Whether online or in the mall, ‘tis the season for retail profits. If you’re someone who laments the commercialization of Christmas, stop reading now. In the United States, retailers can expect up to 50% of their annual sales to occur around the holidays. Forecasts are positive for this year’s holiday sales and look to be significantly higher than in the last ten, according to the National Retail Federation. But what about markets that aren’t closely linked to Christmas, such as China or Japan? Will Santa bring similar profits to eCommerce retailers in Asia? Today's post answers that question.
A global business’ best asset is a global website. However, it’s not as simple as just translating your website — all those global customers need to find you. Your company, service, or brand may already face stiff competition in another country, making visibility a challenge. Utilizing your English search engine marketing (SEM) campaign and tailoring it for your international markets can help ensure you rank well on global search engines. Today’s post gives you some tips to make sure your website doesn’t get lost in SEM translation.
What do Johnny Walker, Nike and Beats by Dr. Dre have in common? All three companies have successfully used global branding strategies to take their marketing campaigns across the world. But the best global brands don’t just cut and paste what worked in France and do it again in China. Instead, led by smart Chief Marketing Officers, these companies have honed techniques that range from the concepts at the heart of the campaign to the importance of names.
Ready to learn some top global brand strategies and how they can help your company? Read on for the secrets used by CMOs to make global campaigns that really work.
Seemingly everybody has been talking about China’s economic growth and potential as a marketplace for Western brands over the past decade. And with an expected growth rate of over 8 percent in 2013 alone, it’s not difficult to see why. But what about the other players in Asia? East Asia, for example, is poised for a 5.7 percent increase, lead by up-and-coming countries like Indonesia. Mobile adoption is on the rise, eCommerce is rapidly growing, and social media is key to reaching customers.
Looking for a roadmap to these burgeoning Asian markets? Read on for our guide to reaching the billions of customers waiting for you in China and Indonesia.
While Spanish is primarily spoken throughout Latin America (though not in exactly the same way), it is an extremely diverse group of countries and cultures. Marketing to the Spanish speakers in the region requires some forethought to avoid potential linguistic and cultural challenges outside of mere translation. In certain instances, something as simple as the color of your clothing or the meaning of your name can differ between various countries. You may also want to look at your non-verbal content and make sure it is as appealing as your copy. Today's post gives you some pointers on how to get started.
When people think of streaming video, they likely think of YouTube. And not just in the United States. Far from being a repository of mere feline frolic, YouTube is an extremely robust platform with a huge global footprint. With two days’ worth of videos being uploaded every day in five dozen languages, your global marketing and social media campaigns can benefit from folding YouTube into the process. But how do you get started? Today’s post and our newsletter article give you some tips to consider.
All marketing and advertising in the age of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube is global. As any PR rep or social media manager can tell you, even the most obscure of local brand campaigns are only a tweet away from global exposure. And as any global brand manager can tell you, there’s a fine balance to maintaining global consistency while still respecting cultural differences and local preferences. Coming up with individual campaigns for every local market is costly to both budgets and brand consistency. More and more brands are finding that the best approach is to go glocal: craft a global campaign and adapt it for local markets.
Social media has gone global and, in the process, redefined how companies approach market segmentation. A tried and trued approach to marketing, market segmentation has stood the test of time by evolving and expanding to include factors that go well beyond the traditional. Today, in addition to relatively demographic statistics, market segmentation also takes socialgraphics, psychographics and the critical role of influence into consideration, forcing global companies to dig deeper to find marketing gold.
Sunday, February 10th marked the beginning of the Year of the Snake for many people around the Asian world. And continuing a global business trend, international retailers took notice as snake-themed items hit the shelves (both digital and otherwise). Not only is this a timely move for marketing and advertising teams, but a smart one, as this is a major gift-giving season for millions of people.
Complex eCommerce platforms can present challenges when entering global markets. Each platform in a different market acts much like an independent entity, especially when you consider the market-specific customizations you may need. Today's post gives you five pointers to make the process easier and more cost efficient.
The next time you’re in your local 7-Eleven, ask the clerk if they stock fresh bags of Lay’s “Mint Mischief,” “Numb & Spicy Hot Pot,” or “Lychee” style chips (pictured above, along with some other tempting flavors). Assure him you’re serious. These aren’t the inventions of a practical joker, but careful flavor forays into Indian and Chinese markets.
