Customer Reviews

Another One Bites the Grass: Making Sense of International Advertising

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Simon Anholt has carved an impressive niche for himself in international marketing circles as a regular sage at conferences and seminars.

Another One Bites The Grass is, however, even more pithy than usual. Both witty and penetrating it lays bare the successes and failures of some famous international campaigns. The essence, and the reason for these 5 stars, is not for his being an excellent raconteur. Instead his philosophy of dynamic, multi-lingual, multi-cultural teams must make sense to those marcomms exec's who try to scale the translation mountain.

This is a book that is a MUST for those who have responsibility for putting out attractive messages internationally. Furthermore, it is an enlightening and instructive read for anyone in business, large or small, about the perils of communication on a global scale if one thinks only within one's home environment.

Buy this book - you will be entertained and educated in the best possible way.

Attend the next conference that Simon Anholt speaks at - you will be wiser for it.

Author Simon Anholt, an international advertising consultant, says that the dangers of globalization can be just as formidable as the opportunities - if you fail to research the culture of your new markets. We've all heard the marketing legends of companies that embarrassed themselves by launching products into foreign markets without checking the translation of their brand names. Anholt retells several of these tales to illustrate the perils that await global firms that don't take culture into account. Meshing advertising and marketing strategy, he presents a systemic approach to cross-border product expansion. We [...] recommend this book not only for its insightful, culturally adaptive marketing methodology, but also for the genuinely entertaining examples that might just make you laugh out loud.

This book is common sense in an industry of uncommon confusion. Among many other useful insights the book sheds light on the legacy of international agencies whose neglect of domestic cultures and conventions have led to many campaign failures. This is a must read for any marketing head who has to manage agencies especially if your company is in multiple countries! Read this book before you go ahead with your next campaign.

This book is common sense in an industry of uncommon confusion. Among many other useful insights the book sheds light on the legacy of international agencies whose neglect of domestic cultures and conventions have led to many campaign failures. This is a must read for any marketing head who has to manage agencies especially if your company is in multiple countries! Read this book before you go ahead with your next campaign.

At last someone has written something about the advertising industry that is centred around the whole concept of truly communicating internationally and is not bound by the political logistics that are inherent in so many of the large dinosaur agencies.

This should be required reading for anybody who is responsible for managing an international communications campaign.

Simon Anholt, the author, has a wealth of personal experience in the world of international advertising and copy-writing. This book is an easy-to-read cautionary tale that is a must for any international marketeer. Simon's views challenge convention, and should shake the international agencies out of the sloth induced by their quest for global scale. Client beware!

I am Sr. Manager for Global Corporate and Marketing Communication and after reading this book I have found lots of "dejà-vues". It's a complete rationalization of communication strategies we accomplish on different markets by local knowledge and empathy. It's a way of syncronising different points of view in one single idea.

I really recommend to those professionals of global communication to read it. It's really interesting and fun.

The whole issue of global promotional campaigns, whether in the form of high-profile advertising or the lower-profile but still significant form of marketing 'collateral', has recently gained an urgency that reflects the immediacy and pervasiveness of global, 'networked' business. In the fastest moving sectors, notably IT and telecoms, success in the marketplace is now measured in terms of global market share rather than local penetration. Of course 'globalization' was one of the buzzwords of the 'Seventies, but the characteristically arrogant approach often taken by large corporates was soon humbled by the offended and resentful response of local markets to these attempts to foist a global concept on widely disparate cultures and linguistic structures, so that the 'Eighties were characterized by an obsession with 'localization'. Came the 'Nineties, and globalization was back in favor, but this time tempered by attempts to cater to local sensibilities - what one might term a 'caring, sensitive globalization'. This approach has continued into the twenty-first century, further stimulated by the explosive success of the Internet.

The true complexities masked by such facile trends are revealed in all their positively frightening variety by Simon Anholt - his anecdotes range from the merely funny to the genuinely macabre. More interesting still, though, is his clear demonstration that while many people active on the international scene claim to understand the issues involved in global campaigns, the bulk of them are paying lip service to an abstract concept rather than understanding and appreciating cultural differences in all their complex detail. Anholt's focus on the cultural rather than the purely linguistic aspects of a targeted marketing approach is laudable; his expositions are more detailed than any I have read to date, while remaining firmly and pragmatically focused on the original intention behind a campaign and the practical issues involved in fulfilling that intention. Anholt's focus on message and effective impact represents a refreshing approach to a topic that is all too often reduced to linguistic quibbling, and he amply demonstrates the dangers of such a purely linguistic approach.

Anholt's rejection of translation is entirely appropriate, given the sophistication of his premises. Certainly the extraordinarily literal approach often adopted by conventional translation companies and individual translators is wholly incompatible with the objectives and intentions of effective communications, where a central message is reinforced by secondary branding and positioning that must be persuasive and pervasive in order to make the necessary impact. Anholt discusses the difficulties inherent in transplanting such requirements from one national market to another with a fast-moving, light touch, but he does not hesitate to plumb the issues involved in considerable detail.

His conclusions are consonant with the increasingly popular 'network management' models espoused by the most influential business gurus - the difference being that Anholt has been successfully practising such a business model for well over a decade. I thoroughly enjoyed this enlightening work, which manages to combine in-depth analysis with a broad sweep and witty style that holds one's attention to the end.

As marketing and branding become increasingly global, older treatments are seeming increasingly provincial and out-of-date. Anholt's book is the first I've come across that so succinctly elucidates the new global marketplace and how best to develop the mind-set to thrive within it. The breezy writing style, wit and intelligence -- and the writer's vast international experience -- make this a must-read for anyone whose business and livelihood depend upon adapting to the new rules of the game. The book should be required reading for all business schools and, perhaps more importantly, for anyone already working in marketing. Highly recommended.

Vincent Toolan misses the point. What is the alternative to being passionate about relevant cultural messages, and where exactly is Anholt going wrong in establishing top international teams to deliver them? The arrogance and lack of comprehension portrayed in many international campaigns is alarming, and Anholt's efforts to identify and illuminate cultural and linguistic differences makes great reading.