Digital Connection’s mission is to connect people, businesses and cultures. But, in fact, what does this mean?
It means above all tolerance and understanding. The definition of communication is “to put in common”: experiences, knowledge, information, emotions.
However, the context in which we share a message and the receiver’s characteristics can lead to a completely different interpretation from what was our initial intention. We use symbols to communicate such as images, words, sounds, colors, gestures and even smells. These symbols can have different meanings depending on the receptor’s culture and context.
At Digital Connection, we have a team made up of people who live on 4 continents: Europe, South America, Africa, Middle East – Asia. This cultural diversity allows us to be able to create content and communication strategies aligned with brands that operate around the world.
We care about the concerns, interests, motivations of those we want to impact. For example, in the Middle East, an effective campaign must not share kisses or sexual scenes, as sharing affection in public is not even allowed. Also, the use of the color black is associated with death and negative emotions while in the European market it is associated with luxury.
We work with the Chinese community in different parts of the world, and it’s extremely interesting because the visual culture is completely different from European, American and African. Red and gold colors are the most praised and visually pleasing colors, while in Portugal we only use red in Benfica or to highlight some promotion.
A campaign with exceptional performance results in the USA can be rejected and generate terrible results in the rest of the world, mainly in the Middle East and Asia, where the culture is completely different. The key to a successful campaign is knowing the values and social rules of our target audience, and surprising them! On the positive side, creatively show solutions they identify with and create/satisfy needs in these targets.
Culture is the most important factor when it comes to communicating, as the interpretation of our message depends on it.
João C Silva – Managing Partner, Communication and Marketing Strategist.
