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Beware the Outsider

There are many benefits to being an outsider, especially when working on culturally specific

brand development strategies.

An outsider has a more objective view.

Seeing things for the first time he can

perceive the issues at a simple and

fundamental level because

subconscious conditioning and politics

are not brought into play. Free of the

received wisdoms he has greater

chance of revealing new paradigms.

The same qualities, in fact, that allowed

the little boy to see the emperors

underwear...

But if being on the outside of a problem

has its benefits, there is also a strong

argument that says culturally sensitive

projects should be undertaken by

experts with local knowledge; that an

outsider will miss the subtlety and

nuance that you can only be achieve through

decades of immersion; that an outsider will only deliver a superficial analysis.

Which is right? Its a common debate within the international marketing community and its

hard to know exactly where the answer lies.

Ive worked in many markets, from Japan and Russia to Africa and Brazil and Ive conducted

strategic marketing projects and run focus group and ethnographic studies in all sorts of

unlikely locations, with varying degrees of success. The output of some were indeed

superficial, whilst in others the insights and the strategies we developed were revolutionary

and game changing.

So my take on the local versus outsider debate boils down to one of horses for courses

with the quality of the outcome being determined less by the nationality or immersion of the

individual as by the nature of the project, the insights being sought and the type of

consumers researched. Locally sourced experts generally cant resist showcasing their

specialist knowledge but may be hopeless at identifying the crucial insight. International

experts on the other hand can often pass over key issues in their desire to aggregate their

findings across a number of markets. At the end of the day it all comes down to the skill and

sensitivity of the individual conducting or supervising the research and has far less to do with

their background or cultural orientation.

Eyebrows were raised when I became the first non-hispanic, non-American planning director

of an hispanic / US ad agency. Some secretly (and others less secretly) questioned my ability

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to understand the peculiarities of such a unique cultural situation. Given the different types of

audience that makes up the hispanic audience - from 1st generation immigrants, through to

completely assimilated 4th generation Americans who cant speak Spanish, yet still consider

themselves Hispanic - there was some reason to doubt my hiring.

As Juanin Reid, then Associate Director of Strategic Planning and Research, The Bravo

Group said when I first arrived at her agency:

When Graham first joined we all thought: "Oh no, here comes another non Hispanic to tell us

how much he knows about Hispanics". To everyones surprise, Graham was different. He

listened, he got to know and understand and applied his years of insightful research to

unearth truths about the market which we all then applied successfully to our client partners.

Sounds good? But then I always knew I could do the job. Id previously found insights about

womens health issue without ever being a woman, or understood the world of a young child

looking for help without being a child, or even decoded the needs of Saudi soccer fans

without being a Saudi or particularly in to soccer, so I knew I could empathize with Hispanics

in the US whatever their issues. In fact, as a Brit in New York and something of an outsider

myself, I had more in common with my audience than many of the Americans I worked with!

During my time in New York advertising I helped win the Wrigley account with insights into

acculturated hispanic youth that we labelled Nuevo America, steered Hellmans Real Food

campaign to be less about the general markets approach of good simple food and more to

do with the culturally relevant celebration of eating, and, most controversially, highlighted

and championed the heroic nature of the Hispanic migrant worker for Tecate. Yet, despite all

this success, what I initially failed to factor in to my analysis was not the complexity of thecultural issues we were dealing with, but something more prosaic; namely the inherent

reluctance of clients to listen to someone from outside their culture.

Call it pride if you want, or prejudice, or put it down to a simple matter of not invented here.

the fact is, some clients find it hard to listen to someone they perceived to be Not One Of

Us. Good ideas can be quickly dismissed through conscious or unconscious prejudice

especially if they challenge, as they will tend to, the cultural status quo. This isnt because the

ideas are wrong or invalid, but because of the subtlerealpolitikgoverning the acceptance of

those ideas.

So whats the lesson? Simply that, when dealing with cross-cultural projects its always wise

to be conscious of therealpolitik. Its no coincidence that the role of the diplomat in

international relations is considered a high art. The same skills are of equal importance when

developing cross-cultural marketing strategies.

If this situation rings bells with you, then I suggest you beware, for, as the little boy discovered

on humiliating the emperor, you might end up in the dungeon. The benefit of being the

outsider comes with a rather large caveat because, lets face it, no-one likes an arrogant shit

taking a cursory look at your cherished culture and telling you what it means!