Many product launches fail because marketers change core messaging too frequently, confusing both customers and their own sales teams. The key is consistency. Instead of constant overhauls, put creative "wrinkles" on the same core message to maintain brand clarity and impact, just as top consumer brands do.

To avoid an inconsistent, 'all over the place' approach, companies must establish a common brand-building philosophy or framework. This shared point of view, like Molson Coors's MUSCLE framework, ensures organizational alignment and helps build a cohesive marketing culture.

When launching a product globally, it's crucial to maintain a consistent brand identity. Local teams often want to add their own spin, but there are far more similarities across markets than differences. A disciplined, consistent global brand strategy is more effective.

To manage a global business across diverse markets, build a single platform with enough built-in flexibility to meet local regulatory and cultural needs. This avoids the massive overhead of redeveloping features for each market or maintaining a complex, fragmented system.

Kit Kat maintains global consistency with three strict rules (logo, shape, wafer mix) while encouraging local teams to innovate on flavors, leading to 400 varieties in Japan alone. This 'Freedom Within a Frame' model is a powerful strategy for balancing global brand identity with local relevance.

When creating partner marketing assets, avoid bespoke one-offs. Instead, build foundational tools that the partner with the fewest resources can use 'out of the box.' This ensures scalability, as more advanced partners can still adapt and customize the core components for their own needs.

When rolling out global initiatives, co-create a solution with key markets that addresses 80% of needs. Intentionally leave 20% for local markets to customize, ensuring the strategy is both consistent and flexible enough to work in diverse environments.

Instead of creating bespoke layouts for every campaign, brands should systemize their core visual structures. By keeping the layout consistent while refreshing imagery, headlines, and offers, companies can dramatically accelerate content production across all channels, reduce costs, and ensure brand and regulatory compliance.

The rapid pace of change, accelerated by AI, demands brands become more fluid. Rigid, static brand guidelines are obsolete, replaced by generative systems that can evolve with user needs and market trends while retaining a core identity.