Global. Local. Digital.

New social communication channels demand freedom, individualization and decentralization in communication. Dialogue only works if you speak the language of your audience and respond to them. How does this fit with the credo in B2B marketing: Uniform, central brand management and messages!

Fiercely competitive global markets require efficient and effective international brand management. Branding has become a strategic success factor across industries and countries. One of the major challenges is to reconcile central and regional interests in brand management. Standardization of activities under the premise of a uniform message or different approaches to target groups in different countries and cultures? that is the question here.

The tried and tested centralized approach is still appropriate for a range of B2B products and companies.

In B2B industries, the centralized, global, one-size-fits-all approach has dominated until now. There are many good reasons for this.

• Unified branding creates synergies.
• Standardization is cheaper, and many BtoB companies - especially most of the hidden champions - simply do not have the budgets for different brand management strategies in each individual country.
• Uniform brand management generates strength. Strong brands are important for survival and growth in a world where even complex products are being copied faster and faster. Strong brands are created through clear, unambiguous brand communication, with a unified, focused and clearly differentiated brand message that profiles the brand and makes it a personality with a strong character.
• Strong brands have a core message that builds on the brand's DNA and is therefore credible. Different brand messages confuse just as dazzling personalities do. They jeopardize the trust-building that is essential to prevail against the ever-growing armada of low-cost providers.
• For many B2B target customers, mobile decision makers and global teams dominate the decision-making process. In such cases, a globally uniform image, consistency in brand strategy and continuity in market presence ensures sales, strengthens negotiating positions, allows the enforcement of a price premium and helps to win new customers and retain existing ones.
  High-tech products or machines are generally regarded as "culture-free" products. Most practitioners and many theorists are convinced that these products are judged by the same objective criteria worldwide. Brand management and communication for these products are therefore mostly standardized.

But is cultural freedom really always true for these products? And what about other product categories? Doesn't homogenization sacrifice effectiveness? Doesn't the demand for uniformity contradict the demand of the customers - and the benefit orientation? Doesn't the different expectations of the various target groups have to be taken into account? Doesn't centralism demotivate the sales staff in the individual countries, who are so important in the B2B sector? Isn't autonomy much more motivating? Don't cooperation partners have their own interests in promoting their strengths?

Differences in the markets may require decentralized models.

Especially in international business, expectations can differ extremely. There are also cultural differences in B2B markets, because decisions are not only rational and based on technical, measurable components. Psychological factors and their weighting, such as the need for security, play a role. Avoiding uncertainty is more important in Germany, Brazil and Russia than in China or the USA. The factors that convey security and trust also differ. Size and ranking, for example, have a very different significance in the USA than in Nordic countries.

Psychology and cultural factors also play a role in B2B.

Decision criteria are also weighted differently. Decision-making bodies are composed differently, and the power of decision lies with the individual in Western cultures. Chinese or Arab culture is strongly collectivistic. The acceptance of different power distributions is very low in Germany, but quite high in Brazil or China.

In foreign countries, the market and competitive situation is often quite different. Market structure and maturity levels differ. Strong national competitors make market success more difficult and require different positioning priorities.

Different experiences with products lead to different expectations and requirements. All these factors gain in influence when BtoB products are sold not to international jetsetters but to down-to-earth companies, craftsmen, and retailers who are strongly embedded in their local culture.

Digital channels demand individualization of communication.

New social communication channels additionally require freedom for variations in communication. In the digital age, a message can no longer simply be hammered in. The much-vaunted dialog only works if you speak the language of the listeners and dialog partners and cater to their specific needs and expectations and psychological characteristics.

New digital technologies make target-group-specific communication technically easier to realize and thus cheaper. However, at the same time, the speed requirements are increasing enormously. Today, you can no longer afford complicated coordination rituals with a distant HQ that require response times of days or even weeks. Fast reactions to local dynamics are required, and thus a much greater decentralization of communication.

Brand personalities allow for local and/or channel-specific variations in communications.

However, decentralization and delegation of responsibility requires a clear strategy to which employees can align themselves. If this is clear and simple, then individual communication measures can be embellished as part of a unified brand strategy and still pay into the brand account. With a strong brand, variations in communication are no more harmful than different clothes on a person who has style. On the contrary, they can underline the personality.

However, the prerequisite for this is that the person or the brand remain true to their core values and that this is made clear in their attitude and their actions. To achieve this, it is best to involve employees and partners, customers and agencies from the key countries as early as the definition of the brand core. Workshops, surveys and online exchanges are suitable for this. In the process, a lot can be learned about what is uniform and what is different in markets, and ideas can be gathered from people who can provide unusual input due to different ways of thinking. Strategies and communication campaigns that are designed and consistently implemented on this basis are highly effective. Such a process is also a powerful motivational tool. And the first step in turning people around the globe into brand ambassadors.

Internal branding is the keyword for further steps on the road to success. The goal is identification with the brand and the internalization of credible, honest brand values that are loved and lived by all employees. Once this has been achieved, much more responsibility can be delegated to the countries. That's where brand rules become a source of inspiration, where employees can respond quickly and independently on social media. Conversations don't have to be blocked, but can be shaped in the spirit of the brand. And if all employees have internalized the values, there is no need to fear criticism. A clear attitude has always helped to manage critical situations.

Efficiency and effectiveness must be balanced. In each individual case, the first step is to analyze the initial situation and find insights into the market and target groups. Depending on the results of the market, competition and target group research and the culture in one's own company, a global communication strategy, a local, decentralized strategy or mixed forms may be suitable. The study (2019) by Worldwide Partners and the CMO Council entitled "Reshaping global Engagement Operations" proves that there is an increasing tendency towards the mixed form, because it offers significantly more advantages in terms of "customer centricity". Together with a clear brand message that builds on the core values and turns the brand into a strong, convincing personality, this type of organizational form promises the best results.

Appropriate agency partners for your globalization.

If you want success in your internationalization, look for an agency partner,

• for whom you are important even with a relatively small budget, whom you can trust, who has experience in serving international clients,
• who has an international network, where partners in other countries do not necessarily want to reinvent the wheel and are not primarily focused on their own internal competition for the favor of their HQ,
• who can provide tools and processes that allow you to manage the delicate balancing act between a central unified brand message and necessary regional and local execution in a variety of old and new channels,
• who can provide tools and processes that allow you to manage the delicate balancing act between a central unified brand message and necessary regional and local execution in a variety of old and new channels,
• and which, in the case of such a complex topic as international brand management, does not claim that there are simple patent remedies.