Let's make global comms less boring, yeah?

There’s a particular kind of déjà vu that happens in global comms. A big, shiny “global idea” gets unveiled. It’s neat. It’s tidy. It’s been through seventeen rounds of approval and lost most of its personality along the way. Then it lands in-market and… bleugh. Not because the idea is bad, but because somewhere along the way the fact it was about connection got forgotten.

An insight can absolutely be universal, in fact they’re my favourite kind. A core idea can travel. But the magic happens on the ground. In the people you work with, the places you show up in, and the way you behave when you get there. Culture is nuanced, fascinating, deeper than what’s on the surface, and it’s only truly understood in the communities in which it’s experienced. So if cultural connection is the aim, we need to believe it can only be earned locally. Authentically, additively, and with a bit of humility.

That requires time and, above all, trust. A proper process that gives the people executing the work enough space to think, shape, and care about what they’re putting into the world. Without that, you’re kind of just exporting assets, which sounds a bit boring to me.

A useful, and not in the least pretentious, way to think about it is jazz. Bare with me… it’s freedom within a framework. In jam sessions (yes, i said it) everyone knows the core idea, the feeling, the vibe they’re aiming for. But how you get to something that actually pops is nuanced, complex and takes a ton of understanding, experience and collaboration. When you have the right people, who understand the brief, the brand, and their culture inside out, you don’t need to micromanage. You trust them to riff. And when they do, it works. Not in spite of the differences, but because of them.

Which brings me to partners. You cannot do this well with a random collection of agencies you’ve never worked with, chosen purely because they exist in a market. That’s the cheeky little secret of the traditional network model; it assumes geography equals quality. It doesn’t. Some teams are brilliant. Some are less so. And if they’re underfunded or under-inspired, they’re not suddenly going to produce the work of their lives because a global deck landed in their inbox.

The alternative is more intentional. You build a network the long way, by working with people, by testing them, by trusting them. You find partners who share your creative ambition and who genuinely understand their market at a deep, cultural level. Then you bring them in early. You collaborate. You pressure-test the insight and the instinct together. The end result is better, not just locally, but globally, because it’s been shaped by people who know what good looks like in the real world, not just on a slide.

Of course, none of this works without bringing clients along for the ride. And that’s where experience matters. “Global experience” gets thrown around a lot, often by people who’ve technically worked across markets but haven’t really got their hands dirty in them. There’s a difference between coordinating something internationally and actually understanding how earned media works in different countries. What lands, what doesn’t, and why.

We can’t all be PR specialists in every country and language we’re operating in, but if you’re going to ask a client to embrace work that looks and feels different market to market, you need to be able to back it up. You need to explain not just what’s happening, but why it’s right. And you need to support your in-market partners in doing the same, especially when they’re trying to articulate something culturally nuanced to someone sitting thousands of miles away with a very different frame of reference.

One practical way to build that confidence, sometimes, is to start somewhere. Having a test market gives you proof, not just that the idea works, but how it works when it’s done properly, executed with that gorgeous local, cultural glue. You can show how the right people, places, and spaces bring it to life, and why that exact execution shouldn’t and couldn’t be copy and pasted elsewhere. Between you and me, it can also introduce a bit of healthy competition. No one wants to be the market that did the least interesting work.

And underpinning all of this is something that sounds obvious but is surprisingly rare: curiosity. A genuine interest in how other people live, work, think, and communicate. Global comms is one of the few parts of the job where you get a front-row seat to that. It should be enjoyable. It should be a bit messy. It should definitely not be about clinging onto control at all costs.

Because if you do it right - if you trust the idea, trust the people, and give it room to breathe, you get more creativity, not less, at scale. Different flavours, same core. Consistency where it makes sense, and personality in abundance.

Sophie Nicholson, Partner, The Romans Amsterdam and Berlin.