We sometimes get asked if we’d rather market our services to companies led by Europeans or Americans.
As you might expect, there are big differences, because values and education vary widely between the two continents.
We have no “preference” as such, but we have the advantage at the agency of knowing and understanding these two cultures.
What I would like to share with you in this podcast is the aspects of their culture and their beliefs about work, and the business practices we like in each of them.
Communications
I especially like not having to explain our services to a European company – either to win them over or to demonstrate how effective our strategies are.
Right now, we’re mainly working with French- and German-led companies, but based on our experience, the same goes for the Spaniards, Swiss, and English. What our friends in France call “la comm” is an automatic part of any good marketing plan: for them, it’s a must-have. When they choose to work with us, what’s important is implementing the strategies; they already believe in the results.
For Europeans, getting the word out on a product or service has always been crucial – since well before the advent of social media. So we don’t have to talk them into it as we often do with American companies. We don’t have to sell them on the importance of investing in key messages, rolling out press releases, or developing an annual communications strategy.
Straight to the point
Our American friends, meanwhile, haven’t got a minute to lose – time is money. So, no long meetings for debating our editorial decisions or the thousand options available to them. It’s taken me some time to understand that the long meetings and discussions with our French friends were not a waste of time, far from it! Our French friends like those meetings where we discuss things, because it’s often during professional discussion that exceptional ideas emerge. You’ve got to let time do its work.
For an American (and, I admit, for myself as well – I’m French Canadian), I felt like some of these meetings were a waste of my time. But after all these years, I’ve come to understand how to get the most out of these discussions. An important exchange of information is taking place, and it’s a terrific opportunity to get to know management, partners, and companies.
Americans tend to make a decision sooner and then go with it, even if it means quickly reworking their strategy if it fails.
A genuine partner
For large US corporations, agencies are all alike. If the results don’t meet their expectations, they move on to the next one. We’re considered services. That’s why the agency has had to develop its consulting and services at the highest level. We’ve learned how to “live to serve.”
Our European friends, on the other hand, like to develop partnerships. The business relationships we have with them may take longer to deploy, and monetary investments are often gradual (they start with low-budget operations before bringing out the big guns). Americans, meanwhile, are quick to deploy large PR budgets. There’s no best recipe here, but I must say that I’m fond of developing partnerships that stand the test of time.
To start making yourself known, nothing beats combining PR with social media.
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