Launching and building a global brand requires brand managers with special skill sets. More than just being able to adjust and work in different time zones global strategic brand managers must be able to understand and embrace different cultures, and be eager and willing to help create the conditions for success for the brand and their regional marketing colleagues. As more Pharma/Biotech and Medical Device brands are becoming global brands, how can we help create a distinctive and impactful brand that has a consistent brand image worldwide?

After collaborating with several different global brand managers – some more successful than others – I’ve seen five distinct paths they have taken to help them achieve their goals.

1. Respect – Just like the old song says “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, you don’t know what it means to me”, people respond much better when they feel they are being respected. “It’s different in my country (or region)” is a phrase I’ve heard from regional or country marketing managers in every engagement in which I’ve been involved. And the truth is, YES it is different! Different cultures, regulations, even different brand labels are bound to impact consistency for the brand. But the successful global brand managers engage their regional colleagues, understand and respect their markets uniqueness, and digs deeply for areas of commonality.
2. Collaboration – Successful global brand managers instinctively collaborate with their regional marketing colleagues. They involve them “early and often” in brand planning. A useful tool is to have all regions participate in a situation analysis, outlining their target audiences, markets, competition and perform a SWOT analysis on the brand. More often than not it becomes apparent that great areas of similarity exist in different markets.  But collaboration cannot stop there.  It must continue, giving regional colleagues an equal say in positioning, and participating in the building of the brand imagery. Having them participate in the market research of positioning, messages and brand concepts in their regions provides them the assurances that the ultimate brand imagery and messages will be successful in their particular market.
3. Reseach – Global brand managers must conduct in-depth market research on the brand in the appropriate regional/country markets. Specific market conditions research (sales, shares, target audience perceptions, competitive intel) will be brought by regional marketing personnel to the situation analysis meetings, but successful global marketers will conduct the research needed to validate brand development activities, and to measure their success.
4. Communication – This must be an ongoing process that allows for a two-way communication between global and regional marketing. Successful global brand managers have regularly scheduled telecons, WebEx’s, etc. where they share information with their regional colleagues on such subjects as:  “What is global marketing doing to further develop the brand or programs to support it?” “How is the launch of the brand going in a particular market?” “What are the areas of success… or what are the challenges the brand is facing as it is being rolled out?”  Savvy global brand managers schedule meetings with their regional colleagues before or after market global Congresses or Conferences when they will all be together in a given city. And web-based technology is providing us tools to provide regional colleagues marketing material content and the instantaneous context for these materials… but this will be a subject for a future web post!
5. Resourcefulness – I almost titled this one “Resources”, but then I quickly remembered that I’ve never worked with a global manager who felt that they had the resources necessary to fully capitalize the situation at hand! But the successful ones I’ve worked with understood how to be resourceful with the assets they have, and to achieve great things. They see themselves as a great “lever arm” able to apply pressure strategically to achieve their goals.

And those of us who had the pleasure of studying physics most likely came across that famous quote by Archimedes: “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I can move the earth.” Successful global brand managers indeed give the world of brand marketing a jolt!