The what, why, when, and how of Cultural Intelligence in localization

Every global brand shares the same ambition: faster growth, loyal customers, and a brand that customers feel really connected to.

But even the most carefully translated campaigns can backfire when culture gets overlooked. What seems harmless in one culture can quickly create confusion or spark backlash in another, turning a strong market opportunity into a huge misfire.

That’s why cultural intelligence matters. But even savvy global brands can struggle with developing it and applying it.

In our latest webinar, we explored how cultural intelligence helps brands avoid costly mistakes, strengthen customer relationships, and promote growth worldwide. Our expert panelists included:

Kate Edwards, culturalization strategist and former Microsoft geopolitical advisor
Carol Velandia, language access and inclusion consultant, and founder of Equal Access Language Services
Sarah Doyle, Business Development Director at Acclaro

Read on for key takeaways from the webinar and actionable steps to help you integrate them into your business.

What cultural intelligence really means

Translation transfers the meaning of words from one language to another. It’s an important step in offering your products and services globally, but translation alone isn’t enough to help you build a global brand.

That’s because language is only one piece of the puzzle when you want to enter a new market. Culture is equally important, so you need cultural intelligence.

“Cultural intelligence is essentially this ability to understand and adapt and effectively respect cultural differences, when we’re creating our products or services or the experiences,” said Kate Edwards.

Carol Velandia added that cultural intelligence is also about relevance. “How can I be relevant to the population that I want to serve? Identifying that why is part of cultural intelligence… what is the problem that you want to solve, and who are the people that you want to help?”

Culturally intelligent people understand how people communicate, what they value, and how they expect to be treated. When applied to a brand, it’s about understanding how a buyer in a specific market behaves, believes, and buys. The next step is applying that knowledge to adapt your product and content for that new market.

The result? Your brand may be American, but it feels local to the Chinese market, and natural to the Mexican one too. It’s about building a welcoming brand for customers from different cultures, so your business is welcomed into more markets.

Exploring cultural differences

Any global brand can run into trouble if they overlook how culture shapes customer experience. Consider a few examples:

Formality and hierarchy. In markets where titles and status carry weight, casual taglines or first-name greetings may come across as overly familiar or even impolite.
Family and community. Campaigns that emphasize individual choice may resonate in the U.S., but in cultures where decisions are made collectively, showing family or community in your imagery may be more effective.
Religion and symbolism. Colors or icons that seem decorative in one country may carry religious or symbolic meaning in another. This can impact how people from that culture perceive everything from your product design to your ad visuals.
Gestures and nonverbal communication. As Kate explained, “I’ve worked on dancing games where I’m looking at gestures and body language to see if those gestures and body language are going to be sensitive in different markets.” The same concerns could surface in elearning, marketing, or any sort of video content.

Cultural intelligence means anticipating those sensitivities before they cause problems and acting accordingly.

The business case for cultural intelligence

Cultural intelligence isn’t just a marketing ploy. It’s both a safeguard against costly mistakes and risk and a driver of long-term growth. Companies that treat it as optional often find themselves reacting to cultural mistakes instead of focusing on expansion.

And the stakes are higher than ever because global products now launch instantly, reach millions of people overnight, and face scrutiny in ways they didn’t before. Issues with cultural misalignment escalate quickly, with major business and even legal consequences.

For example, Kate shared a story from her time at Microsoft: The company released a product map in the Turkish market that included Kurdistan. This seemed like a small design choice at headquarters, but since the existence of Kurdistan was disputed by the Turkish government, it quickly turned into an international issue. The local general manager was jailed over it. Kate said, “We had to remove it from the map or he wasn’t coming out.”

And the risks aren’t limited to geopolitics. Overlooking culture can lead to:

Miscommunication and offense: Slogans, images, or phrases may land badly or even insult. One often-cited example: Pepsi’s slogan in China, which translated as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave” instead of “Pepsi brings you back to life.”
Lost engagement: Content that feels “off” reduces user trust and conversion. Your content needs to feel like it’s specifically for your target demographic.
Regulatory and social pitfalls: What works at home can clash with local laws or taboos, creating compliance issues or PR crises.
Missed opportunities: Cultural understanding reveals what really motivates customers in a market. Without it, you may overlook the drivers that fuel purchase and loyalty.

