Global Dreams, Local Realities: How to Begin Expanding Abroad

From Ferrari to TikTok, what every leader should know about origins, distribution, regulation, and culture before crossing borders.

A fundamental question that every company faces when aspiring to go global is whether to start in a home market and expand outward or to design a global expansion strategy from the outset. If you’re a C-level executive at a multinational corporation or a startup founder preparing to launch a new product with worldwide potential, you’ve likely grappled with this dilemma.

Do you focus on building credibility and refining your brand in one market before scaling, or do you craft a universal brand from day one, ready to enter multiple regions simultaneously? The answer isn’t one-size-fits-all, it depends on the nature of your product, your resources, and your long-term vision.

Companies like Netflix, Spotify, TikTok, and Airbnb were born to cross borders from the start. By contrast, brands such as Ferrari, Starbucks, and L’Oréal won the home game first, then exported success abroad.

So, what are the key factors to consider when deciding to expand abroad?

The Role of Country of Origin in Brand Identity

The decision to start from your home market before going global is often influenced by how your country is perceived internationally. “Made in Italy” carries a powerful halo in food, fashion, and design, “Made in Germany” signals precision and engineering excellence, “Made in France” evokes luxury and refinement. These associations can give a brand instant credibility, or, in some cases, make it harder to win trust if the country carries less positive perceptions in that category.

Take Chinese brands as an example. In Africa, “Made in China” often signals innovation, accessibility, and good value. In parts of Europe, however, it is still linked with cheapness or counterfeiting, making it harder for premium Chinese products to position themselves.

That’s why companies must tread carefully: sometimes it’s smarter to whisper your origins than to shout them. Starbucks understood this when it opened in Milan. The brand knew Italy didn’t need to be “taught” coffee. So it designed its flagship Roastery as a respectful tribute: marble floors made of the same stone as the Duomo, gates inspired by local craftsmanship, and a partnership with Princi bakery (one of the most well-known in the city). The message was subtle: we honour your tradition while offering our interpretation.

So,If your home market carries strong positive associations that can add equity to your brand, it may be wise to build credibility there first and then expand abroad, leveraging that reputation as part of your global expansion strategy. But if your country of origin could create doubt, or if it adds little to the brand story, you might consider detaching from a national identity and shaping a more universal positioning, one that can go global from day one.

The route to market

Country of origin is only one piece of the globalisation puzzle. Just as critical is your route to market, how your product actually reaches consumers.

Some categories can go global almost instantly because they are easy to sell directly online, whether through a brand’s own e-commerce site, international platforms like Amazon or Yoox, or local marketplaces such as eMag in Romania or Allegro in Poland.

Digital distribution lowers barriers and allows even young brands to reach new countries almost overnight, but it must be integrated into a carefully designed global expansion strategy. Scaling becomes slower and more complex, and in those cases it is often wiser to grow step by step, focusing on one country at a time to build credibility and operational strength before moving on.

This distinction is especially striking in the pharmaceutical sector. A company selling vitamins or food supplements can realistically think globally from day one, since these products are relatively simple to ship, widely accepted on e-commerce platforms

By contrast, prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines follow a very different path. In this case there is a stronger regulation which influences also channel distributions (i.e. in Germany it’s possible sell prescription drugs on line, while not allowed in lot of European Countries). Consequently, wholesalers and pharmacies still fragment distribution in several markets, and companies depend on them. Without large teams, deep budgets, and strong local networks, trying to expand into many countries at once is risky because execution in store can be a challenge, compromising the brand strategy. For these products, a gradual, step-by-step approach isn’t just sensible: it’s essential.

The Impact of Local Regulations on Global Expansion Strategy

Local regulations are a crucial dimension to consider for your global expansion strategy, even in defining the category itself In pharmaceuticals, this difference is stark. A vitamin supplement may be classified as a food product in one country,sold freely online and benefits can be communicated without strong regulation in USA, while in another part of the world it might be considered a medicinal product requiring regulatory approval or even a doctor’s prescription. For example, melatonin is widely available over-the-counter in the United States, but in many European countries it is classified as a prescription drug. Similarly, certain cough syrups that contain codeine are sold freely in some markets but banned entirely in others due to concerns about misuse.

This issue is not unique to pharma. In the food and beverage sector, energy drinks like Red Bull faced years of regulatory battles in countries such as France and Denmark, where high caffeine content led to restrictions. Alcohol brands encounter varying minimum-age laws, advertising limitations, and labeling requirements depending on the market. Even tech firms face regulatory hurdles: ride-hailing apps such as Uber were able to scale quickly in some countries but were blocked or severely restricted in others because of local transportation and labour laws.

The lesson is that regulation shapes not only the speed of expansion but also the strategy of entry. Companies must adapt their product formulations, marketing messages, and even brand names to align with local rules. What works in one country cannot simply be transplanted into another without careful navigation of the legal landscape.

