How do you improve DevOps and strengthen your operations? It all starts with measurement. You need to understand where you’re starting from and where you want to go. When it comes to software delivery, there are different metrics development teams can use to measure and track performance. Teams need visibility into data to understand their strengths and weaknesses and how they can improve their DevOps capabilities. That’s exactly why DORA created the four DORA metrics in DevOps. In this guide, we’re highlighting who DORA is, what the four DORA metrics are, and the pros and cons of using them. What are DORA Metrics? Before we outline the four key DORA metrics in DevOps, let’s cover a brief history lesson to understand where these metrics came from. DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) is a DevOps research team that Google acquired in 2018. DORA uses data-driven insights to deliver best practices in DevOps, with an emphasis on helping organizations develop and deliver software faster and better. Today, DORA continues to partner with the Google Cloud team to release DevOps research and reports to improve software delivery within organizations. In their 2018 research report, Accelerate: The State of DevOps, DORA compiled insights from six years of research to identify four key metrics known as DORA metrics. You can use these four key metrics to measure the performance of a software development team and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your DevOps operations overall. We’ll take a closer look at the four metrics soon, but for now, here’s a high-level overview: Deployment frequency Lead time for changes Change failure rate Time to restore service Since publishing the metrics, many organizations have started adopting and using them as the gold standard for software and DevOps teams. What are the four key DORA metrics? Let’s look at each of the four key DORA metrics in detail to understand how they can help you measure your team’s performance. 1. Deployment frequency You might already be familiar with deployment frequency since it’s an essential metric in software production. Deployment frequency is about how frequently your organization or team deploys code changes to production. This ultimately reveals your team’s speed because it indicates how quickly your team delivers software. And while speed may be viewed in a positive light, it’s crucial to keep quality top of mind. Frequency matters, but you also want to deliver value to your users. So, is there a right or wrong answer when it comes to deployment frequency? Not necessarily, but DORA qualified different deployment schedules in their 2018 report. In Accelerate: State of DevOps 2018, DORA suggested that elite performers are available on demand and commit to multiple deploys per day. High performers deploy between once per day and once per hour, while medium and low performers are between once per week and once per month. Don’t panic if you’re currently sitting in the low or medium-performer groups. There’s always room to improve and shift your way toward becoming an elite performer who delivers smaller code changes more frequently. 2. Lead time for changes This is another metric that can be used to measure the speed of your team. Lead time for changes is defined as the amount of time it takes one commit to get into production. In other words, how long does it take to move from code commit to code running successfully in production? You can calculate the lead time for changes by averaging the lead time for changes over a period of time for various commits. Calculating the mean is important because no two changes are the same and lead time will vary across different scopes and types of changes. Why does this metric matter? It measures how quickly your team can respond to needs and fixes, which is crucial in the development world. Your team can better plan how much to commit to with an understanding of how long it takes to get your changes in production. And perhaps most importantly, this metric is essential for helping your customers. If your customer has an urgent bug that requires fixing, they likely won’t want to work with a team that will take weeks to deliver a fix versus a team that can get them back up and running within hours. A team that’s able to produce changes quickly will keep customers satisfied. According to DORA’s research, elite performers have a lead time for changes that’s less than an hour. Talk about a quick turnaround! High performers turn around changes somewhere between one day and one week. Medium performers fall between one week and one month, while low performers take between one and six months. If we go back to the customer who needs an urgent fix on their application, do you think they’re more likely to work with a high or low-performing team? While the answer might be based on many factors, it seems most likely that a customer would choose the quicker turnaround time and stick with the high-performing team. 3. Change failure rate Next up is the change failure rate, or, simply stated, a measurement of the percentage of deployments that cause failures in production. Deployment frequency was all about the speed of deploying code changes in production, and change failure rate emphasizes the quality of the changes being pushed to production. It’s important to note that a failure in production can be different depending on the software or application. A failure might be a rollback, patch, service outage, or degraded service. When using this metric, it’s essential to define what a failure is in your work for your team. It goes without saying that you want to keep your change failure rates low. While it’s inevitable to avoid failures completely most of the time, you don’t want to lead to team or customer frustration. As you measure your losses, make it a team goal to learn from them so you can perform better the next time around. DORA classifies elite, high, and medium performers at a 0-15% change failure rate and low performers at a 46-60% change failure rate. Diving into change failure rate even further, DORA reported that elite performers have seven times lower change failure rates than low performers. 