International Branding 101

Branding is not just who you, or your company is, branding is who you are from the perspective of the viewer. You must be highly aware of your brand in all locations, but especially internationally. The maintenance of a central corporate identity will be important in the promotion and selling of your company’s products and services. Seemingly innocuous decisions as size, color, and sound have a profound effect on buyers or not buyers than what you may anticipate. Color could mean that you are in agreement with a national flag or are reflecting purity. Size can look inviting overbearing. Sounds can be motivating, but the same sound could produce fear. Think about different geographical locations and the color, size and sound might mean something entirely different in each part of the world.

What are you to do?

Since you cannot change the corporate identity all together the first thing is to have consciousness of what your corporate brand is and represents in the region which you are most familiar. Next for additional regions that you wish to be in research cannot be underestimated. Look at the brands, colors etc. there and study the history of the people, especially in your market. You will gain clues as to the cultural relationship to brands.

“Branding is not just who you, or your company is,
branding is who you are from the perspective of the viewer. ”

Although there is much to be said concerning consistency, you may need to alter the company’s logos. Sizing is one area where if the approach needs to be softened decreasing the size could be beneficial. On the other hand, deepening on the venue you may need to “turn up, speed up or slow done” your corporate sound. Experimenting with color shades has a noticeable impact on the viewer, but does not necessarily change the brand image.