Adapting Global Expansion Strategy to Cultural Differences

Perhaps the most important -and most underestimated- dimension of going global is culture. It is the easiest to name, but the hardest to master. Everyone knows cultural differences matter, yet few companies truly understand how to act on them.

Undestand the why 

The challenge is that most of the standard tools—Nielsen reports, IRI panels, or sales trackers—tell you what people buy, but not why. Numbers describe consumption, but they rarely capture the deeper cultural codes behind it. To uncover those, you need to get closer to people’s daily lives: home visits, shop-alongs, ethnographic studies, usage-and-attitude (U&A) research, demand centric methodologies which allow to really understand the potential of a market by starting from customer demand. In this way the market is segmented by reasons why people buy, not only by product categories maybe showing new “hidden market” not visible through standard market classifications. Watching how often people eat out and what they look for can reveal new opportunities to develop market for brands typically consumed at home. If we look to Ferrero, we can have several examples of new sources of growth identified for brands historically positioned only in a specific category, from spreadable cream to biscuits and ice cream.

Pharma Examples

Pharma provides vivid examples: in Italy, probiotics are integrated into everyday routines and consumed preventively, comparable to brushing one’s teeth. This makes Italy the largest probiotic market in Europe. Consumers in Germany or the UK often regard the same product as unnecessary unless they take it alongside an antibiotic, usually only during a severe illness. In those markets, doctors and pharmacists play a critical role as cultural translators, giving legitimacy to a product that consumers do not yet see as part of their lifestyle. The word “educate” feels heavy-handed, but in practice this is what happens: trusted local authority shape new habits.

Contraceptives Examples

The same cultural gap exists in other sectors. Consider Japan, where vending machines are omnipresent. This makes it easy for beverage companies to distribute new drinks directly to consumers, something unthinkable in many Western countries, where retail channels dominate. A curiosity? in Italy, vending machines are the leading channel for condom sales, thanks to a strong distribution strategy developed over the last 30 years. By contrast, this channel is almost absent in the rest of Europe, as company strategies have established peculiarities that educate consumers to buy in specific places.

On the topic of condoms, Durex’s global campaigns are another example: a bold positioning supported by local execution adapted to each country’s cultural maturity in addressing sensitive themes such as diversity and inclusion.

Local Differences

In the United States, brands market over-the-counter whitening strips and gels as part of personal beauty routines and sell them freely in supermarkets and drugstores. In Europe, by contrast, regulators tightly control whitening products with stronger concentrations and allow only dentists to provide them under supervision.

Culture ultimately decides whether consumers welcome your brand into their lives, making it perhaps the most underestimated lever in any global expansion strategy. And the only way to truly understand these nuances is to spend time with consumers in their own context, not just reading charts, but seeing how they live, shop, decide and discuss around trend topics

Conclusions

There is no secret recipe for going global. Some brands can launch everywhere at once through e-commerce or global platforms, then narrow their focus to priority markets with local partnerships. Others expand step by step, clustering countries with similar cultures, distribution models, or regulations.

What matters is not following a template, but recognising the levers that shape your category. Country of origin can be either a passport or a barrier. Route to market determines whether you can scale instantly or must grow patiently. Regulation sets the boundaries of entry. And culture ultimately decides whether consumers welcome your brand into their lives.

This is why most strategies fail not in the planning but in the execution. A campaign that shines on paper collapses when the product is hidden on shelves, poorly distributed, or disconnected from local habits. In consumer health especially, flawless execution is the difference between global ambition and global reality.

In the end, success comes not from copy-pasting but from building a global expansion strategy that balances:  keeping the purpose universal while adapting the execution to local realities. The strongest brands don’t shout one message to the world. They listen, they adapt, and they whisper in every language.

About The Authors

Adelaide Raia is a C Level executive with extensive experience across diverse markets and industries. She has held senior roles in both Italian and international companies like Luxottica, Reckitt, MSD, Bolton, Alfasigma, consistently working with category-leading brands. Her career spans healthcare, FMCG, and global consumer goods, where she has focused on brand development, consumer insights, and market growth strategies.

Matteo Rinaldi is a Senior Marketing Strategy Consultant and Co-Founder of Human Centric Group, with global experience driving double-digit growth for brands like Danone, Carlsberg, Revlon, PepsiCo, and Visa. Having worked across multiple continents, he specializes in leveraging cultural insights for impactful brand strategies. A passionate educator, Matteo teaches marketing worldwide, shaping future industry leaders. Previously, he worked with L’Oréal and Coca-Cola HBC. He is also a best-selling author in marketing.

Related Posts

The hidden treasure of Self-Generated CRM Data

Hey B2C marketer! Yes, we discuss self-generated CRM data, thus this article is a must-read for your…

From Purpose-Driven to Purpose-Washed: The Rise and Fall of Brand Integrity

In his widely acclaimed book Start With Why, Simon Sinek articulates a compelling argument: “Peopl…

What Family Companies Teach Us About Strategic Execution

This week, I was on a conference call with the European marketing heads of a large multinational cli…