4. Time to restore service And finally, we have the time to restore service, also known as the time to recovery. Let’s face it – service interruptions and outages aren’t ideal, but they do happen. While they might not always be avoidable, what’s important is how you respond to them. The time to recover or restore service measures how long it generally takes to restore service when an incident such as an unplanned outage occurs. It’s critical to recover and restore service as quickly as possible. The goal of optimizing time to recovery is to minimize downtime and prepare to diagnose and correct issues when they occur. According to DORA, elite performers can recover in less than an hour. High and medium-performing groups take less than a day to restore service, while low performers can take anywhere between one week and one month to get back on track. Improving your time to recovery is a great way to impress your customers. Why use DORA metrics? So, why should you use DORA DevOps metrics? Sure, metrics and performance measurement are valuable, but what is it about DORA metrics that makes them uniquely reliable? DORA has been researching and studying DevOps for years. They consistently and regularly publish their findings and insights to evolve and drive DevOps teams. DORA is, without a doubt, a well-known leader in the industry and its expertise is trustworthy and valuable. The four key metrics didn’t fall from thin air – they’re rooted in data-driven research. Additionally, the DORA metrics will give you a broad understanding of your team’s delivery levels and capability. The metrics can be used to identify how you compare to competitors in your industry, and most importantly, they can help you better grow and take care of your team. When you measure and track DORA metrics over time, you will be able to make well-informed decisions about process changes, team overheads, gaps to be filled, and your team’s strengths. These metrics should never be used as tools for criticism of your team but rather as data points that help you build an elite DevOps organization. What are the pitfalls of DORA metrics? DORA metrics are great tools to use, but as with any form of measurement, there are some considerations to keep in mind. It’s challenging to use one set of metrics for different products and teams because no two products or teams are the same. Your product might be more complex than someone else’s. Your team might be three times smaller than another development team. Every team operates within its own context and circumstances, so it may be more challenging for certain teams to become an elite performing group. Another consideration worth noting is that there’s more to the picture than the DORA metrics alone. Teams who perform in the elite or high category across the four DORA metrics may appear to be successful, but they could be having other issues that aren’t accounted for outside of these metrics. It’s important to remember that there’s a bigger picture beyond these measurements. They aren’t the be-all and end-all, so be sure to keep that in mind. Recording your DORA metrics in Wrike If you want to support your developers and product teams further, consider using a project management solution like Wrike to track your DORA metrics, assign tasks to the team, and manage the software development process in one centralized location. Whether your teams follow Agile or another methodology, Wrike can help structure your software project management and make it more seamless. Get started with a free trial today.
With so many brands vying for customer attention in a sea of digital content, it’s more important than ever to use effective images that draw people to your message and brand. But having Photoshop loaded on your work laptop doesn’t automatically make you a designer, and a bad visual can annoy viewers (at best) and attract the wrong kind of attention (at worst). Good design is not something you can master overnight. There's simply too much to learn. The principles of brand identity, layout, and white space, color and typography, how to convey a message — not to mention complex design software. So how do you, as a non-designer, avoid common mistakes and navigate a suite of design applications to create eye-catching visuals without getting bogged down by too much information? We've collected a library of quick tips, cheat sheets, and online courses to help you master the basics and design beautiful creative assets for your business in no time. Why learn graphic design? Why should you spend time learning about graphic design for beginners and consider this as a career field? 1. Graphic design skills are in demand For starters, it’s an in-demand career path. Research suggests that the job market for graphic designers is expected to increase by 4.6% between the years 2016 and 2026. CareerFoundry echoes a similar sentiment, placing graphic designers at number seven on a list of the top 10 most in-demand design job titles for 2022. 2. Graphic design offers plenty of career options Another perk of learning graphic design for beginners is that it’s applicable to just about every industry. Graphic designers can assist with a variety of services, including business promotion, software, trade shows, and product packaging, to name a few. And because there are so many different types of services graphic designers can help with, the graphic design skillset is relevant across all industries, whether you work with product or service-based clients. 