TransCity

Some brands have a universal appeal. Others have not. Global brands like Nokia, Google and Nike are more likely to have a broader cross cultural appeal than local brands.

In many countries, advertisers use local values to promote their products and services. But do these traditional local values still do their job in a culturally diverse society? Do those values appeal to those with ‘foreign’ roots? In many cases, the answer is no. In the Netherlands in the early ninetees of the last century, the peanut butter brand Calvé used the pay off: ‘who has not grown up with Calvé?’ For millions of Dutch citizens with a non-Dutch ethnical background, it was easy to answer: ‘I didn’t grow up with Calvé!’. A few years later, the pay off was changed into ‘How big do you want to grow’? Without abandoning its brand value ‘energy to grow’, the brand suddenly extended its target audience to include the millions of ethnic communities who had not grown up with Calvé peanut buttter.

What’s your opinion?