Before you move

Get our working paper on expanding a Canadian brand into Europe. Written for founders and marketers who've had Europe on the list for a while, and want to start figuring out how to make the move.

Plenty of Canadian brands could be making great stuff happen in the UK and Europe. Most just haven't worked out yet what needs to change and what can stay exactly as it is.

A product can cross oceans and borders in a shipping container. What it means to the people buying it cannot.

Our Before You Head to Europe working paper is about what actually changes when a Canadian brand moves into Europe. And what should deliberately stay the same. It draws on real brands that got this right (and some that didn’t), and turns this into a framework any brand can apply to itself.

Inside:

• Six reasons a category doesn't travel the same way twice, and how to diagnose which one applies to you

• A framework for reading a market through both national data and the specific cultural community around your category

• A method for deciding what has to stay recognisably you, and what has to change

• Category-specific thinking across health, plant-based, beauty, pet and outdoor

• Reflections drawing on Hofstede, Douglas Holt, and lessons from brands like Aesop, Daiya and Arc'teryx