3. Graphic design work keeps you on your toes While some professionals prefer a consistent day-to-day workflow, graphic design means every day is different. New projects and work vary across the board, so there’s never a dull moment. The types of tasks that you work on will differ depending on client needs — one moment, you could be working on a logo design, and the next a full branding guide. There’s no telling what each day will bring, but it’s guaranteed to be a mix of types of work, unique tasks, and clients spread across industries and sizes. 4. Graphic design lets you flex your creative muscles Graphic design provides the opportunity to tap into your creative brain, and Entrepreneur suggests that reaching our creative potential in our work is paramount to feeling fulfilled and living a meaningful life. Sure, there are technical skills in design, such as using particular software systems and understanding design basics. But good graphic design also requires creative expertise. Coming up with new and unique designs means you’ll need to tap into your creative brain as much as possible. Graphic design courses for beginners Are you convinced and ready to learn graphic design? It can be tempting to dive in and try to learn everything all at once but don’t overwhelm yourself. We’ve rounded up some graphic design for beginners courses to help you get started. Free graphic design courses Graphic Design Workshop For Beginners Professional Advertising & Graphic Design [Mascot/Logo] Graphic Design for Entrepreneurs…Who Can’t Draw Graphic Design Basics Introduction to Graphic Design History Graphic Design Paid graphic design courses Become a Graphic Designer Graphic Design Basics: Core Principles for Visual Design Introduction to Graphic Design: Illustrator Basic design fundamentals everyone should know Want to take your learning a few steps further? Let's dive into some basic design fundamentals and resources for you to uplevel in these areas. Typography Your choice of typeface gives your design character, in addition to legible text. A stylish font is pointless if it’s unreadable, and using too many different fonts can be overwhelming to the eye. In general, limiting yourself to two to three complementary fonts in your design is recommended. Color theory Achieving harmony with color is essential for an eye-pleasing design. You don’t want your design to be either too bland or too chaotic. Some basic formulas for color harmony include using analogous colors (three colors that appear side-by-side on a 12-part color wheel), complementary colors (any two colors that are directly opposite each other on the color wheel), and a color scheme based on nature. Hierarchy What’s the most important element of your design? Don’t overwhelm your headline by overlaying it on a bright, bold image, for instance. Prioritize each of your design elements and keep that priority in mind when placing them, determining size and color, etc. Grids and balance Grids create guidelines for how visual elements should be positioned within your design layout and help determine proper proportion and balance. The golden ratio, or the ‘“rule of thirds,” is commonly used with grids to create an eye-pleasing result. And by placing certain elements outside of the grid, designers can naturally draw the viewer’s eye to these break-outs. Another way to learn graphic design? Study others’ work Start a collection of designs that you like, taking the time to define what you like about them and why. By analyzing successful designs and adopting certain elements into your own creative assets (without copying the design outright, of course), you can learn what works and quickly improve your visuals. Some common design mistakes to avoid: not using enough white space, placing too much text on one line, and using too many fonts and colors. Additional resources: Fundamental design principles for non-designers Want to learn graphic design? 9 tips and tricks for beginners The designer's guide to grid theory Typography design: Rules and terms every designer must know 10 basic elements of design Logo design: 15 golden rules for crafting logos How to design the perfect business logo (infographic) Graphic design software: Three options (and how to learn them) When it comes to software for graphic design, there are a few choices on the market that seem to reign supreme – and they’re all from Adobe. Below, we’re breaking down some tips and helpful resources for each of the most popular options: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. And when you’ve improved your graphic design chops and need to manage the ins and outs of your creative projects? Adobe Creative Cloud integrates seamlessly with Wrike. Photoshop Tips for beginners Unfamiliar with Photoshop? We have a few quick tips and extra resources to help you get started with this popular design software. Crop your images to create the best composition. If you find the horizon is off, you can level it by dragging any corner of the image box to rotate your photo. Use the Healing Brush to erase any spots on your image left from specks of dust or scratches on the camera lens. Bump up the contrast by brightening highlights and deepening shadows using the Levels window. Go easy on the color saturation. You can boost saturation to make your image more colorful, but too much can make it look glaring and overwrought. Additional resources: 2022 Adobe Photoshop keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet 5 easy Photoshop tips for beginners 18 quick Photoshop tips for beginners 10 Photoshop tips and tricks for beginners 120 Photoshop tips, tricks, and