Can the same piece of copy persuade consumers in every market?

Many major companies, as they have moved towards building global or regional brands, have tried to have one copy approach for all markets. Usually testing in the “lead” or major market, and if it test well there using that data to cascade it out. This is seen as a way of building consistent equity and brand. It does ignore that consumers, competitive sets and stage of brand development are likely to have differences and nuances.

The “lead” market and one copy that gets used and cascaded is something that I have been used to for well over 10 years, if not longer, in my various regional and global roles. I was used to a process where we tended to test in one market and roll out at least regionally if not globally. In most cases it seemed to work, with similar results across markets. Though in recent times I have been wondering if that is still a good approach or even right. Now that I am working on a brand that has been under massive share and sales pressure and lost a lot of ground, the thought really started to bug me.

Recently we have been testing the same ad across a number of markets, this to be honest as probably driven more by countries lack of faith and belief after 2 to 3 years of less than successful launches and copy, so there they needed more convincing. The same ad tested quite differently in 3 markets. But interestingly the main difference was not on branded impact nor communication messages but in PERSUSAION. It was clear that consumers in different markets based on different cultures, experiences of the brand and general attitudes need different emphasis to be persuaded.

I found this fascinating and very exciting. It suggests to me that you can focus on having a clear brand style, image and also consistent communication but you may need to fine tune the reason to believe or what sort of role it plays to persuade. So the French my like more ruthless focus on what is new and different, the Brits as they are more sceptical and trusting more evidence to convince them, Russians may need more aspiration , the Americans more comparisons versus the leading brands and so on.

So the magic may be in the crafting of RTB and how to persuade within umbrella and consistent ads.

Thoughts? Examples?