Three tips for brands expanding abroad: It’s not where your brand was born, it’s where it’s going in the future

One of the biggest problems today is an overemphasis on origin and roots instead of focusing on a brand’s purpose, particularly amongst brands entering the US market from abroad. Brand marketing that leans on nationality and heritagecan be a huge asset but is as often unnecessary – or worse, could be harmful to your brand.

Consider the country association and even political repercussions when there’s a major PR blunder or your brand isn’t liked by consumers. Two words: British Petroleum.

A major issue with harping on heritage in the global economy is that perceptions associated with your brand’s home country could vary greatly from market to market. What you stand for at home is likely not the same as what you stand for in another country.

As a Brit who moved to America nearly a decade ago, I’ve seen plenty of examples of this phenomenon when it comes to British brands and their go-to-market strategies in the U.S. The American perception of what “Britishness” is often differs from the truth.

Upon landing in New York it was fascinating to work on a product I grew up with as a teen in the UK – makeup brand Rimmel London. In the US, “Get the London Look” meant being trendy, but having a bit of edge too versus drugstore competitors like Maybelline or Almay. It still retailed in drug stores, just like the UK, but it’s cache for the American market was completely different.

Leaning hard into the London piece of the brand name meant they could charge more with this product differentiator in a wall of home grown brands. The brand team in the US smartly leveraged this opportunity and developed packaging that would ensure the brand delivered on this more premium perception on shelf.

Jaguar also successfully leant into their British roots with their “Good to be Bad” campaign. By using the stereotype of the suave British villain setting out to break the status quo, the brand was able to speak to the American entrepreneur in a way that made being “Bad” pretty darn sexy. It would never have worked using American villains…

While Jaguar and Rimmel London have seen success, this isn’t always the case. An example of a brand fail in this arena is Tesco. Without properly understanding American shoppers’ motivations or needs, it turned up across the pond to tackle the U.S. market with Fresh & Easy stores on the West Coast.

Trouble was, even after spending time in California homes to understand what goods were stocked in a typical American fridge today and how families make meal choices, they reverted to what worked in the UK when it came to merchandising. The stores carried small pack sizes when Americans are more accustomed to buy in bulk and ready meal options embraced by UK shoppers but unfamiliar to the US consumer. They also relied on self-service checkouts in a culture that places a high value on helpful and accessible customer service.

Fast-casual chain Pret-a-Manger also had a tough start, bringing in their successful British model of pre-packed sandwiches with relatively simple fillings in modest portions. But in the beginning they doused a lot of their offerings with mayonnaise (beloved less by Americans than Brits) and not catering to Americans’ generally sweeter palates. Pret was forced to rapidly adapt to the market and has been growing at a rapid clip ever since.

So where did Tesco, Pret and others go wrong? They attempted to re-create the model that worked in Britain and expected it to work in America, rather than examining what Americans value about Britishness and how, if at all, it should be leveraged to positively affect the market position of that new British brand.

Here’s three keys to knowing how much origins should play a role in your brand story when talking to the American consumer:

1. Don’t assume it matters and spend time pondering whether your country’s home brand is a salient part of its story, and importantly whether it adds context to your brand’s philosophies, innovations and output. If it doesn’t check at least one then it’s probably not relevant.

2. Study the perceived truth in your destination market, not the actual truth of what that origin means. Don’t just examine brand sentiment, examine country sentiment. What do Americans think British, Japanese, Swedish mean? What are the cues they understand and read? Their cultural references will be different and interpreted from the real ones. For example, Americans maybe likely to view British schools as a place of discipline and uniforms that output eccentric people who’ve rebelled against the oppressive system. But think of the references they get in culture – Harry Potter, Downton Abbey and other period dramas. Little of American culture is exposed to actual British schools today to know what’s real.

3. Consider a market adaptive approach when it feels like origin isn’t the way to go so you aren’t viewed as a foreign brand coming abroad. There are two options here, develop a brand for Americans with the same foundations as your founding company or partner with a local brand that understands the market and comes with all the right infrastructure to scale, as Boots has recently done with Target and Walgreens starting with it’s No. 7 product range.

Thanks to the marketing world’s obsession with storytelling, many brands assume it matters where they come from. Sometimes it does, but in other cases it’s irrelevant to success in a new market. And in the global economy, marketing your nationality can result in a host of differing perceptions – or misconceptions – about your brand.

Your first priority is to be clear about what your brand’s purpose is, and then work out if origin plays a meaningful part in telling that story.Does it help people understand your purpose as a brand or get in the way of it? Ultimately, it’s as important to think about where you came from as where you are going.

Sarah Aitken is the chief marketing officer-Americas at iris Worldwide