fixes Illustrator tips for beginners Illustrator is another popular software option used to create vector graphics. Vector graphics can be enlarged without compromising the integrity of the original image, so you get a crisp image no matter the final size (unlike bitmap graphics created by Photoshop, which can look jagged and blurry when scaled up). Additional resources: Adobe Illustrator cheatsheet Keyboard shortcuts for Illustrator 10 essential Adobe Illustrator tips and tools for beginners 11 quick tips for Adobe Illustrator The absolute beginner's guide to Adobe Illustrator InDesign tips for beginners InDesign is built specifically for designing printed materials, including brochures, ads, business cards, books, and more. It’s the tool you use to put the visual elements you create in Photoshop and Illustrator together into one place or publication. One of the trickiest aspects of print design is being artistic while also making sure your work can be printed without any technical issues messing things up. You'll need to understand things like bleed, file format, image resolution, measurements, and more. Additional resources: Beginners guides to InDesign 2022 Adobe InDesign CC keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet InDesign tips I wish I'd known when starting out 14 little-known InDesign tips Adobe InDesign tips and tricks Take your creative campaigns to the next level Of course, having the right graphic design chops is crucial. But, when it comes to organizing your work, using collaborative campaign management software helps ensure that everyone on your design team is using the latest, approved creative assets and that what’s produced is in line with brand guidelines. It’ll save you hours (and headaches) and result in a better finished product. Wrike’s all-in-one solution for creative teams streamlines the administrative side of creative projects and includes proofing and approvals and an extension for Adobe Creative Cloud. Start your free trial to give it a try, with nothing to download or install.
What does it take to be a great manager? What skills do you need to be an effective leader? We break down the most important competencies you need to be an effective manager and the project management skills you need to lead your team to success.
Interested in becoming an even better project manager? Of course you are. This post breaks down some of the most important technical and soft skills for project managers and provides some actionable advice for stepping up your game.
Here’s the truth: Our careers and mental well-being are closely related, with 58% of employees saying work has at least a moderate impact on their mental health. Yet, many workers feel like they need to be tight-lipped about this. In fact, that same survey found that nearly 40% of employees said they’re not at all comfortable discussing their mental health at work, and another 26.3% said they’re only slightly comfortable bringing this up. You wouldn’t expect employees to act like everything is “business as usual” if they recently had surgery or had a horrible case of the flu. Yet, mental health issues in the workplace still carry a stigma, which means they’re often swept under the rug. That’s not the right approach. Mental health in the workplace (and remote work mental health) is important, and it’s up to leaders and managers to promote a culture that prioritizes and supports the mental well-being of its employees. How? Let’s talk about it. Why is mental health important at work? Why should mental health issues be a core focus for your organization? Well, to put it simply, because you care about your employees and their wellbeing. Their physical, emotional, and mental health needs to be at the top of your priority list if you want to foster a positive culture and a thriving team. That human-to-human compassion should always rank above financial performance or productivity incentives. However, ensuring the mental health of your employees offers a number of other benefits for your employees and organization as well. As the World Health Organization explains, workplaces that actively promote mental health of employees and offer adequate support are far more likely to: Reduce absenteeism Increase productivity Experience economic gains Especially given recent pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic when 70% of workers admit they feel more stressed than at any other point in their entire career, employers need to follow managing remote employees best practices. How to spot mental health issues in the workplace The National Alliance on Mental Illness shares that mental health conditions run the gamut from anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and more. That’s why symptoms of mental health problems will vary depending on what an employee is specifically dealing with. However, when it comes to noticing employees who are struggling with their mental health, it can be helpful to look for: Decreased performance and productivity Reduced enthusiasm and engagement Difficulty concentrating on conversations and in meetings Irritability toward you and others Negativity toward their work and responsibilities Consistently low mood — measuring mood changes with an Agile Niko-Niko calendar can indicate this Keep in mind that this isn’t an exhaustive checklist. Indicators can vary from employee to employee, and it’s ultimately not your job to play doctor and diagnose employees. Rather, it’s smart to keep an eye out for these signs so that you know when you might need to offer more support, provide resources, and further promote mental health within your team and company. So, let’s talk about how you can go about making mental health a priority within your organization. Here are five tips to prove to your team that you’re invested in their mental well-being. 