Consistency and adaptation: one idea across channels, languages and cultures

Integration asks for one idea. Channels, languages and cultures ask for difference. The way through is to be precise about what stays fixed and what flexes.

• One idea, many executions. The proposition and the distinctive assets stay the same; formats, language, cultural references, offers and media change by channel and market.
• The standardisation debate is old and unresolved. Theodore Levitt argued in 1983 for standardised global products¹²; a review of 36 empirical studies found contradictory results and concluded that the right answer depends on the conditions in a given market at a given time³.
• Distinctive assets do the work of consistency. Byron Sharp's work at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute ties brand growth to mental availability, which needs distinctiveness and clear branding⁸; Jenni Romaniuk measures assets by fame and uniqueness⁷.
• Arabic and French need more than translation: right-to-left design⁹, a chosen register, and advertising language rules in France¹², the UAE¹³ and, for financial services, Saudi Arabia¹⁵.

Consistency is often confused with sameness. A brand that runs the same 30-second film, the same banner and the same caption everywhere is uniform, but it is not necessarily integrated: each channel has its own grammar, and each audience its own references. The opposite failure is a brand that changes its idea for every channel and market, so nothing accumulates.

The useful question is element by element: what must be the same for people to recognise the brand and its promise, and what must change for the piece to work where it appears?

The fixed end comes from the brand platform. The flexible end is where local teams and channel specialists earn their keep. Everything in the middle is a judgement, and should be made with evidence from the market rather than by habit.

International marketing has argued about this for decades. In 1983, Theodore Levitt, the Harvard Business School professor and former editor of the Harvard Business Review, published "The Globalization of Markets", arguing that technology was pushing consumers worldwide towards the same standardised, lower-priced products, and that companies should sell the same things in the same way everywhere¹².

The evidence since has been less tidy. Marios Theodosiou and Leonidas Leonidou reviewed 36 empirical studies of standardisation and adaptation, their causes and their effects on performance. They found the findings non-significant, contradictory and confusing, traced this to weak concepts and research designs, and concluded that whether to standardise or adapt depends on the conditions a firm faces in a particular foreign market at a particular time³.

Culture is one of those conditions. Marieke de Mooij's Global Marketing and Advertising: Understanding Cultural Paradoxes, now in its sixth edition, applies the Hofstede model and other cultural models to every aspect of marketing communications, and argues that value paradoxes within cultures are central to cross-cultural communication⁴. Google's messy-middle research adds a caution from the other side: the effect of the behavioural biases it tested depended more on the product category than on the country¹⁶. Some things that look cultural are categorical.

For IMC, global coordination was one of the pressures Schultz and Kitchen found pushing companies to integrate in the first place⁵. The answer is not a choice between one global campaign and many local ones. It is a platform that travels, a short list of fixed elements, and local freedom for the rest.

If the idea is what stays the same, distinctive brand assets are how people notice that it is the same brand. They are the non-verbal cues (colours, shapes, logos, characters, sounds, type styles, taglines) that people link to one brand without needing its name.

The case for them comes from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. Byron Sharp's work argues that brands grow mainly by being easy to think of in buying situations, and that building that mental availability requires distinctiveness and clear branding⁸. Jenni Romaniuk, a research professor at the institute, set out how to build and measure assets in Building Distinctive Brand Assets (Oxford University Press, 2018), with chapters on two metrics, fame and uniqueness⁶:

• Fame: the share of category buyers who link the asset to the brand when they are shown it without the brand name.
• Uniqueness: whether the asset points only to your brand, or also to competitors⁷.

An asset that is famous and unique can carry the brand across channels and markets where the words change. That is why it belongs at the fixed end of the scale above. Three implications for integrated plans:

• Use the assets in every channel, including the ones that feel too small for branding: email footers, packaging, social video in the first seconds, hold music, sales slides.
• Measure before you change. An asset with high fame is expensive to give up. Test fame and uniqueness in each market before a redesign or a rebrand⁷.
• Check that assets survive localisation. A colour, shape or character should work in right-to-left layouts and in every script you use; a tagline usually needs to be rewritten, not translated.

IMC Institute publishes in English, Arabic and French because its readers work across those markets. Three practical areas matter most. This is not legal advice; check current rules with counsel in each country.

Right-to-left design. Arabic is written from right to left. The W3C's guidance is to set the base direction of a right-to-left page on the html element and to change it on inner blocks only where the direction changes⁹; its accessibility techniques use the dir attribute on inline elements to resolve mixed-direction text such as Latin brand names and numbers inside Arabic sentences¹⁰. For brand teams that means designing layouts that mirror, checking every template with real Arabic text, and deciding in advance how product names, prices and dates appear.

Register. Arabic marketing copy must choose between Modern Standard Arabic and a dialect, and the choice may be regulated: in the UAE, the National Media Council's advertising standards required advertisements to be in standard Arabic or the Emirati dialect, a requirement that did not exist before¹³¹⁷. French copy must choose between "vous" and "tu" and between a neutral international register and a local one. Write tone examples in each language, not only in English; see voice and tone.

Advertising language rules. These differ by country and by sector:

• France. The law of 4 August 1994 (the Toubon law) makes French mandatory in the designation, offer, presentation and instructions of goods and services, and applies the same rule to all written, spoken and audiovisual advertising¹². The Ministry of Culture explains that adverts in France do not have to be solely in French, but consumers must actually understand them, so foreign terms need a legible translation, as set out in the ARPP's recommendation on mentions and references¹¹. French-speaking markets outside France have their own rules.
• United Arab Emirates. Media regulation was overhauled by Federal Decree-Law No. 55 of 2023, which came into force on 1 December 2023¹⁴; check the current advertising standards under it alongside the Arabic-language requirement reported earlier¹³.
• Saudi Arabia (financial services). The Saudi Central Bank's rules state that Arabic shall be the language used in advertising the products and services of financial institutions, except for advertisements aimed at non-Arabic speakers that comply with the rules¹⁵.

Regulation for each market is covered in more depth in the market entry hub.

A localisation check for any campaign that crosses channels or markets:

Then, at programme level:

1. List the fixed elements in the platform (usually the proposition and the distinctive assets) and give local teams freedom over the rest.
2. Decide the middle of the scale with evidence: test tone, proof and offers in each market rather than assuming the home market's answer travels³¹⁶.
3. Measure asset fame and uniqueness by market before changing anything⁶⁷.
4. Write and test in each language, with native writers, from the brief rather than from the English copy.
5. Keep a rules register per country and sector, owned by someone, reviewed when the law changes¹¹¹³¹⁵.
6. Organise for it. Who approves local adaptations, and who can veto a change to a fixed element? See organising for IMC.

• Levitt's argument, as recorded at his death² and reassessed later¹; Theodosiou and Leonidou's review³; de Mooij on culture⁴; Schultz and Kitchen on global coordination⁵.
• Romaniuk, Building Distinctive Brand Assets⁶, and her interview with Contagious⁷; Sharp on mental availability⁸.
• W3C on right-to-left pages⁹ and mixed-direction text¹⁰.
• France: the Ministry of Culture on French in advertising¹¹ and the text of the 1994 law¹². UAE: reporting and legal commentary on the Arabic requirement¹³¹⁷ and the 2023 media law¹⁴. Saudi Arabia: the Central Bank's rulebook¹⁵.
• Think with Google on biases by category and country¹⁶.
• Next in this track: objectives and KPIs.