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Growing economies with exploding populations are an extremely attractive concept to marketers.

Canadian Business wrote an article on ad creative Johan Vakidis’ move to China from Montreal. In China, Vakidis works at AKQA’s Shanghai office. One of the biggest projects he is undertaking now is a Nike campaign to encourage running in China.

Working in a foreign country can be an indispensable opportunity for a marketer to grow. Firstly, one needs to face the challenges associated with the cultural differences of the area: in China, running is not seen as a sport; Vakidis will need to find an appropriate way to change people’s perception on running. Secondly, in China, marketers have an opportunity to experiment: for example, in China, clients are more willing to try new things than their counterparts in North America. This allows the marketer to try out a wide range of projects and thus learn new skills. Also, marketers get to experience differences in advertising between their home country and the foreign country: in China, the mobile advertising platform is quite a difficult one; the devices and carriers aren’t very standardized and make for a tough sell.

In the end, although working in a foreign country presents one with many challenges, one is also given an opportunity to grow and gain valuable new skills.

Works Cited:

Beer, Jeff. “AKQA’s Johan Vakidis talks about digital advertising in Asia | CanadianBusiness.com.”CanadianBusiness.com. N.p., 17 Nov. 2011. Web. 18 Nov. 2011. <http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blog/sales_and_marketing/57649–a-canadian-ad-man-in-china>.