1. Offer benefits that support mental health You need to start with the basics. All of the candid conversations and team-building exercises won’t mean anything if the right foundation isn’t in place. But, unfortunately, 18.3% of respondents in one survey conducted by Paychex said their employer doesn’t offer mental health benefits. 28.8% of respondents rated their company’s health benefits and resources as “poor.” As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states, supporting employees starts with ensuring your company offers things like: Health insurance with no or low out-of-pocket costs for mental health counseling and medications Free or subsidized clinical screenings, counseling, or coaching programs Employee assistance programs (EAP) Employee support groups Flexible schedules or opportunities to take mental health days Assessment tools, apps, and other mental health resources By making these things available to your employees, you empower them to take control of their mental health — not just in the workplace, but outside of it too. 2. Adequately train supervisors and managers Your company’s supervisors and managers are the ones who are the most in touch with their teams, so they should have their antennae up for any red flags of burnout or other mental health issues so that they can offer support when necessary. Don’t expect them to know exactly what they should be looking for — it’s your organization’s responsibility to provide adequate training. This can include: Pamphlets, books, videos, and other learning materials Seminars or lectures from mental health professionals Roundtables where they can share advice and tips This equips them with the knowledge and information they need to keep their finger on the pulse of their team’s emotional and mental well-being, as well as their own. 3. Make resources available to your entire team Those mental health resources shouldn’t just be offered to your managers — they can be helpful for your entire team. Store them somewhere that’s organized and accessible to your entire staff, so that people can get those resources when they need them. Keep in mind that not everybody will be comfortable approaching a manager or HR representative when they want to get their hands on this information, so it’s best if all of your employees can access those resources on their own without help or intervention from someone else. 4. Remember work-life balance More than 40% of employees admit that they’re neglecting other aspects of their life because of work, which can increase their vulnerability to mental health issues. Yet, 55% of employees agreed with the statement, “I am afraid of getting punished for taking a day off to attend to my mental health.” Obviously, there’s a gap that needs to be bridged here, and offering mental health days is a great place to start in terms of ensuring better work-life balance. One way to do this is to simply offer enough “personal days” for your employees to use. Whether they need to go to the dentist, have a horrible cold, or need a day off to mentally decompress and reset, these days allow them the time they need (without having to give a thorough explanation of why they need time off). If and when an employee explains that they want some time to tend to their mental health, make your best effort to give them the time they need and avoid asking invasive questions or flooding their inbox with requests while they’re out. 5. Have candid conversations As long as people continue to keep their lips zipped about the importance of mental health, there will always be a stigma around it. So, one of the best ways to get your team more comfortable with talking about their mental state is to model that behavior. This will require that you and any other company leaders get vulnerable and open up about some of your own struggles and emotions. However, it’ll send the message that you have an open, honest, and supportive environment where people can bring their whole, imperfect selves to work. Additionally, as a leader, don’t neglect the importance of genuinely checking in with your employees — especially about their obligations and passions outside of the office. 23% of employees say that they think it’s a problem that their managers don’t ask about their lives outside of work. Mental health promotion strategies you can do remotely Maintaining positive mental health on your team is always a challenge, but it becomes extra tough when you’re all working remotely. You lose some connection and a sense of togetherness, which makes this sensitive topic trickier to address. The good news is that all of the strategies we outlined above can be used with a remote team. In addition to those, here are a few other things to keep in mind: Check in with employees frequently: When you aren’t co-located, it’s harder to pick up on emotions and nonverbal cues. Make sure you’re checking in with employees one-on-one more frequently than you would in a traditional office environment. Practice and model good boundaries: Work-life balance is a key part of positive mental health at work, and managers should lead by example when it comes to setting boundaries. They should honor set “shutdown” times, avoid emailing late at night or on weekends, and generally show employees what it looks like to maintain adequate balance. Find creative ways to connect: The sense of isolation that comes from working remotely can exacerbate some mental health problems. From virtual happy hours or trivia contests to Slack channels where employees can share tips and resources, find creative ways to keep your work bonds strong. Don’t be afraid to ask your team if they have any ideas for things you should implement! Creating