Vol.3７ – How to Develop and Evolve Contents Globally Starting Locally

The previous article Vol.36: How to Tailor Global Content to Meet Local Needs (Part 2) was about developing content meeting needs of local audience while delivering consistent global message by tailoring the global content totally to meet local needs.

This article is the continuation of the previous article, which is about developing and evolving content for global and local audience based on local information.

1. What kind of local information can be developed into content targeting global audience as well as local audience?

Local information need to be informative and of value to global audience. There are mainly 3 types of information that can be developed into content targeting global audience as well as local audience.

1) Advanced, innovative and creative local information.

Typical examples include that of locally-developed innovation such as world-first innovative technology and locally-developed innovative and creative activities. These kinds of contents are, in a sense, best practice sharing, of variety of topics. The website example presented later in this article can be categorized in this.

2) Unique local information yet underlying concept/message/philosophy is of globally universal, and /or local information depicts global trend well.

Typical topics of this kind of information include environment, healthcare, leadership and management and humanity. Some easy-to-understand examples from the author’s blog about Japan include the following.

Turning Point in Japan's Trade with China
http://moyanagijapan.thoseinmedia.com/2010/07/18/turning-point-in-japan%e2%80%99s-trade-with-china/
This depicts the global trend of China’s emergence as the world’s consumption market, and attracted interests of worldwide online people, with feedback and retweets.

3) Very unique, full of originality local information that attracts interest of global audience.

Typical topics of this kind of information include culture, and manners and customs. Some easy-to-understand examples from the author’s blog include the following:-

What is Japanese Valentine's Day and White Day?
http://moyanagijapan.thoseinmedia.com/2010/03/12/what-is-japanese-valentine%e2%80%99s-day-and-white-day/
This is about Japanese original Valentine’s Day. This attracted interest of the author’s worldwide Twitter and Facebook friends, with comments/feedback and retweets.

2. How can local information developed into global content and local content, meeting needs of both global and local audience?

Basic methodology is the same as tailoring global content to develop local content to meet needs of local audience; that is, adding/deleting irrelevant information and/or changing the viewpoint/subject and remake the content based on the buyer persona of audience segment.

The author would like to explain with a website (web content) she and the team members developed 2001-2002 to start creating and increasing fans of the company and the products/services, targeting children, when she was working for her former employer (a Japanese consumer electronics giant).

1) How series of websites were first planned and developed

Being a global company based in Japan, branding such as website concept and title was developed from global perspective, while Japanese website was planned and developed. After the completion of the Japanese website targeting Japanese local audience, English website targeting global audience and Chinese website targeting Chinese audience were developed, because it was considered that the Japanese website concept would be acceptable worldwide.

2) Japanese website: the start of the initiative.

The website as of today is http://pks.panasonic.co.jp/, targeting children around 8 years old, who are “future customers” of the company and also already the key players in making purchasing decision in Japan.

Contents include basics (theories and facts) about consumer electronics such as how consumer electronics work and their history, i.e. how they were first born and then evolved to become advanced as of today.

There are also contents that are not necessarily related to consumer electronics and/or related to culture, and manners and customs, such as flags of major worldwide countries to evoke interest in other countries, and about environment such as importance of environmental preservation and what can be cone in everyday lives to contribute to environmental preservation.

3) English content for global audience

Contents on basic facts of consumer electronics were translated from Japanese to English. However, contents that focus on culture, and manners and customers were carefully reviewed. Information that could lead to misunderstanding or Japan specific that was considered not to attract attention and interest of global audience were dropped out, thus which blocks of information to include as global contents were selected. And any tailoring and modifications required were done in the process of translation, based on multiple buyer persona of 8 year children from major countries and regions.

4) Chinese content for China local audience

As a first step, English global content was translated into Chinese. Then, the website was transferred to China local site, and China local content that is specific to China market such as information related to Chinese society and market/marketing were added locally.

5) How series of websites evolved as time went on after 2002.

(1) Addition of different kinds of contents meeting local needs (in Japan)

Besides updating of contents of basics, variety of other kinds of contents which might be indirectly related to consumer electronics have been/still being added, such as how to make primitive telephone from strings and cardboards. Also events are planned and held collaborating with company showrooms located in Tokyo and Osaka, especially in summer and spring, and information about and linking with such events are also created.

Such contents are designed to help children do their summer holiday homework, because it is typical in Japan that children are assigned to make observation of something such as how sunflowers grow, make something on their own, and write diary with pictures during summer when they have long holiday (Japanese school year starts in April).

(2) Addition of contents targeting teachers and parents (in Japan)

Since there were many inquiries from teachers and parents, contents targeting teachers and parents were developed in 2006. Also, e-newsletter targeting teachers and parents exclusively was started to be distributed in 2006, and the e-newsletter that had been distributed since 2002 was reviewed to better target children.

(3) Addition of contents about worldwide contest

Studying of developing global community and starting contests had started from 2003, considering the initiative that had been going on locally in the U.S. for 10 years. First, the U.S., initiative was collaborated with Global & Group HQ ( in Japan) then content of some topics started to be held online. One of the recent example is as below.

The Eco Picture Diary Contest
http://pks.panasonic.co.jp/eco-global/2009/en/


In the upcoming article, the author would like to explain how global content is developed as a new local content totally and vise versa, delivering the consistent global message.