Every ambitious brand gets to a point sooner or later, wondering whether they can take the trust they’ve built here and use it to win somewhere new.
The answer is yes, but only if the brand has done the hard thinking before the shiny launch plan starts doing the rounds.
Why leveraging equity makes sense
If you’ve spent years getting people to know your name and trust what sits behind it, you’ve already got something pretty useful in your back pocket when you decide to venture somewhere new.
Because, shockingly, people quite like buying from brands they’ve heard of. That bit of familiarity can make the introduction a whole lot easier and give you some lovely brand brownie points before you’ve even got properly acquainted.
Tempting to pack up all that lovely equity and assume it’ll work its magic wherever you take it, then? Of course it is. Sadly, brands don’t always get that lucky.
There’s a catch
Obviously, it would be very convenient if you could pop all that hard-earned brand equity in your suitcase and take it wherever you fancied. Sadly, the people waiting at the other end still need to want what you’re selling.
That’s where brands can come unstuck. A brilliant reputation in one market can make a move feel like a dead cert, even when the audience somewhere else has very different needs. And finding that out after you’ve launched is a spectacularly pricey bit of market research.
What it looks like when it works: Chase in the UK
Imagine launching a new bank and having JPMorgan as your parent company. You’re probably feeling pretty smug about your chances.
And to be fair, Chase had good reason to. JPMorgan already had more than 160 years of history in the UK along with an impressive global presence, so when Chase started asking people to trust it with their money, there was a whopping great reputation sitting behind the name. This is certainly pretty handy when it comes to banking, where giving your life savings to someone you’ve never heard of tends to be frowned upon.
They gave it time too, with $1bn+ in planned losses built into the expansion. Then Chase put a very easy-to-understand offer in front of people, which was 1% cashback on eligible debit card spending and 5% on round-ups.
Fast forward to mid-2026 and 3 million UK customers had signed up, after Chase hit 500,000 at the end of its first year.
All of that history meant Chase didn’t have to spend years convincing people it was a safe pair of hands before it could start winning them over. Which, in banking, is a pretty enviable shortcut.
What it looks like when it doesn’t: Walmart in Germany
And then you’ve got Walmart.
When the American retail giant arrived in Germany, it brought a massive reputation with it. Walmart had made its name through efficiency and low prices, which sounds like a cracking proposition until you look at the market it was walking into.
German shoppers already had Aldi and Lidl. Both were established discount retailers with years of local trust behind them, so Walmart was arriving with a promise that wasn’t giving people much they couldn’t already get from brands they knew. And instead of adapting its offer around how German shoppers bought and what they valued, Walmart brought too much of the American superstore model with it.
Things got awkward behind the scenes too. Parts of Walmart’s workplace culture didn’t sit comfortably with local expectations, adding another sign that the business hadn’t spent enough time understanding the place it was moving into.
Eventually, Germany handed Walmart a rather expensive reality check. It pulled out with more than $1bn in losses, having reached a peak market share of just 1.5%. Being a huge name can get you through the door, but it won’t make people want something they’ve already got, especially when you haven’t done enough to adapt to how they do things there.
What separates the two
So how do you end up with a Chase instead of a billion-dollar Walmart-shaped headache? It’s easier than you think, actually. In fact, you simply do your homework before you start packing your bags.
Ask yourself this: is there even a need for what you’re offering there? What needs a local tweak? Can you deliver the experience people are expecting? And can the business give the move enough time to settle in before someone starts panicking about the numbers?
Because as we’ve seen, getting overexcited about your own reputation can get very expensive, very quickly.
Take McDonald’s, it’s been getting this right for years. In India, its menus account for local dietary preferences, while France got the McBaguette. Germany even got beer, which we’re quite jealous of. Even the name gets involved. China has a phonetic version, while Australia loves calling it Macca’s so much that McDonald’s eventually put it on the actual signage.
McDonald’s knows what people recognise and trust about the brand, but it also knows that familiarity only gets you so far. There’s still plenty of McDonald’s in every McDonald’s. They’ve just worked out that taking a global brand somewhere new means giving the local market enough room to make it theirs.
The playbook. Because there is always a playbook.
1. Move one variable at a time
New market or new offer. Doing both is possible, of course, but you are making life significantly harder for yourself. And why would you do that?
2. Check the need travels
Make sure people want what you’re bringing over before you get too carried away with how much they already know your name. If the problem doesn’t exist there, your reputation isn’t going to magic one up.
3. Know where you can flex.
There’ll be parts of the brand that need to change to work locally, and that’s absolutely fine. The part people trust you for is where you need to be far more protective.
4. Fund the patience
It’s all very exciting getting the brand out there, but people still need time to get to know you and build loyalty. Make sure you’ve budgeted for that bit too, as trust takes time (and money, naturally).
5. Make sure the business can back it up.
Your reputation might be enough to get someone through the door for the first time, but if they have a rubbish experience once they’re there, all that hard-earned equity won’t save you from them never coming back.
Your inside has to match your outside
There’s a whole bunch of people inside the business who need to come on this brand adventure with you too.
Because your customers might see one brand, but there are plenty of people behind the scenes responsible for making sure it stays that way. And when you start crossing borders, there’s even more opportunity for things to get lost in translation. Quite literally, sometimes.
You want the brand to still feel like your brand wherever it lands, while leaving enough room for local culture to make itself known. That takes more than swapping English for French and calling it a day. Transcreation is where the work gets interesting. It gives you the freedom to make the brand feel right for the people you’re talking to, without losing the reason they should care about you in the first place.
The same goes for how you bring your own people along. Give them guidance they’ll use and somewhere to speak up when something isn’t working – and make sure to celebrate the people getting it right! And, as Sabrina Carpenter once sang, please, please, please don’t send one launch email and assume everyone’s now fully briiiiiiiiefed. May have paraphrased that slightly…
Anyway, your brand has a much better chance of feeling right around the world when the people behind it know exactly what they’re bringing to the party. If everyone is confused on the inside, it’s probably going to go down just as badly with the customers too.
The bottom line
So, is brand equity your golden ticket into a new market? Nope. Very handy to have, though.
It can get people to pay attention and make that first introduction a whole lot easier, but after that, the new market still needs a reason to want you there, and all the reputation in the world won’t excuse you from getting to know the place before you move in.
Thinking of taking your brand somewhere new? Sounds exciting! Now let’s make sure it lands properly.
Get in touch with OWB and let’s talk it through.
