There’s a lot to learn working on international clients. As I’ve continued to gain global experience over this past year, the launch of Autan was an interesting learning experience that yielded some strong work for the client. Unlike most assignments Autan brought together multiple offices for an interesting mix. Bare with me as you follow along. The campaign to launch in Italy was lead by the BBDO Paris office, handling the big idea and traditional deliverables. Our Chicago office was tasked with digital and Ogilvy, the shopper agency of record, handled point-of-sale out of their London office. The task of aligning 2 agencies in 3 offices and 3 different countries is no small feet. Oh and we needed to get an international client to buy the idea. I won’t bore you with the details, but the account team did a nice job and after a few rounds of creative we landed on the final output below.

What I learned

It’s fantastic when everyone speaks the same language. Everyone on the team spoke English which was great for me, but I can see why bilingual creatives are so valuable. Second, it’s important to give each discipline autonomy in their decisions while still being mindful of who the lead dog is. Like the adage goes, there’s no need for matching luggage, but it doesn’t hurt when the carpet and the drapes work together. Each piece of the communications was optimized for it’s particular channel while still realizing that consumers may not interact with each touchpoint and did their job communicating the message individually. Third, working on international accounts is fun. You can learn a ton about a countries culture when you’re trying to sell them something. I’ve never had the opportunity to visit Italy, but have always wanted to, so this assignment was a great opportunity to learn about the people.

Below is the final work created by the teams. My task was the development of the online hub that did the heavy lifting of communicating the product offerings while tying into the campaigns look and tone. With a smaller site, we had the opportunity to really focus on the details of the user experience. If you’re into digital craftsmanship I suggest you click on over to see what we’ve done.