policies for mental health engagement at work Mental health is crucial, but it can also be a somewhat awkward or sensitive topic for your company to address. You don’t want to turn a blind eye or sweep things under the rug, but you also don’t want to make employees feel like they aren’t valued or noticed. A documented mental health policy is helpful for demonstrating your commitment to employee well-being, while also giving everybody a single source of truth for the steps your company takes to address mental health. At the bare minimum, your mental health policy should include: Your policy’s goals, such as removing the stigma around mental health or fostering a supportive, inclusive culture Your company’s actions, such as what steps you’re taking to prioritize mental health or how you’ll address mental health risks like overwhelming workloads or a toxic work culture Your resources, including links and information about the different programs and options that are available to employees This policy will turn out best if you treat it as a collaborative process and source opinions and feedback from fellow leaders, employees, your HR department, and even mental health professionals you can connect with. Mental health matters at work and outside of work The conversation about mental health in the workplace has been gaining more attention in recent years. That’s for good reason: mental health has a big impact on our work, and our work has a big impact on our mental health. With that in mind, the mental health of employees isn’t something that employers can write off as a personal problem or not their responsibility. Use this as your guide to promote positive mental health in the workplace so you and your entire team can benefit from a more supportive and honest work environment.
When you promote a product to a new audience, it’s obvious that you have to take that audience’s sensibilities into account. But what does that mean when your business appeals to specific demographics, cultures, and subcultures? Cross-cultural marketing requires a thoughtful approach to the context, history, and sensibilities of any given culture or subculture. In some cases, that might mean learning new words. Or you might have to learn a different “marketing language” to resonate with your audience. To achieve true cultural diversity in marketing, you have to dig deep into the history behind a different culture, learn what makes it tick, and ultimately align your marketing materials with that new language. What is cultural marketing? Cultural marketing is any business endeavor to promote a product or service to a particular demographic. This includes overseas and international cultures but can also refer to minority cultures in your own country. To resonate with a demographic, the marketing campaign has to consider the tradition, language, religious upbringing, and history of that culture. For example, travel companies target specific cultures to resonate with why their customers travel for the holidays. It requires a global marketing perspective that embraces traditions across the world. Consider when Expedia once shared an employee roundup on their social media platforms. They asked employees how they celebrate the Lunar New Year — a bigger event in cultures with Hindu and Buddhist influences. The campaign looked at traditional Lunar New Year dishes and travel plans centered around February 1st, not the January 1st new year, as is traditional in western countries. Cultural marketing touches on two of the four Ps of marketing: promotion and place. Promotion identifies the cultural touchpoints to align your campaign to the appropriate demographics. After all, you wouldn’t advertise your Christmas trees during a Hanukkah television event. Place means finding where your target demographic spends their time, either offline or online, to prevent wasted advertising dollars. Why is culture in marketing important? Integrating cultural knowledge into your marketing efforts is key because you need to engage people in the appropriate context. Otherwise, your message may not resonate the way you hoped. Think of multicultural marketing as learning to speak a new language. But rather than conjugating verbs, you’re picking up on the social cues and habits that define different demographic influences. Anyone in international business knows that what may be acceptable in one culture turns into a faux pas in another. For example, when the Australian TV anchor Karl Stefanovic attempted a joke with the Dalai Lama (“the Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop and says, ‘make me one with everything’”), the joke didn’t translate. Said Stefanovich: “He didn’t know what pizza was.” When marketing to your native culture, it’s easy to take cultural assumptions for granted. You have the same baseline experiences, the same influences, and speak the same cultural languages. Effective multicultural marketing strategy requires humbling yourself and your team as you learn to move across boundaries. Great cross-cultural marketing examples 1. 100% Pure New Zealand To drive visits to their native country, Tourism New Zealand had to accomplish two things. First, they had to reach across cultural boundaries to show the appeal of New Zealand to an international audience. Second, they had to incorporate every local culture that helps make New Zealand unique. Their “New Zealand Welcome” campaign accomplished both with a clever fusing of the two goals. They focused their subject on something any culture will resonate with — something as simple as a sunrise. Then Tourism New Zealand invited people all across the country to submit their own sunrise greetings with the hashtag #goodmorningworldnz. The result? A video highlighting the broad spectrum of cultural diversity within New Zealand — while still emphasizing the unity and beauty of a country with universal appeal. 