducted studies by professional linguists, hyperpolyglots are deemed to share some similar characteristics besides the incredible degree of language decipherment. Do not drop your jaw if you encounter someone who is independent, introvert, pragmatic, and left-handed with also poor sense of direction. To add on to the list, he is usually a man who utterly immerses himself in the world of grammar. With a healthy dash of skepticism, these are the seemingly joint characteristics of the contemporary hyperpolyglots.

So, are you a hyperpolyglot?

The good news is that this feature is capable of translating various languages such as Hebrew, French, Spanish, Japanese, Thai, and Chinese, you name it. Facebook has successfully rolled out this feature in the late of 2011; however, it has only come to attention by many earlier this year.

Beyond a shadow of doubt, it will definitely be a boon to every user. Hassle of manually translating the comments via Google Translate can now be prevented. An addition of this simple button has made language difference a learning opportunity rather than a language barrier.

For Facebook users who are unaware and have not already tried out the feature, it is powered by Microsoft Bing, another type of machine translator close to the likes of Google Translate. However, machine translation is not flawless. We should not overlook the fact that machine translators only interpret the gist of the content with minimal accuracy.

Machine translators have worked wonder in assisting us to find out the gist of content, however, they should be used with discretion as the translated content may not be professionally sound, most of the time, and hence, definitely should NOT be used for professional and important documents.

Carly Page is the News Editor at SoMobile, a mobile phone price comparison website in the UK. Carly also manages the site’s handset reviews and the device comparison tool. Let’s listen to what Carly is keen to share about the telecoms giant in India.

This week it has been announced that a new deal has been struck between Bharti Airtel, an enormous telecommunications firm with operations in 19 countries in Asia and Africa, and Mogae Media. This deal is a first in the Indian telecoms industry, and it will be interesting to see the difference it will make to Bharti Airtel’s operations.

Bharti Airtel has announced that it will outsource all its advertising inventory management and mobile-commerce initiatives to Mogae Media. This will mean that Mogae Media will sell all possible advertising space on mobile, DTH and broadband services. Mogae Media is a firm that is being promoted by former Dentsu India Chairman, Sandeep Goyal. Furthermore, Mr Goyal confirmed the deal but would not reveal any financial details.

It has been suggested by analysts that this is the first time a telecoms service provider has collected and outsourced the entire advertising inventory in the country.

Prashant Singhal, the telecoms leader at Ernst & Young, has been quoted saying: “No one has done that in India so far.”

Mr Singhal then went on to add the following: “The model has high potential since the mobile phone is the only medium to reach out to 800-900 million people.”

Meanwhile, an analyst has commented that Bharti Airtel could now generate around 40-50% of the industry’s revenue based on the sheer size of its post-paid customer base. Who knows whether this will lead to Bharti Airtel lowering their rates, and could it, in addition, lead to lower rates when making cheap calls to India?

A spokesman for the firm said that the company would not comment on market speculations and partner relationships, however, it has been announced that Bharti Airtel’s deal with Mogae will work on a revenue-sharing model.

When Pepsi launched in China, so the story goes, the translation of the slogan, ‘Come alive with the Pepsi generation’, promised consumers something a little different.

Could Pepsi really bring their ancestors back from the dead? The result was apparently a dip in sales.

While this has never been properly substantiated, according to urban legend-busting website Snopes, Pepsi has never denied it.

Be that as it may, companies across the globe have come a cropper moving into foreign markets.

Businesses must be careful they don't leave customers grimacing like Donald Rumsfeld at their poorly-translated websites

Braniff Airlines, for example, once offered Spanish-speaking passengers the opportunity to ‘fly naked’ rather than on leather seats.

But for businesses operating online, the push to be multilingual is hard to ignore.

Research commissioned by the European Commission found that 82% of consumers were less likely to buy goods online if the site was not in their native language.

Globally, research firm Common Sense Advisory found that 72.4% of consumers were more likely to buy a product with information in their own language.

Language of flowers

Arena Flowers’ co-founder and managing director, Will Wynne, would agree.

The online florist launched in 2006 in the UK. In 2008 the business started moving into European markets, first in Holland, then Germany, France and Belgium, with other countries on the horizon.

Each site has its own url rather than running from the main site, and customer-service issues are dealt with by native speakers.

The decision to translate the sites was easy, according to Mr Wynne.

“I think the language is a no-brainer. You’re not going to have any success if you don’t adapt to the local language.

“It’s almost a matter of respect. If you think there’s 60 million people in France and 80 million in Germany, and the idea that they would use our website if we didn’t translate is probably a bit ambitious,” he said.

Arena Flowers' Will Wynne: "Localisation is hard to get without native speakers"

Overseas sales now account for 20% of the company’s revenues.

But before pushing your content through online translator Babelfish, or having your mate who spent his year abroad in Portugal take a look, there are a few things to consider.

When Arena Flowers first started to translate their webpages, they used translators recruited in an ad hoc fashion. After replacing their German translator with someone with a better grasp of the language they discovered the site was littered with mistakes.