What begins as a humble potato married to salt and fat quickly blossoms into a buffet of international taste engineering. While the long-term strategy of PepsiCo, the maker of Lay's, extends beyond the realm of these snacks, they’ve created an empire of crispy international options across almost every continent, perfecting the art of product localization.
We know that coming up with an English name for a brand or product can be hard enough, but if you’re thinking about taking it to international markets, your work isn’t done. Names aren’t easily translatable and may end up being offensive or inappropriate. We doubt that even the wordsmith Shakespeare, whose famous quote from Romeo and Juliet is adapted for this blog title, would have an easy time with international naming.
So how do you go about evaluating how your brand, product or service name sounds to ears accustomed to another language? It helps to know a few basic ideas behind naming. Let’s take a look at aspects of naming that are important for your international naming project.
Last month Facebook announced the launch of Global Pages, a new structure for brands on Facebook that engage with multiple countries. This social network is definitely a key part of many social media strategies and offers some new options for international companies. Here are our pros and cons on Global Pages and their impact on brand development and global marketing strategy.
Twitter is powerful and multilingual social media platform. Leveraging search engine optimization, Twitter can build your brand’s visibility and reputation, improve your relationships with clients and give you a competitive edge. The platform’s heightened transparency and the potential cost of a misstep worry some companies. Increasingly, however, businesses are putting their misgivings aside to join in the speed-of-light global conversation. A carefully-crafted Twitter program fully integrated into your global marketing strategy can put your company on the map.
Beauty is in the eye of beholder, which is why global cosmetics companies take care to adapt their products for a local gaze. Whether it’s a tweak to an existing product or a shift in marketing strategy to accommodate different beauty priorities, product localization in the beauty industry is nothing new. Now some major players are upping the ante in the beauty localization game for China’s ever-expanding market.
Global beauty giants like L’Oréal and Estée Lauder are competing with Japanese and Korean beauty companies like Shiseido, Kao, and Amorepacific for market share in China. How are these North American and European companies using localization to make themselves more attractive to Chinese consumers? Read on to find out.
In celebration of our tenth anniversary at Acclaro, we are taking a look back at how the translation and localization industry has changed over the past decade to accommodate technology and contemporary trends. Global marketing has changed dramatically in the past ten years and our clients’ needs have changed with them. Now, instead of localizing print campaigns, we’re more than likely to translate email and mobile advertising campaigns. Read on to learn more.
How do you explore new international markets for your business online when full translation and localization of your website is a significant commitment? An affordable alternative to global market research is the multilingual microsite. Done well, it not only positions you for greater success abroad, but might also open your eyes to unrealized opportunities.
A microsite can be a condensed version of your full website — whether it’s for eCommerce, customer support or marketing. Or it can be a minisite that delves deeply into your brand, a specific product or value proposition. No matter the microsite’s focus, it’s a concerted effort to introduce new audiences to your brand, gauge demand and meet product- or brand-specific objectives in a controlled environment online.
In this article we’ll suggest 10 ways to maximize impact while minimizing cost when thinking about international microsites.
International marketing is complex; just take a look at some major hotels you've likely stayed at while traveling for business or taking a vacation. Global businesses like Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt have to juggle staying true to their branding and corporate identity while also appealing to local markets, from Thailand to Germany. These brands are known for their consistency in terms of quality and services, but a stay at the Marriott in Hong Kong is not exactly the same as in São Paulo. Adapting to local markets, foods, and cultural expectations, these international global businesses have much to teach us about successful localization and translation in action.
Loyalty marketing is a crucial component of any sophisticated customer-retention program. The same is true when you bring your business to global markets. But how do you manage a loyalty program in new languages? Are there differences in the cultural understanding of loyalty marketing? How do you translate customer appreciation across borders?
In this post we’ll take a brief look at the ten core points you’ll want to keep in mind when you’re seeking loyalty in translation. It’s not as daunting as you might think. After all, the tenets of excellent customer service and buyer satisfaction tend toward the universal.
We're always learning here at Acclaro, whether it's the latest in developer applications or the correct way to give gifts to a client in Japan, Russia, or Germany. Recently we've been sharing what we've learned when it comes to retail and eCommerce, publishing five (count 'em, five) articles in a variety of industry publications over the last four months alone. Read on to learn the "secrets" of adapting to new markets worldwide with mobile retail websites, multilingual translation, and more.
Smart, fun and useful. Acclaro shares news and tips on translation, localization, language, global business and culture.