When companies only address culture after a problem surfaces, they fall into what Kate Edwards calls “reactive culturalization.” By then, the damage—whether legal or reputational—has already been done. Better to be proactive, by knowing the culture of your target market and adapting your content and product accordingly.

The advantages of cultural intelligence

When companies take culture seriously and address it proactively, they gain:

A path to growth. Kate Edwards describes her work in this way: “I maximize your global reach. The more we can make your content both linguistically and culturally compatible with as many markets as possible, the more you maximize where your content’s going to go, and of course, you maximize your revenue, because you’re opening more and more markets.” When you include more local voices (users, local experts, in-market teams) from the start, you create a huge advantage in global markets.
Customer loyalty. When businesses show people they’re understood and valued, they inspire trust instead of indifference or, worse, backlash. Customers who feel understood and seen are more likely to stay engaged, recommend your brand, and return over time.
Deep market insight. Cultural intelligence reveals what truly motivates buyers in each market. Without it, campaigns and products risk coming across as copy-paste jobs—technically correct but disconnected from the people they’re meant to reach. With it, brands can build customer relationships that feel intentional and authentic. Market insight can affect not just how and where you market your product, but how you build it in the first place.

What cultural intelligence looks like in practice

The value of cultural intelligence comes from weaving it into every stage of your global workflows, from planning to creation to launch.

Think of it as a progression. Start small with easy wins, then build toward more advanced practices as your program matures.

Start here

Develop cultural guidelines

Go beyond terminology and style to include local buying preferences, behaviors, and cultural do’s and don’ts. Most brands already have a style guide for their home market, but global teams need versions adapted for each culture. A senior bilingual linguist or cultural expert can localize your existing guide, adding details on tone, imagery, and customer expectations. Done well, these cultural style guides give in-market teams a clear framework to create content that feels authentic, not imported.

Bring in local experts

Native speakers and in-market experts see context no outsider can. As Kate explained, “There is no other way to do it. You have to bring in the local cultural expertise [and] the linguistic expertise to do this right.”

When choosing linguists, they should be bilingual, in-country experts. This way, they stay aligned with the culture you are localizing for, not just the language. If your team is big enough to have language leads, then this person will be your local expert who can advise on cultural differences that you need to consider.

Sarah Doyle noted that another place to start is your own customers: open a dialogue (like, with a survey) and use their feedback as a guide.

Build from there

Consider transcreation

Sometimes translation isn’t enough. Marketing campaigns in particular may need creative adaptation to reflect local humor, values, or emotion. With transcreation, the original campaign is recreated for the new market, using the original campaign as a reference. It’s less translation and more creative copywriting.

Test locally with users

Don’t wait for a public launch to discover problems. Run content and products by real users in your target markets—formal UX testing–before launch to save yourself from expensive or embarrassing mistakes.

Train your teams

Marketers, designers, and product managers all play a role in cultural intelligence. Helping them recognize cultural nuance and how to apply it in their work makes it easier to build culturally resonant content and experiences at scale.

Prioritize where cultural adaptation matters the most

Not all content has deep cultural nuance, so it’s important to prioritize. For example, user or service manuals really don’t have cultural elements to consider. However, video subtitling and voice-over translation, websites, product UI, and campaign emails and visuals require accurate cultural representation.

Measure impact

Tie your application of cultural intelligence in your localization process into your KPIs, by measuring things like customer satisfaction, conversion rates, error reduction, and market penetration.

By layering these steps, companies can move from basic translation to creating experiences that feel native and intentional in every market they enter.

How to get started

Building a culturally intelligent localization program isn’t an overnight transformation. It’s a practice you can begin now and grow over time. What’s important is that understanding cultural differences and adapting your product and content accordingly quickly pays off in stronger connections and fewer risks.

That’s where the right partner can help. At Acclaro, we work with global brands to make cultural intelligence part of every program, from translation and transcreation to training and testing. The result is a program that scales efficiently while helping your brand feel at home in every market.

If you’d like to hear more from Kate Edwards, Carol Velandia, and Sarah Doyle, you can watch the full conversation on demand here.