“I speak French so it was easy for me to determine someone is the right person to have. But I don’t speak German,” Mr Wynne said.

“The trick is either to use a service which provides cost-effective help, or you need to get one good person that speaks that language really well. That first person is key.

“You need to have credibility. Having spelling mistakes on your front page, it makes you look shoddy,” he said.

Quality control

Skyscanner is a price-comparison website for commercial flights. They trade in 23 countries and 60 currencies.

Around 70% of their business comes from international markets. In Russia, Skyscanner is now the largest meta-search site, with users increasing from 30,000 to 1 million in the space of 18 months.

Russia is now Skyscanner's second-largest market

The site has a Russian market development manager, as do other key markets. Lara Bayley, head of marketing for Skyscanner, says using native speakers has made all the difference.

“They have overhauled the sites they’ve been working on, and they’ve made a huge improvement to the quality of the translation – partly because they understand the business.

“We’ve found it quite important to have an independent reader. You send something for translation into a language you don’t understand – who’s going to check it? It does help to have that double blind quality control,” she said.

Language classes

You may have prose that would make Pushkin proud – but if no-one can find it you may as well not have bothered.

Christian Arno: "If there are economic problems in the UK, there may not be in Germany or Vietnam"

Christian Arno is the founder of Lingo24, a global translation company. As well as translating websites, the firm advises companies on how to position themselves online.

“Translating the website is only half the battle,” he said.

“The key thing is to identify the terms that people are searching for, and then to get to the top of the search engine with those terms.

“That’s a challenge in itself. It’s not trivial. The terms people search for in France or any other country will not be direct translations. In the same way that you’ve got linguistic quirks, you’ve also got searching quirks,” Mr Arno said.

Machine translation is useful for research – but it is not accurate enough, according to Mr Arno.

“Marketing text by definition has to find a common bond between the reader and the company. And that means playing on cultural devices,” he said.

Comfort zone

Gene Alvarez, analyst with technology research giant Gartner, agrees.

“If you went to a website with all sorts of grammatical errors about the product and about the payment processes, would you feel comfortable actually doing business with them? You almost get to feel as if the site is possibly fraudulent.”

He predicts huge growth in companies developing multilingual websites, especially those aimed at the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

“If the information is not available in the native language, then [customers] will move to a website that offers that.”

US-based Common Sense Advisory is a marketing and research firm that has monitored this area since 2003. Founder Don DePalma believes companies should be taking note.

“I’ve been saying for years that people don’t buy what they can’t understand.

“We found first off that [consumers] tended to spend more time on sites that were in their own languages.

“Time equates to increased stickiness and increased opportunities to sell the customer. So language is a major determinant in keeping people on the site,” Mr DePalma said.

He says this applies even in countries where there is a high acceptance of English.

“We found that even [in Sweden] 80% of Swedish business buyers gave preference to buying in their own language. Across the board this is what we’ve seen in terms of buyer behaviour.”

Ultimately it comes down to common sense according to Mr DePalma.

“Put yourself in the shoes of the consumer or the business buyer who’s on the other side of your website.

“If you go to a site in Japan or China or Russia, how would you react to information which is either exclusively in Russian or Chinese or sparsely translated into English… where you’re forced to use the JCB card, or the Shanghai Visa One card, and that’s all you could use.

“You’d say OK, this doesn’t look like a good kind of situation, and you’d probably go somewhere else,” he said.

Article Reference Source from BBC News

Brands such as Pizza Hut and eBay have leveraged on mobile applications to successfully grow their businesses by leaps and bounds.

Pizza Hut’s iPhone application generated US$1 million of sales within three months of its launch, m.eBay.com drove US$380 million worth of purchases in 2009. People not only bought books and clothes from eBay but also a Lamborghini, a US$150,000 boat, and a Bentley.

With the many advantages they have over traditional channels, they have changed the way business is conducted

Being at the right place at the right time
Mobile applications such as iPhone apps are right there for you whenever you want to buy something, according to Steve Yankovich, Vice President of Platform Business Solutions and mobile at eBay: “When you have a moment to buy something, where are you and what screen do you have? The whole premise behind mobile commerce is buying during downtimes, such as when you are waiting for a table at a restaurant, between action at your kids’ soccer games, sitting in front of the tube (train) anywhere, anytime. When a customer thinks about a purchase, she can pull the trigger at that moment.”

Being an integral part of one’s daily lives
When a mobile application offers information or tools that make people’s lives easier and more convenient, it becomes part of their daily lives. It might even become indispensable to them one day. The customer loyalty you can build through a mobile application is invaluable.

A good example is the highly functional VaxTrax, an iPhone app by pharmaceutical giant Novartis to help families manage their children’s vaccination schedules. The app tracks vaccinations as they are received, from infancy through adolescence, then tells parents when updates are due. Users can also use the app to log insurance records, and find pharmacies or other locations where flu shots are available.

