Anyone fancy buying a “Global Elegant Off-Road Brand”?
So you can “Enjoy Each Moment Outdoors.”
It's “Best Choice for you.”
With "Safety,for Family.”
Because “We do Crossover Right.”
Not exactly compelling, is it?
I saw a lot of this in the UAE before Christmas, where automotive brands, many of them fast growing and keen to scale, are vying hard for attention. What struck me was not just that the language felt flat and generic, but that it felt that way in a market where English is used every day by the majority of the population.
Arabic is the official language of the UAE, but around 88 per cent of the population are expatriates, so English is the real lingua franca. Which makes weak, clunkily translated English branding even more striking. If you are trying to win over a largely international audience, how you show up in English really does matter.
This is a familiar pattern with fast growing automotive brands, particularly new entrants and those expanding aggressively into export markets.
The product keeps getting better. The spec sheet looks impressive. The price point is sharp. The warranty and support packages are reassuring. On paper, everything stacks up.
Yet the way the brand talks to customers can feel like an afterthought, something bolted on at the end of the process. Taglines and messaging feel generic, often lost in literal translation. The emotional connection with local audiences, which is the foundation of any strong brand, never really gets built.
In the push to enter new markets quickly and cheaply, there is a real temptation to focus almost entirely on rational levers like price, features and finance. The softer touchpoints, the ones that answer very human questions, are pushed down the priority list.
Questions like:
– What does this brand stand for?
– How does it make me feel?
– How does it feel about me?
These are the first impressions that shape how people in a new market perceive you. They travel fast, they stick and they are very hard to reset.
In the UAE you can see this dynamic very clearly. Legacy heroes like the Nissan Patrol and Toyota Land Cruiser still dominate in many segments, because they have earned long term trust over decades.
At the same time, Chinese brands are arriving at pace and gaining traction. The product is strong, the spec lists are long, warranties are generous, roadside assistance and service packages are robust and pricing is very fair.
Take the Jetour T2 for example. It looks like a baby Land Rover Discovery, comes with serious peace of mind on paper and is clearly designed to appeal to buyers who want capability, comfort and value.
For early adopters, that is often enough. There is a segment of the market that is happy to buy on price, features and a bit of bravado. They enjoy discovering something new, they are more tolerant of perceived risk and they are less reliant on brand heritage.
But that is not where the volume lies in the long term.
Once you move into the Early Majority and Late Majority segments of the adoption curve, everything changes. This combined 68 per cent of the market is more cautious and more pragmatic. They are not just asking, “What do I get for my money” but “Can I really trust this brand with something as important as my car and my family”
They want proof, reassurance and reliability. They notice how you speak, how you show up and how consistent you are across channels and across markets. These are the people who build your long term market share, or quietly decide to stay with the familiar alternative.
This is the point where brand equity really matters, and it is very hard to build if you have treated brand as a tick box on a launch checklist rather than a long term strategic asset.
This is where positioning, consistency, relevance and localisation become vital.
Localisation is not simply translating your existing tagline or brochure into another language. It is about translating your brand, both literally and figuratively, into the language, culture and expectations of each local market.
That means:
– Understanding how your category is seen locally and what really drives choice
– Defining a clear, distinctive role for your brand in that context
– Adapting your tone of voice and storytelling so they sound natural, confident and credible in the local language
– Ensuring your retail, digital and social presence aligns with local behaviours and expectations
– Equipping local teams with tools and content that allow them to activate the brand consistently, not dilute it
Done well, localisation becomes the bridge between early success and sustained growth. It turns a compelling product at a good price into a trusted presence in local lives and communities.
For multi market and multi location brands, the challenge is to hold on to a strong, coherent central strategy while still allowing room for local nuance and relevance.
At We Are Acuity, this is exactly where we help clients. We work with ambitious brands to:
– Clarify what they stand for globally
– Translate that positioning into locally resonant messaging and creative
– Build toolkits, playbooks and processes that make it easier for markets, regions and retailers to activate confidently
– Ensure that every touchpoint, from a website line to a showroom poster, feels like it comes from the same intelligent, well considered place
Because in the end, price may open the door, but brand is what keeps you in the room. And if you want to stay in the room, especially in competitive, fast moving markets like the UAE, how you speak to people in their everyday language is not a detail, it is the difference.