One lesson I learned from “doing business” with Māori  in New Zealand was that you will usually be appreciated for showing respect for people’s culture and social manners, some more from having a few words in their language (a lot more if you can hold a conversation, which I can’t), but it’s more important that you should be true to yourself, honest, straight-dealing and not treat other people as stereotypes.

I’ve had a modicum of success doing business in Asia by applying the same approach.  Comprising many nations, often with several (or many) ethnic groupings, Asia has a rich variety of cultures.  Each one is different.  One thing we never did was treat “Asians” as if they are one homogeneous group. What I found was that, as in any society, people form a wide spectrum of individual characteristics, albeit with a central grouping around stereotypical societal characteristics.  What I also never did was assume that Japanese are like Koreans are like Chinese (or Malays, Indonesians, Indians, Saudis, Turks, etc.).

Unfortunately many Europeans and North Americans do fall into this trap.  I remember getting very incensed by one guest lecturer (at a Wharton programme no less, where normally the faculty is excellent) spouting utter claptrap about doing business with “South Americans” (who she said are all excitable, morally conservative, like bright colours, and only do business through familial networks) and “Asians” (who she said are all reserved, prefer to work with trusted long-term partners, and have little respect for contracts). Some maybe, but all 4 billion? Incredible!

Notwithstanding all that, I also buy the idea that a true global brand has a single global persona. However, if you are marketing a global brand, or even a regional one, in Asia, or elsewhere for that matter, how do you achieve this while respecting local differences (without  massive duplication of costs and blurred messages)? The answer lies in having a genuinely transnational market offer, backed with genuinely transnational promotion.

Business Pundit pointed me to a report in Chicago University’s Journal of Consumer Research on East Asian businesses which have created successful pan-East Asian campaigns with a common market offer:

Authors Julien Cayla (University of New South Wales) and Giana M. Eckhardt  (Suffolk University) examine how marketers of Asian brands are creating an imaginary Asia that is not identifiable by country or region. “Cultural referents from cities of influence such as Tokyo, Shanghai, and Seoul are combined together to produce brand images that are clearly Asian, but not from a particular nation,” write the authors.

The researchers analyzed marketing strategies and advertising campaigns of Asian brands such as Tiger Beer and Zuji, a travel website. They found that images in the print, ad, and online advertising represent an Asia that is “global, urban, and multicultural.” In the case of the travel website Zuji, the researchers found that the consortium of major airlines “has no home country, is designed to be clearly Asian and modern, uses a Hong Kong-born globally popular actor as the brand’s model, uses green and blue for the logo to appeal to the Thai, its name is derived from Mandarin, follows the spatial practices of feng shui, uses an East Asian style of calligraphy, and uses the tagline “Your Travel Guru,” which is most readily associated with India.”

Such cultural mixing, according to the authors, demonstrates that Asian corporations are redefining globalization. “Whereas Western Marketers still sell Asian brands through the idea of an exotic, feminine Asia, Asian marketers create campaigns with a more contemporary, modern, and urban vision of Asia,” write the authors.

In other words, you can make a universal offer with a universal promotional campaign, albeit in multiple languages. The trick is to always treat people as individuals while doing so. Fulfilling common needs and aspirations is not the same as treating people as stereotypes.