A Culture Won’t Fit on Your Moodboard

*Dolce & Gabbana, and the danger of mistaking a familiar symbol for an understanding of a country.*

Recognising chopsticks is easy. Understanding the people who use them is a slightly larger assignment. Unfortunately, advertising sometimes treats the two achievements as interchangeable and moves straight to casting.

In Dolce & Gabbana’s 2018 campaign, a Chinese model struggled to eat Italian dishes with chopsticks. The videos caused outrage; amid the wider scandal, the brand cancelled its Shanghai show. Reporting on the campaign — Reuters.

What interests us here is the confidence a major brand can allow itself in its communications. A culture becomes a collection of props. People become characters in somebody else’s joke. As though including one recognisable object should make the local audience grateful for the attention.

The audience, unfortunately, never signed that agreement.

They bring their own experience to the scene. They hear the tone. They notice who gets to be competent and who is made to look helpless. They can see who is telling the joke and who is expected to be the punchline. Translating the tagline won’t fix any of that.

We don’t know exactly how that campaign was approved internally. But its public reception gives us plenty of reason to ask a professional question: can local knowledge actually change your idea? Or do local experts get invited in when all that’s left is to check the punctuation and admire the concept?

We value a process in which research can deliver an inconvenient answer: this is a cliché, this is patronising, this simply makes no sense. And something can change as a result. A team permitted only to agree is unlikely to help you see what you’ve missed.

The same questions apply to Ukrainian brands addressing a new audience. Which of our references need explaining? How will our humour land? What do we know about these people beyond how many potential customers they represent?

A global name helps you attract attention. It also brings a large audience capable of examining your mistake in considerable detail. It’s worth budgeting for a little curiosity about the people you’re talking to before you have to budget for crisis communications.