18.10.2024 By Anthony Avrili, Account Director, Current Global London

Think Global, Act Local: Landing Successful International Media Campaigns.

The chance to be part of a global campaign is always exciting but navigating international media comes with its own set of challenges.

However, with the right approach, comms teams can land top tier coverage across multiple markets, meeting and even exceeding our clients’ business goals. Whether it’s major product news, C-suite thought leadership or research that will bring a new dimension to the status quo, certain strategies are essential for ensuring that your message resonates in different markets.

Having worked on my fair share of international media campaigns, a few learnings I thought I’d share.

Create Compelling Local Storylines.

As the title of this post suggests, a great global story isn’t enough—you’ve got to make it local. While your main message might be universal, it’s crucial to tailor your story to the unique interests and cultural contexts of each market. This means digging deep and finding angles that will resonate locally.

But how do you find these angles?

It starts with insights: and that means truly understanding what makes each market tick. What are people talking about around the proverbial water cooler? Is there a cultural trend or issue that’s dominating the conversation? By tapping into local nuances, you can transform a global story into something that feels personal and relevant to each market – and so give them something that they want to own and run with, as their own.

Each year, we work with transportation analytics company, INRIX, on their annual Global Traffic Scorecard. The report analyses and ranks traffic and congestion patterns in over 1000 cities around the world. But we know that media aren’t going be interested in ‘just another set of global rankings’. And let’s be honest, data on its own isn’t always the sexiest topic. Journalists want to know what the data means for their readers. So, we dive into the data with a fine-tooth comb to extract insights that will resonate locally.

In previous years, we’ve examined how policies like ULEZ (Ultra Low Emissions Zone) in London or New York City’s congestion pricing have affected traffic levels. We’ve looked at how the closure of Hammersmith Bridge (grr, personal gripe) has affected traffic on the Fulham Palace Road. (Ok, so that latter point was clearly hyper-local for readers in West London.) This deep dive approach resulted in over 2000 articles being published and nearly 5.4 billion impressions in 2024 alone. And most importantly for INRIX, report downloads have led to business enquires – the real reason the report was launched in the first place.

Equip Spokespeople for Success.

We’ve all been there: you’re about to launch a campaign, and a senior spokesperson balks at the idea of a run-through. They’ve got experience, they’ve been interviewed before, and they’ve landed messages like a pro in the past. In their mind, they don’t need to rehearse, and they certainly don’t want to be made to do it. What to do?

Even the most seasoned spokespeople benefit from a little preparation – and even more so when they’re fronting news that the business needs to run across multiple markets. When you’re working a story across different markets, each will have its own specific nuances and messages that need to land. A bit of prep work can pay huge dividends in helping spokespeople handle interviews with authenticity.

We see this with our executive comms clients, many of whose remits cover entire regions. With speaking engagements for these individuals, it is important to infuse the business’ over-arching messaging with the local colour that brings relevance.

So, when we create talk tracks and briefing documents, before we start, we always get insights from the local teams. Spokespeople should be well-versed on local context and aware of potential pitfalls, to avoid getting into hot water on hot button issues or misunderstanding key local debates. We want our expert spokespeople to truly be experts – and at local level, that means also showing a deep understanding of local issues.

The secret to landing a global campaign in multiple markets? Ensure that it’s authentically and empathetically local.

Involve the Communications Team from Day One.

This is the big one! As comms people, we all know that to really deliver against our clients’ business objectives, we need to be involved and have our seat at the table from the start.

This is especially important for campaigns that are underpinned by data or led by another business function such as Marketing.

Too often, comms is brought in late, expected to work with a pre-determined set of data and messages. This reactive approach can limit the effectiveness of the campaign – especially it it’s expected to scale globally.

In our work with Microsoft across EMEA, we not only got our hands dirty early, we were the voice that brought the Digital Futures Index to the table in the first place: an in-depth, data-led report looking at how digital development  is affecting economic, social and sustainability progress in Europe. The concept was ideated, the parameters designed, analysis undertaken, and distribution managed by us as the comms team.

Working in an integrated way with Microsoft’s in-house marketing teams, countries that featured in the report then leveraged tailored content and activated a multi-phased, locally focused campaign which exceeded every KPI – generating over 300 pieces of earned coverage in the most impactful regional media, hundreds of thousands of content views, and over 3,300 of marketing-qualified sales leads.

So what’s the main take out?

When crafting enterprise stories that are looking to earn the attention of international audiences, we’ll always start by focusing our thinking on two questions – what are the insights and angles that will actually get headlines in that market? And what’s going to deliver real business results? By answering those questions, campaigns have a far better chance of making wider impact than just driving coverage and impressions. Locally tailored insights and assets can be leveraged across an organisation for events, gated white papers and novel sales materials.

Planning your next international media campaign? Contact us at hello@currentglobal.com to discuss how we can help with your strategy.