2. Procter and Gamble: “My Black is Beautiful” Campaign Procter and Gamble’s television campaign “The Talk” included a frank look at the history of racism in the western world. But rather than paint African-American culture with an overly simplistic brush, the commercial showed a diverse range of individuals and circumstances. It revealed a deeper understanding of the reasons behind their hashtag #TalkAboutBias. The TV spot was clearly the result of a thoughtful approach to the double standards and racial biases in our society. A lesser campaign may have shied away from the frank conversations in the ad. Procter and Gamble did not. 3. Target: “Cada Momento Vale Más” Sometimes multicultural marketing requires speaking another language — but only figuratively. Target’s Cada Momento Vale Más campaign took real demographic numbers into account, realizing there are over 40 million people in the U.S. who speak Spanish at home. When Target launched its campaign, it included both Spanish and English language ads. Target even changed the music in its campaigns depending on the demographic targets. For English-language ads, the campaign featured hits by Mary J. Blige. For Spanish-language ads, they shifted to the Brazilian artist Anitta. What are the challenges of cross-cultural marketing? Based on these successful cross-cultural marketing examples, it might seem like avoiding multicultural marketing is the only mistake a business can make. Of course you should reach out to other cultures to expand your business’s boundaries and build a more inclusive marketing plan. But doing so isn’t without its risks, particularly if you go about it in the wrong way. Even well-intentioned campaigns can have unintended consequences, including: “Lost in translation” mistakes Translating from one language to another is not a challenge. But finding an effective cultural translation is another thing entirely. For example, during Coca-Cola’s initial entries into the Chinese market, its marketers looked for Chinese characters to spell out “Coca-Cola” as accurately as possible. The problem? As written, the characters actually meant “bite the wax tadpole.” It’s not enough to perform literal translation. Your company has to understand the cultural and historical context behind every campaign. Superficial mistakes To borrow an example from another cola company, Pepsi ran into a cultural blunder with its 2017 Super Bowl ad. In the ad, the gift of a Pepsi from a prominent celebrity seemed to suggest that deep-mired cultural issues could be rooted out with a nice gesture from a reality star. The commercial featured celebrity Kendall Jenner gifting a Pepsi to a police officer supervising a protest, solving the turmoil in the background. Rather than striking the right chord, the ad came across as blind to the complex realities behind the Black Lives Matter movement, which inspired many worldwide protests that year. Ignoring cultural context To borrow another example from Procter and Gamble, the company once launched an advertisement that featured a woman taking a bath. The woman’s husband entered the bathroom and gave her a massage. The ad performed well in Europe, where cultural norms generally accepted the scene. In Japan, however, audiences were confused as to why the husband would violate the wife’s privacy in such a brazen way — the ad was seen as racy, inappropriate, and in poor taste. They’d failed to take different cultural norms into account. How to use Wrike to manage a multicultural marketing campaign The question isn’t whether you should take a thoughtful, complex approach to multicultural marketing when attempting to reach a new demographic. You already know the importance of culture in marketing. The question is how you achieve a thoughtful approach. The first step is to make the marketing campaign as simple to run as possible. For example, if you reach out to different cultural experts across the world, you’ll need a singular dashboard that keeps everyone in communication with each other. Wrike’s marketing campaign management template makes it easy for a remote worker on the other side of the planet to tag a project manager whenever there’s a potential issue with your approach. The next step is to double-check your cultural research. Use Wrike’s operations management templates and build a custom request form whenever a representative of that culture needs to add their input. You should also build a diverse team of multiple voices to ensure a balanced approach to your marketing campaigns. Add team members to each layer of your project management with a custom workflow that runs every new idea by the people who need to hear it. Finally, consider the PESTLE acronym as you move ahead with a project. This acronym is an ideal way to consider the whole context of your marketing environment. Don’t launch your new campaign until you’ve considered the following: P: Political factors E: Economic factors S: Social and demographic factors T: Technological advancement factors L: Legal and regulatory factors E: Environmental factors It’s not enough to consider just one of these factors and call it a day. Effective project management is about bringing in multiple viewpoints — from experts and team members to stakeholders — and disseminating them into cohesive strategic steps. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to multicultural marketing. It requires an adaptable, unique approach for every new project. That’s where effective collaboration comes in. Try out Wrike today and discover why so many people rely on our collaborative work platform to turn large, complex projects into actionable workflows.
