If I were to ask you to name the top performing fast food restaurants in the US right now, I bet you could guess based on the food you’ve ordered in the past year. I know I could guess just by reviewing my past orders in the Uber Eats app.
The rank order is as follows: Starbucks, McDonald’s, KFC, Subway, and Taco Bell. No surprise there.
But what is surprising is that the brand value between them is quite staggering. Starbucks has a brand value of $53.43 billion, McDonald’s at $36.86 billion, KFC at $17.66 billion and Subway at $7.05 billion.
McDonald’s is only two places ahead of Subway in the ranks, but their brand value is 5 times that of Subway. Why is that?
This is because of their global demand, menu innovation, and their larger geographic presence.
McDonald’s tailors its menu and marketing strategies to different regions.
Basically, McDonald’s leans into localization, and Subway does not.
For reference, here’s a side by side look at Subway and McDonald’s menu items in Hong Kong:
The Subway sandwiches we can order here in North America are the same sandwiches we can order in Hong Kong. McDonald’s however, has a whole list of items that can only be found in Hong Kong.
If you click on each image and actually visit the websites, you’ll see that McDonald’s marketing is very tailored to the Hong Kong audience, and Subway’s marketing looks the exact same as it does in North America.
Subway has almost just as many global locations as McDonald’s does, so it’s not like they don’t care about global business, and they do maintain a very strong brand image (remember they’re number 4) but they have fallen into the trap that many other businesses do, of treating their global audience the same. And they are missing out on a lot of money and deeper audience engagement because of it.
Although this is a high level example, McDonald’s highlights the importance of understanding audience attributes by location, and the importance of crafting strategies that resonate with those different locations. AKA not treating all audiences the same.
In this blog post, we aim to help you, if you’ve fallen into the same trap as Subway. Read on to learn how to leverage location based audience insights, and grow your business on a global scale.
Different global audiences have vastly different behaviors and preferences, and they are influenced by completely different people, depending on where they live in the world.
Humor is a great example of something that can differ based on where you are in the world. It is also a very common element used in ads and marketing material. It’s easy to assume what you find funny will be funny to someone else. But it's our culture that influences what we find funny or not funny, and every culture is different.
Americans, for example, are into a more “slapstick” style of comedy - it’s direct and exaggerated (think Saturday Night Live).
British humor, on the other hand, looks a lot more like dry humor or dark comedy.
Lovehoney is an online “adult store” and it's a brand that advertises in both the American and British markets. They focus on using humor in their ads but they use different types of humor for each location. Take a look:
Here’s a US ad:
And here’s a UK ad:
The first is quite safe, whereas the second pushes social boundaries because that is what audiences in the UK respond to.
Whether you are using humor in your marketing or not, you’ve got to tailor your messaging to the culture that the ad is displayed in, in order for it to be effective.
Worse than an ad not being effective would be if it were offensive. Brands must do extensive research on cultural norms or taboos, and they should know what that culture values, not just in comedy but in life.
To do this, brands need to use an audience intelligence tool like Audiense, because it makes it easy to unlock these cultural differences and preferences. We used Audiense to assess both the US based McDonald’s audience and the Hong Kong based McDonald’s audience, both look entirely different and both must be treated entirely differently. For example, look at the content that one audience finds funny and amusing vs the other:
A pattern here is that the US audience is sharing content related to the shows they find funny.
A pattern witnessed by this audience is that they share lots of animation type content.
McDonald’s would tap into these insights and tailor their ads accordingly.
Localization marketing is not easy, that’s probably why brands even as big as Subway haven’t mastered it. But it makes all the difference if you can.
Best Buy and MediaMarkt are two electronics retailers - they sell similar products like smart TVs, phones, gaming systems etc.
Best Buy in the US is worth around $46 billion dollars. Outside of the US, the company is only worth $3 million, and that is on the decline every year. They failed at successfully entering the UK and China, because they tried to apply their US model instead of using a localized marketing strategy.
They took a one-size-fits-all approach without understanding local retail habits and consumer needs, and they ended up having to close up their stores in both locations.
Then there’s MediaMarkt, who like we said is in the same business as Best Buy, but they took a localization approach when entering new markets.
