Marketing leaders at larger enterprises doing business globally can drive further efficiencies in their 2010 marketing budgets by putting in place the right frameworks to foster global planning and concepting. This isn't easy since there exists territorial attitudes related to budgets and staff that "sit" outside the corporate office in regions around the world. This happens even if there is a "solid line" reporting relationship from the regional marketing leaders and teams to the corporate CMO because the allegiance to the local market leader is usually strong.
However, that shouldn't stop global CMOs on insisting on driving global concepting and planning for as many initiatives as appropriate. One way to do this is to work closely with your financial officer counterpart to demonstrate how this will save the corporation money, while delivering a more consistent global approach to customers, prospects and partners. The power of the purse will help make this an imperative for 2010 but ensuring budget dollars for concepting key global programs are removed from regional budgets.
Now I'm not suggesting that there are not specific differences region-by-region that can all be captured by a one size fits all approach. There are, however, many programs that can be concepted and planned centrally and then simply localized. Most companies consider this with basic collateral, business communications and global events, but do not look at how this concept can be driven (with some extra work and pre-planning) through most of the marketing programs a company executes.
I've found the key to success is to institute central planning and execution with a dose of local programs and execution that happens in each region. I've established global strategy teams made up of the senior leaders of the corporate marketing functions, regional marketing heads and a representative from each major external agency partner. I've typically branded these internally, "TeamGevity" or "TeamIomega" for example, and have created a sense of mission and purpose. This way it hasn't turned out to be "corporate" trying to execute one program for every market but a global team planning the major initiatives to eliminate waste and local market re-work. This idea isn't that much different than Ford trying to create several global car platforms versus having every car in every region using all different components.
This "embrace and extend" approach has served me and my teams well at multiple companies. We've planned and strategized on all programs that could be used across regions. The regions would then "embrace" these corporate programs, "extending" them as appropriate into their local markets. Additionally, these would be supplemented with region-specific programs and lead generation programs where a global, corporate program wouldn't make sense.
While the real reason to aim for this approach is to deliver better marketing, a side benefit will be reduced cost to your company. And in this economic environment, that's a real win for marketing.