Using of locational based technology to customize preferences
GPS on mobile phones enables people to identify products and services close to them. Mobile apps will not only allow your business to attract more customers but also to entice them to spend more. Other than a store locator, Kraft’s iFood Assistant contains 7,000 delicious recipes and full-meal shopping lists. With more ideas on how to prepare and economize their meals, this app has succeeded in driving more sales for Kraft.

Furthermore, mobile users can share information easily with their family, friends and even strangers on the internet with a few touches.

Word-of Mouth Recommendations
It is easier to get word-of-mouth recommendations on apps than other channels. For instance, most location-based apps for restaurants and service establishments have a review section. Those with good reviews have undoubtedly attracted more customers to visit them, especially since the potential customers looking for their services are only a street or two away.

Live real time updates
Due to their accessibility, mobile apps are especially suitable for price-sensitive businesses. Mark Beccue, an analyst at ABI Research, praised eBay’s strategic use of mobile commerce: “EBay customers are adamant and very enthusiastic, and the only way to keep up with auctions anytime, anywhere is mobile. Enabling people to keep up with their auctions in real time through untethered commerce was a very clever move by eBay.”

For the same reasons, mobile apps can be used to push promotions and discounts. Customers can be informed almost immediately when these go “live”. They can also react instantly on purchase decisions, without having to drive to a store or switch on a computer. In this way, they are better able to take advantage of any offers that have been made to them.

Deeper customer engagement
Deeper customer engagement can be achieved when apps make things fun for your customers. As can be seen from the clip below, ordering from Pizza Hut through its iPhone app is a highly interactive experience:

Pizza Hut’s iPhone app even comes with a highly addictive game. With its ‘cool’ factor, it is no wonder 100,000 downloads of the app were made within 2 weeks of its launch.

As we have examined in a previous article, Public Relations (PR) can be a valuable tool in growing a business in a foreign market. Obviously, PR efforts cannot be transplanted wholesale from the home market to a foreign one.  We take a look below on key considerations when establishing PR in a new country:

1. Fine-tune Key Messages
PR is built around key messages. These are the core content for all your communications tools and what you want the audience to remember after they have heard your speech, read your interview or visited your website. An essential instrument in positioning your company and brand, a key message is a memorable, impactful and concise sentence that tells people what you do, how you are different and what value you will provide to them.

In a foreign market, what the target audience want or value may not be the same. Therefore, your company would need to position itself differently. For branding to be effective, who you are has to be consistent. But how you are different (in this country) and what value you will provide (to this target market) has to be fine-tuned for best results.

2. Establish Media Relations Protocols
The local management is likely to be the first point of contact for the media whenever they have a query. It is important to establish what kind of media queries they should manage and what they should pass to the headquarters. Simple queries are handled more quickly and efficiently by the local management. But more complex ones relating to company strategy and image should always be controlled by the head office. Having different versions of these in different countries can impact negatively on the credibility of the company.

It is just as important to look into the way media queries are redirected. Some queries are more urgent than others, especially in crisis situations. If the head office operates in a different time zone from the local office, emergency after-office numbers of key personnel have to be made available. In the absence of information from the company, an issue can quickly be blown out of proportion in the media when the head office begins operations later.

3. Media Training for Local Management
Talking to the media is very different from talking to a customer or supplier. The media is interested in news, not your product features. In the short amount of time allocated to an interview, your spokesperson not only needs to know how to work your company or brand’s key messages around a news angle but also to stick to these messages throughout the session. An outcome that does not carry your key messages is a missed opportunity. In addition, your spokesperson needs to know how to adjust these messages to the audience. Just because he knows what he is talking about does not mean the audience does, or wants to hear about it.

Doing all of the above effectively takes training. Your local management needs to be drilled on how to handle media interviews in case they have to speak on the company’s behalf one day.

In times of crisis, prior media training is especially helpful. Your company may come under a barrage of questions from journalists, some of who might jump on and exaggerate everything your spokesperson says in order to sensationalize the story even more. Media training, which would have prepared your local management for such scenarios, would enable them to keep a cool head under such pressure and put across your company’s messages clearly and precisely.  Instead of reacting with alarm, your customers, shareholders and employees can now be reassured when they read the news.

4. Localize Press Releases
This goes beyond translating the press release into the local language. Oftentimes, a press release originating from another country has little local relevance. Sending it to the media is akin to spamming them. In such cases, it is best to investigate whether a local angle can be introduced into the press release before it is distributed.

5. Global vs. Local PR Plans
Your PR plans are now likely to fall into two categories – global and local. The former are company or brand wide publicity plans you would like your local office to execute. These are often tricky as they require brand consistency balanced with some customization for the local market. A good way to manage this is to introduce design templates for marketing collaterals. For large campaigns, some companies also develop briefing books to ensure consistency in brand promise, tone of communication and other communication elements. This is while allowing the local office to retain autonomy in deciding how to reach out to the target market, as they would know this better than the headquarters.

As the local market has its own business development needs that require PR support, local plans are also necessary. While most activities in such plans can be run autonomously, some would require support from the head office. For instance, the CEO might be needed to officiate an opening. Thus it is best to plan both the global and PR activities for the year together so that the amount of communication and other resources can be established.