Good briefing prevents most failures.
Three real projects. Each had the right tools. None had the right brief.
A Danish children’s furniture brand launched in Spain.
Scandinavian minimalism that felt cold to Spanish families. Instagram content that followed Nordic codes instead of local ones. Copy so neutrally correct it sounded like a catalogue, not a brand that understood its audience.
This could have been prevented.
A US agency launched a French e‑commerce site for an outdoor brand.
Everything checked out on paper. The site was live, the traffic was real. But nobody was buying because the brief stopped at translation and never addressed the cultural register that actually converts a French audience.
Time and money could have been better used.
A major Dutch municipality built a health-access app for recent immigrants.
Voice-recorded translations in five languages, including Arabic and Berber. The project quickly became unworkable – visible tensions between the Arabic and Berber contributors, missed deadlines, and content no one could agree on.
A single cultural briefing would have prevented this.
