By now, almost everyone realizes that when entering a new foreign market, DMers should adapt their copy and creative for the local audience. But what they may forget is that adapting to the local business culture is equally important.
For example, said Steven Miles, former managing director for Lands End in Europe, Japanese business people never disagree with their superiors. And in Germany, workers don’t interact with their bosses.
Miles noted that when Lands End first opened its German offices, the company’s open door, everyone-on-a-first-name-basis culture put off German employees.
His first week there, Miles made a point of greeting everyone in the office – only to receive silent stares in return. He soon learned that in Germany, people commonly don’t call each other by their first name, as he’d insisted.
“People who work side by side for 20 years don’t use first names,” he said. “We came up with a compromise. For the year I lived in Germany I was ‘Herr Steve’ or Mr. Steve.”
Don’t push American values and culture,” he said. “Just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s better.”
