How I did it
After I was told in a European boardroom that we shouldn't try to be too creative in marketing to people in the 'dumb' countries outside of the West, I quit my job, cashed in my frequent flyer miles, exhausted my savings and went around the world...a couple of times. I wanted to see firsthand just how smart or dumb, creative or uncreative, the world might be beyond the West and Japan
I made two trips to each country: a short one of 2-3 weeks to the major cities to learn them, get ideas for the next trip, soak up the media and arts, and get advice on where to go and what to do from the people I met, then a second deep-dive of 3-6 weeks where I would go back into to main cities for interviews and events and road trips to the major second-tier cities. Here’s where:
I would have liked to get to more places, but time and money, you know.
The most useful thing I did was something I called ‘urban hiking.’ Pick a neighborhood, dress to blend in, bring an inconspicuous map and pocket camera in a local shopping bag, and walk until you can't anymore, soaking up daily life. “Not a tourist, not a journalist” was my rule. I alternated between posh, arty, studenty, slummy, working-class, downtown, suburban, and tourist zones.
I was on national television in São Paulo, saw a well-crafted drag show in Yekaterinburg, hiked up a mountain inspecting tiger dung with a former MP in Tamil Nadu, and infiltrated the Western baby adoption circuit in Chongqing and Guangzhou. Much better than focus groups.
In between trips, I holed myself up in a cottage at the end of America, in Key West, Florida, and went on a diet. Not food. Information. I declared a personal embargo on Western music (very painful), movies (quite easy), television (not so bad), and media (surprisingly mind-opening). Armed with little more than an internet connection, Amazon account, Greencine and Netflix subscriptions, I poured myself into a rotating schedule of BRIC films (about 100, plus some Western ones about the BRICs), books (50 at last count), music (up to 10GB on iTunes), and websites. Unfortunately, it was impossible to escape Paris Hilton, Virginia Tech, or the Beckhams, in any language.
I urge you to give it a try, even if just one country. The next part has themes that kept coming up among all four of the BRICs, what I like to call “the mortar between.” Then comes a section for each country. All of the 7+7 are represented across the body of work, but I couldn’t cover every subject in every country.
It’s all good, and all part of BRIC Pop.