There’s nothing like working with Englishmen on a project for German clients in a German market to show you that there are things that are funny in some places that just aren’t funny elsewhere.

So when launching Google Assistant across Europe, we hired creatives from each of our key markets. And when those teams said that something was funny, that it played off of a situation that everyone in their country experiences or that it touched upon a conversation that was currently on the lips of everyone at the local café, pub or biergarten, you have no choice but to defer to their superior knowledge. And this is to say nothing of working with creative teams who work in markets where they speak languages that you don’t understand.

In both cases, you have no choice but to trust your teams. You’re there to push them, to get them to articulate why it works and then encourage them to make that aspect of the idea the sharpest they can make it. To help them to help themselves - NOT to do the work yourself. And while you are forced to do it this way when you’re working outside of your home market, this way of working applies to all creative direction, even when it’s in your own language.

So maybe all CD’s should have to work in a market that’s not their own for at least one project. Because working abroad forces you to trust your creatives. Something many CD’s would do well to learn.