HIGH QUALITY, ON-BRAND, CONSISTENT ACROSS MARKETS
BACKGROUND
Maserati, the iconic Italian luxury automotive brand, has seen unprecedented growth in recent years. Sales have been increasing rapidly since 2011, with plans to double their current level by 2020.
With this continued success, Maserati undertook a global marketing reboot to strengthen its growing global presence. This included locking down brand messaging to build an improved and consistent customer experience across markets.
CHALLENGE
When we began speaking to Maserati in 2017, content creation and localization were handled at both global and local levels. Maserati’s exceptional growth was putting a strain on this model, which made achieving a consistent brand voice challenging. Maserati produced some content centrally (across multiple departments and in a variety of languages) and also locally (in multiple markets).
The challenge, as with any rapidly expanding brand, was to ensure consistently high quality across languages. To achieve excellence in terms of accuracy, grammar and style. And, of course, to make sure all copy reflected the redefined brand proposition.
The timing was right to lay down the foundations for a global-local framework that would create a clearer and more accurate brand definition across markets.
As part of Maserati’s marketing reboot, they were looking to achieve ‘clarity, consistency and coherency in our editorial content.’
Leonardo Allasia, Head of Global Brand Communications
SELECTION
‘Wordbank is a vendor that has developed significant experience in editorial content creation and we felt their proposition was compelling enough to warrant a formal engagement from corporate headquarters.’
Leonardo Allasia, Head of Global Brand Communications
SOLUTION
Our proposal was to achieve this through a single, localized tone of voice guide and glossary. These documents would then be adapted in collaboration with the local markets, earning their trust and offering ongoing accurate, consistent and on-brand localization.
With that in mind, we started by creating the documents in International English. Then, we worked with local market contacts to adapt them for the UK and US markets, and to localize them into other languages. To date, this includes Italian, French, German, Spanish, Swiss Italian, Swiss French, Swiss German, Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
From this foundation, we offered HQ and the local markets a central point of contact for their copywriting and localization requirements. Each department and market we collaborate with benefits from our dedicated Maserati account team. It works strategically with the offices to ensure efficient execution of Maserati’s ever-increasing content demands.
‘We have an incredibly proactive account team with intimate knowledge of the Maserati brand, products and expectations – for both HQ and the local markets. We meet weekly to share knowledge across the account team so we can find efficiencies, predict obstacles and address challenges immediately to ensure smooth delivery.
This, coupled with our in-market copywriters and linguists (all with a deep understanding of storytelling and passion for the Maserati brand), is a powerful proposition.’
Heather Olean, Maserati Account Director at Wordbank
To date, the scope of our work for Maserati has covered:
- Creation of master Maserati tone of voice guide and glossary, localized for Tier One markets (covering EMEA, APAC & North America).
- A Maserati style guide.
- Copywriting, localization, typesetting and design services across Print & Brand Comms, Digital, PR, CRM, Product Training, Merchandising and Aftersales.
RESULTS
‘Wordbank very quickly became familiar with the process and were very easy to work with. Progressing to MY19, the majority of learnings experienced with MY18 have been taken into account proactively. The whole team at Wordbank are very friendly and a pleasure to work with. Not only is Jonny extremely efficient in responding to requests, but also integrates his knowledge of the brand and product to benefit our business.’
Ryan Liquorish, Product Marketing & CRM Manager, Maserati GB
‘Wordbank has allowed us to clarify and develop content with a style that resonates with our brand DNA, a key attribute that contributes towards our goal of developing a global brand that communicates visually and editorially in a consistent manner across touchpoints. Finding the right tone of voice and style in one language does not necessarily imply that it can be quickly scaled to other languages. Each language must be approached to some degree independently, so we have by no means achieved all of our goals. However, we look forward to working towards these ongoing goals with Wordbank.’
Leonardo Allasia, Head of Global Brand Communications
Challenge Wordbank