The Intercultural Brand Consultant. Job Description

Combined expertise has become a valuable asset in a globalized society. Professionals are often required to deal with complex tasks which no longer relate to a single field of expertise. Intercultural brand consultancy would be a profession combining the skills of an intercultural consultant (with everything that this entails) and those of a brand expert/consultant. Before attempting to describe this profession, we need to see whether there is indeed a need for it on the market.

Everybody agrees that the success of an international brand relies heavily on its capacity to adapt to the peculiarities of each market. It has become clear that globalization does not eliminate the differences between cultures, it does not ”level” them, but rather preserves and even enhances them. So understanding the way in which a culture thinks, acts and reacts is crucial to any international brand. Cultural adaptation is the key to success, and when I say adaptation, I don’t refer only to the communication process, but to the entire corporate culture of the brand aiming to invest in a foreign culture. This is where an intercultural brand consultant could have a valuable input.

Now what would be the duties of an intercultural brand consultant? It is important to understand that such a professional is more than a transcreation expert. S/he would not only be involved in the communication process, he would not deal only with the advertising strategy of the brand in the foreign culture, but would rather be involved holistically in the branding process. S/he would need to have solid knowledge of brand theory and brand equity and a very good understanding of the processes of brand management because his/her role would be to offer consultancy in a way that would help the brand become integrated in and adapted to the target culture. Besides branding skills, the intercultural brand consultant should also have excellent intercultural skills. S/he should be able to convey to the client the peculiarities of the target culture,  but also to adapt a branding campaign to the local market and transcreate ads if need be.

This post opens a new chapter on my blog. I will discuss various skills that an intercultural brand consultant would need in his daily tasks. For now I just wanted to give you a brief introduction to this hypothetical profession. So what do you think? Would such a profession make sense in our society? Comments are welcome .

*Image by Naypong