Lead the progress or remain with local rules? What should marketing people do?

Taking the advantage of being international student with the experience in external relations function in the countries with very strict religious and local traditions I have decided to write about the issue which was intriguing me since the beginning of my career at Procter & Gamble when I was responsible for clearing ads and any other communication for the subject of local traditions. In other words, I was answering to the question: “Whether this particular ad will offend local audience’s feeling or not?” Actually I was responsible for the same later in beer company and now in art organization. And all the time it is big discussion with colleagues. I would like to give some examples which could be very surprising for the people who will be reading this posting.

Always advertisement. Azerbaijan is a country with dominated local traditions featured with Islamic norms and that is why many topics are not discussed publicly. This also applies to woman hygienic pads. For very long period of time Always advertisement were missing Demo parts and never demonstrated how the product works. But at some point P&G marketing decided to break the rules and go with aggressive advertisement to change consumer habits and perception. There were many objections but I was advocating for the aggressive campaign and it actually worked in the end. Now consumption increased significantly and people more openly discuss these topics still avoiding buying pads from drugstores with man-sellers. I am sharing one of the more open and aggressive copies we used.

Febreze Azerbaijan Wrestlers campaign. There was a VERY BIG discussion around this project. P&G HQ was insisting on this campaign where Azerbaijani wrestlers (Olympic champions mainly) were going through the experiment with Febreze. Majority of top management in Olympic Committee of Azerbaijan decided that the ad is very offensive as there is nothing funny to joke with national pride as they considered champions. Actually this ad was very controversial  even during internal discussion within P&G. Even some people from Cincinnati were against. But I and our GM decided to take the risk and demonstrate this ad to the President of Azerbaijan who was at the same time the head of National Olympic Committee. And we managed to do that during London Olympics in 2012. We were lucky as he loved the ad and from the Government side we were safe at least. But still many people in Azerbaijan disliked the ad.  It had many positive and negative comments locally but was positively accepted internationally according to the reports. I personally think that it is not offensive and there is no need to complicate things. This kind of jokes do not offend any champions and having fun is better than some boring standard ad.

And one of the latest examples. This ad was placed by me to social media and some outdoor screens just a week ago and this time I was the only one who decided to take the risk. This is the ad for the Future Shorts (Short movies festival) with some cuts from the movies which will be demonstrated in our center. And there are some scenes of kisses. To my surprise even people working in progressive art organization were hesitating to advertise it. For this one I do not have a feedback and consumer reaction yet! But I decided still to share.

So, what should marketers do? Develop the target audience by removing local mental blocks or play game by local rules? Where is the balance? I personally think that removing barriers is better and one day globalization will come to each and every corner of the world through the marketing and international brands but many of my colleagues in the countries I worked (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey) disagree. Fam and Waller (2003) in their research on controversial advertising in Asia pacific region imply that countries with storng local traditions should be taken into consideration by international brands and the advertisement should be adapted. But being from the country with similar culture and having this inside view I do not agree with such strict approach. Of course such approach keeps everyone on the safe side but remaining 100% safe does not mean that the companies will progress and change the market situation. I think taking risk at some point is important!

Which approach is better? What do you think?

Reference:

Fam, K. S., & Waller, D. S. (2003). Advertising controversial products in the asia pacific: What makes them offensive? Journal of Business Ethics, 48(3), 237-250. doi:10.1023/B:BUSI.0000005785.29778.83