Global concept development can be a lot of fun, but it offers many challenges. First and foremost, if English is your best language (like me), working with simultaneous translators for debriefs, strategy discussions, and writing concepts adds an inherent level of complexity. In addition, you may be suffering from jet lag depending on how far you travel and how big the time change is. It can easily become tiresome and physically exhausting listening to research in the constant voice of a translator. Here are some tips you should keep in mind as you qualitatively develop your global concepts:
1. Strong, upfront planning – Beyond the obvious of working with a solid schedule, good recruiters, and effective translators, you clearly want the traveling team and the domestic team in each city to be on-board and know what it going to happen. A clear outline of each step in the optimization and how the various countries relate to each other from a development standpoint can be most helpful. As such, you spend less time explaining the process and more time developing concepts.
2. Extra Time – Trust me, it never seems like you have enough time. In the first place, everything that must be in place before you arrive generally needs to be translated, which is not limited to recruiting screeners, discussion guides, protocol, and so on. This process can require up to three additional weeks for all the back and forth. Once in the country, language barriers and the required translating makes relatively simple conversations much more complex. It is essential that even if your foreign participants speak “some English” that they fully understand what you are discussing so the native tongue might be more helpful.
3. Watch the Translations – Different countries might phrase something very differently to communicate the idea. Particularly in the character-based languages (Chinese and Japanese), the literal translation often does not fit with the symbols. Often this requires a fair bit of dialogue to get the “right” communication. Similarly, words/phrases in one country might not make sense in another country. For example, if you go to the UK and talk about “trainers” it has nothing to do with the gym or sports; it is what Brits call “sneakers.”
4. Know the local habits and practices – It is important to ground yourself in the local perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes about the product or service for which you are developing a concept. Not all countries do things the same way. As such, local focus groups, in-homes, or an online bulletin board might be most helpful to establish some understanding in these areas. For example, in the US we’d clean a bathroom with cleaning products, sponges, and a mop while using gloves, while in Brazil women take off their shoes and socks and literally hose the bathroom down using a sweeper-like mop to slop things around the area. It is pretty likely disparities similar to this exist in many categories across countries.
5. Order countries appropriately – Think about the objectives of the project. Does one country dominate the global brand share? If so, it may be imperative to go to this country last to ensure that all the learning to date works with this lead country. If one country requires more details about the product or service concept, you may need to finish the effort in this country. That way, you know any pre-qualified “simple” concept will work in the preceding countries while more details can be added in the final stop.
Hopefully these help you rethink your approach to your next global concept development. And in the words of Michael Jackson, your effort should be as easy as “A-B-C & 1-2-3.”