They tailored their product offerings, their pricing, the in-store experience, their customer service, and their advertising to each location. They have a presence in (Germany, Italy, Spain, etc).
Unlike Best Buy, business is growing in these locations and they are seeing a revenue incline year after year.
You can see the differences in their marketing strategy for the Spain market vs the German market:
This is all to say that yes, localization does matter. As the Best Buy and MediaMarkt example demonstrates, localization or lack thereof has a direct effect on the bottom line.
Earlier we said that localization marketing is hard, but it doesn’t have to be. Using an audience intelligence platform like Audiense, any brand, like Subway or Best Buy, could quickly run a report on their followers based in any location and learn everything they needed to know about them to create a winning localization strategy.
Below we’ve run a report on the Subway audience in Hong Kong with two easy inputs:
The final result is a report that tells Subway all about the Hong Kong audience in terms of their:
Below is a video of a navigation through the Subway Hong Kong report and the tabs that summarize the insights we just talked about above.
And so much more!
Sifting through the report, Subway would learn that their audience in Hong Kong are “excitement seeking”, and their choices are driven by a desire for sophistication. Achieving success is a large part of what they do.
In terms of their personality, they fall under “High Openness” and will respond best to ads that incorporate this imagery and copy:
Culturally they prefer to see influencers from the professional world:
So people who are thought leaders in subjects like the economy, or technology make good influencers for this audience.
The Hong Kong Subway audience relates to people who are busy working or traveling, so depicting these people in the subway ads would resonate with them.
They also spend the majority of their time on Linkedin and Reddit, as compared to the other social channels, so it would be wise for Subway to spend more of their budget towards ads on these platforms.
Subway can directly apply these insights to their marketing campaigns, advertising strategies, and product launches and grow their Hong Kong audience.
Here are some other examples of what brands like Subway could use these Audiense insights for:
*This image above was taken from SOPRISM. These insights help direct the type of content you should create to attract and resonate with your target audience in that location.
*The image above was taken from Audiense and it highlights the top influencers for an audience of a particular culture or location.
*The image above is from SOPRISM and it is showing an audience's "caffeine" preferences. These insights could be used by a brand who is producing a new caffeinated beverage. The takeaway here would be that this audience likes to drink their caffeine through carbonated pops, and their second choice would be a coffee from Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks; so creating an energy drink might not appeal to this audience but creating a canned flavored coffee might.
Applying the insights to the different elements of your marketing strategy and treating each region as a distinct market is how you succeed at localization.
Banco Pichincha, one of Ecuador’s largest banks, wanted to engage local football fans through sponsorship campaigns. However, their broad targeting strategy resulted in low engagement. To address this, the bank partnered with Audiense to segment their audience more precisely, focusing on regional interests and cultural nuances within Ecuador's football fanbase.
By analyzing localized behaviors, such as support for regional teams and engagement with local football influencers, Banco Pichincha identified unique fan segments that had been previously overlooked. This allowed them to create more tailored campaigns that spoke directly to each group’s preferences, using local messaging and slang, regional football heroes, and community-specific promotions.
The results were striking - the bank saw a 10x increase in engagement by shifting from a broad to a more localized approach. By personalizing their campaigns, Banco Pichincha strengthened its connection with Ecuadorian football fans, driving higher engagement and deeper customer loyalty.
This case study demonstrates the power of localization marketing, where understanding cultural and regional differences can transform a campaign’s effectiveness.
Read the full case study here.
Leveraging location-based audience insights is crucial for developing effective strategies across the globe.
Brands that localize their marketing outperform those that take a more uniform approach. Just look at McDonald’s vs Subway, and the MediaMarkt vs Best Buy examples.
A brand like McDonald’s becomes an expert on their audience in every location, which is why they are able to make tailored menus of people's favorite food items and it’s why their ads resonate with local audiences.
You too can become an expert in any audience, in any location or culture, through the use of audience insights. A tool like Audiense allows you to understand what makes each audience unique in terms of their interests and behaviors. This ensures that your ads and products always resonate.
That’s how you grow your business across the globe.
Tap into the hidden opportunities in every market by booking a demo with Audiense today.