Q: I've joined the UK operation of a US-owned brand, lured by its 'cool' positioning. However, I took the job on the promise of some independence in crafting brand strategy for the UK market. I have submitted my plan to my American boss, who praised it and then never came back to me about it. It's been three months. What should I do?
A: Churchill once remarked that you could always rely on the US to do the right thing, but only after it had exhausted every other possibility. It was said in a different context, but it's a great way of looking at the place.
Churchill's bon mot has never been more axiomatic than when applied to US marketers. For every enlightened one I've met, who knows how to pronounce Leicester Square and Worcestershire Sauce and the difference between Spain and Portugal, I've met others who don't care.
Your approach is right, and your timing is impeccable. The social-media miracle means that applying global brands with a trowel looks increasingly clumsy and outdated. It cannot be one solution for one planet when there is no such thing as one planet any more, but millions of little interconnected constellations.
All of this might offer you no solace whatsoever. You may have left a perfectly good job where you were the toast of every Soho production house for a role where Yousendit is your principal professional tool.
Parochialism
Worse still, your employer, stung by accusations of US parochialism, may have just relocated its annual marketing summit from the shores of Los Angeles to The Quality Inn, Slough.
There are several things you can do, but for reasons of space, I'll suggest one. Brief your favourite agency on your strategy. Commission it under the radar to create the campaign to end all campaigns, and find a way of paying for it using accruals, overspends, favours and even book tokens, if you have to.
Put it up on YouTube or Facebook as a startling piece of user-generated content, seed it among the right audiences, and then sit back and enjoy the rush as people from all over the world claim your strategy as their own.
It probably won't get you out of going to the Slough conference, but it might just get you a trip to Cannes.
Will Harris is a former marketing director for Nokia in the UK and Asia region. He was the first marketing director of the Conservative Party and launch marketing director of the O2 brand.