The biggest thing working across 35+ countries taught me is that global does not mean universal. A customer can look identical on a spreadsheet and still make a completely different decision once price expectations, trust, culture, competition, regulation and everyday habits enter the picture. The goal is not to treat every market as unique for the sake of it. The goal is to know which differences actually change the decision.
What changes first when you cross a border?
The customer context changes before the customer profile does. Age, income, job title or category need can look similar across markets, but those facts do not explain how someone discovers a product, what feels credible, what feels expensive, who influences the choice or what “good service” means locally.
BCG makes the same point in its work on global customer data: attitudes, needs and behaviors are strongly shaped by local realities, and demographics alone do not fully explain choice without context. (BCG: Customer Data in Global Markets)
That lesson changed how I read research. A persona can be useful, but I do not trust it until I understand the environment around it. The same profile can react to a different proof point, a different payment method, a different spokesperson or a completely different reason to care.
The same customer on a spreadsheet can become a completely different customer in context.
Why does trust behave differently in every market?
Trust is local even when the brand is global. Recognition can travel, but credibility is still built through signals that make sense in that market: local partners, reviews, known clients, certifications, community reputation, physical presence, service expectations or simply evidence that the company understands where it is operating.
McKinsey’s 2025 consumer research found that 47% of surveyed consumers said locally owned companies were important to their purchase decision. The reasons were not only price; many respondents linked local brands to supporting domestic businesses or fitting their needs better. (McKinsey: State of the Consumer 2025)
Being foreign is not automatically a weakness either. Harvard Business Review has argued that outsider status can sometimes become an advantage when the company brings something genuinely distinctive. The mistake is assuming a global name removes the need to earn local trust.
This is one reason market entry strategy cannot be reduced to translation or media planning. Trust, route to market and local proof are part of the strategy itself.
Do the same marketing channels work everywhere?
No. A channel is not just a media format; it sits inside local behavior. The platform people open first, the role of search, the influence of creators, the importance of messaging apps, the power of a partnership or the value of an event can change dramatically by market.
I have learned not to ask, “What channels worked for us before?” as the first question. I would rather ask, “Where does this market already make decisions?” The difference sounds small, but it changes the whole plan. Sometimes the answer is paid media. Sometimes it is a local distributor, an industry relationship, a community, an event, search demand or a person whose recommendation carries more weight than another campaign.
McKinsey’s research on locally deployed marketing found that local teams can benefit from a closer view of consumers and faster response to changing needs, while larger global or regional centers can still provide scale and expertise. (McKinsey: Better performance from locally deployed marketing)
What should stay global, and what should stay local?
The strategic logic should travel more consistently than the execution. A company needs a recognizable core, but the market should be allowed to influence how that core reaches people.
| Keep consistent | Let the market decide |
|---|---|
| Core purpose and product truth | Which proof points matter locally |
| Brand promise and quality standard | Channel mix and customer journey |
| Strategic positioning logic | Tone, examples and cultural references |
| Decision principles | Partners, distribution and route to market |
| What the business is trying to achieve | How success should be reached in that market |
This is also why strategy should stay close to execution. The local market will expose assumptions quickly, and the strategy needs to be close enough to learn from them.
What does local knowledge tell you that a global dashboard cannot?
Local knowledge explains why a signal matters. A dashboard can tell you that conversion dropped, a product is being ignored or one channel is outperforming another. It cannot always tell you whether the reason is trust, payment behavior, local competition, regulation, cultural meaning, distribution or something as simple as timing.
This is where local teams, partners and people close to the customer become incredibly valuable. They are not there just to execute a central plan. They help interpret the market. That interpretation can save a company from scaling the wrong answer.
The need for local interpretation is getting broader. Harvard Business Review argued in 2026 that localization now extends beyond surface marketing decisions into areas such as data, supply chains and operating models as countries become more fragmented in rules and requirements. (HBR: For Multinational Companies, Localization Matters More Than Ever)
What working across markets changed in how I make decisions
It made me less attached to playbooks and more attached to principles. The more markets I worked in, the less interested I became in proving that one formula works everywhere. I would rather know the logic behind the decision, then test whether that logic survives the local reality.
- Start with the context. Before copying what worked elsewhere, understand how the category is bought, who influences it and what creates trust locally.
- Separate the core from the habit. Some parts of a strategy are essential to the brand. Others are simply habits that became normal in the original market.
- Use local feedback early. Do not wait until after launch to discover that the message, offer or route to market feels wrong.
- Treat partnerships as intelligence, not only distribution. The right local partner can reveal how the market works before the numbers become obvious.
- Change execution without changing identity. Adapt quickly when the market gives you evidence, but keep the principles that make the business recognizable.
The same thinking is why I do not separate marketing from business development when a company is expanding. Marketing sees behavior at scale; business development hears the market one conversation at a time. Both views matter when the context is unfamiliar.
What to do next
If your business is working across several markets, test whether you are actually learning from them or simply distributing the same plan in more places.
- Compare the assumptions. Pick two markets and write down what your team assumes is the same. Then identify which assumptions have actually been tested.
- Map the trust signals. List what makes the brand credible in each market and where those proof points are different.
- Audit the channel roles. Check whether each channel is being used because customers rely on it locally or because it appears in the global playbook.
- Create a local feedback loop. Make sure market teams or partners can feed customer, commercial and operational signals back into strategic decisions.
- Protect the core deliberately. Define the few things that should remain consistent everywhere so adaptation does not become brand drift.
Final thoughts
Working across 35+ countries did not teach me that every market needs a completely different strategy. It taught me something more useful: similarity is not the same as sameness.
The strongest global work I have seen is clear about what deserves consistency and curious about everything else. The moment a company stops assuming it already knows the answer, the market starts teaching it something.
See you,
Tai Perez
