I recently came across an acquaintance/ex-client we worked with to help them with technical SEO.
They wanted my advice regarding performance issues for their sales ads in Australia. They were running the ads on their own and when I took a look at their creatives, well, you read the headline. All of their communications were geared towards ‘winter sale’ and their visitors were probably confused because Dec marks the beginning of summer in Australia. Look it up, I’m not lying.
A lot of people don’t know that countries in the southern hemisphere of the earth such as Australia experience seasons opposite to the countries in the northern hemisphere such as the US, UK, etc. So if you’re marketing to a country outside your own, it’s very important to understand that country’s current weather, both in economic and the literal sense.
Jo said:
Someone who has so little understanding of/care about their client’s business that they are running winter ads in summer shouldn’t be working in marketing.
It’s not always a marketer per se that is running the ads but the business owner themselves, just like the person I mentioned in the post above.
Plus, I think marketers, especially new ones make all sorts of mistakes and we should provide them as much help as we can so they can avoid making these mistakes.
@Zion
I’m with you, personally. People don’t know what they’re ignorant about. I’d next to guarantee some marketer out there does a deeper dive into who their target audience is than damn near everyone else because they made this exact mistake in the past and won’t let it happen again.
In an ideal world, every company would have the processes and resources to prevent such issues, but we live in the real world and that simply isn’t the case.
If I was helping a team I work with correct such a mistake, I’d call attention to it, apologize, and offer a ‘we messed up’ discount. Maybe a picture of someone with egg on their face (or some common Australian idiom) to compliment it. There’s no reason for it to destroy a brand or reputation.
@Zen
Yeah this mentality of people should just know is a bit weird to me. Sometimes you don’t encounter things that trigger this thought into your head. If you try to counter this, you may never even start at all. It would require you to look at every potential outcome and even then you would still probably miss something so you look towards that and over and over.
I have a book titled ‘Social Media Success For Every Brand’ that shared a case where the social media manager tweeted about her friend or husband finding more cases of beer and how when they drink, they do it right with the hashtag #gettinglizzard. They managed to turn that around with the manager tweeting on her personal about the mistake and making light of it with a joke and elaborating how they weren’t actually #gettinglizzard but just excited for their plans for the evening. Red Cross also addressed the issue saying they deleted the tweet and also another light joke, “confiscated the keys” from that manager.
The outcome was interesting too because that beer company the manager mentioned in that tweet ended up shouting them out asking their followers to donate and using that same hashtag. Literally turned a mistake into a new opportunity.
Humans make mistakes, it happens. Something disrupts us or we lack the knowledge of something. Assuming people should just ‘know’ because they are professionals is what causes so much stress. It doesn’t mean you don’t care.
If I was helping a team I work with correct such a mistake, I’d call attention to it, apologize, and offer a ‘we messed up’ discount. Maybe a picture of someone with egg on their face (or some common Australian idiom) to compliment it. There’s no reason for it to destroy a brand or reputation.
I think this is the best response to that too. Being able to problem-solve I would say is more valuable than trying to be a perfectionist that just has to know everything.
Unfortunately, marketers often don’t understand other countries.
I’ve had problems with Americans who think that the American way is the way for everyone, for example.
I live in the US, but I’m from Brazil (southern hemisphere too). I remember people joking about Walmart trying to sell products in Brazil for American football (not soccer). Pizza Hut failed there trying to sell their pizza in Sao Paulo (huge city, about 10 million people, with some of the best pizza in the world). They changed and are trying again.
I once did a presentation with a long list of foreign companies that failed in Brazil, often because they don’t understand the market.
I agree with u/Phronesis2000 that they should not be working in marketing. But they are, and companies keep hiring them. As I often say, marketers often don’t know about the market anymore. In many cases, they know about the digital world of social media, SEO, content generation, AI, but they don’t know the real world.
I suppose they are working in their computers from another country in this case. Then, they can’t even feel the temperature, much less understand the behavior and culture.
@Ellis
I agree with you to an extent, and I think that’s why it’s important to ask your clients as many questions as you can + get everything approved by them.
If the marketer doesn’t understand the territory, at least the owner would.
@Zion
Yeah. But to ask questions they probably need to care. And if they cared, the problem probably wouldn’t even exist.
It’s not like the marketers need the owner to tell them that it’s summer in Australia, that Brazilians like soccer instead of American football, for example.
And they usually don’t care. I was mostly invisible for 40 years, even when I was there as part of the meetings. This only improved a little after I came to the US, but it’s still a big struggle. People don’t see because they don’t want to see. They don’t hear even when we tell them.
This happens a lot at my current company. I work for a retail multinational, and we have a team that makes content and creatives for all countries’ ads and social media posts.
Lately I’m getting a lot of stuff from them with winter themes, snow, people in wool hats and gloves and scarves, but my country’s current temperature is 32°C/93°F.
Let alone, there are US marketers that don’t know how to do marketing in the US. So many instances where less concern has been given to understanding an audience. Sticking with the winter theme, not everyone believes in or celebrates ‘Christmas’. Then, typically, ads show snow for the holiday. On average, the likelihood of a ‘white Christmas’ (defined as having at least 1 inch of snow on the ground on December 25) varies from 25–30% of the U.S. typically experiencing a snowy December 25. There is a lot to dissect in your comment; I always appreciate a good marketing case study;)
