It was very interesting that the official Danish Tourist organisation Visit Denmark decided to promote visits to Denmark through a viral video which was meant to sweep the Internet. But what happens when that plan backfires and you don’t want the video to go viral anymore? Can you suddenly shout ‘Copyright!’? Viral marketing campaigns are often on the edge of acceptibility for many reasons and this means that sometimes the organisers will regret the campaign but is it then possible to stop it?
Initially the Visit Denmark video was uploaded to You Tube and allowed to flourish. The video allegedly featured a young Danish woman holding a nine month old baby and appealing for the man she met a year and a half ago to get in touch as he was now a father. Then it turned out that the whole video was fake and part of a marketing exercise and at that point many people in Denmark and elsewhere began to question whether this was an appropriate picture of Denmark to promote. I thought the story was so intriguing that I featured it in the latest Absolutely Intercultural show. The dilemma of course is that tourism organisations want to get away from the stereotypes of beaches and good food but how to replace the stereotypes is the challenge. In this case the link between the one night stand and wanting to visit Denmark seems a little strained.
Also featured in this show is Debbie Swallow, cross cultural consultant who specialises in tailoring your presentations to an international audience. The key to success here, it seems is a balance between emotion and facts and structure. Strangely enough it is difficult to persuade English-speaking natives of the value of cross-cultural adaptation and training but the so-called Anglo Saxon model of business presentation is the recommended approach of 4C International, Debbie Swallow’s consultancy.
So in case you were wondering, the factors leading to an effective international presentation include;
Oratory
Face
Humour
Structure
Emotion
and if you want to find out the rest then you’ll just have to listen to the podcast itself!