Why Cultural Due Diligence is The Critical Foundation for Global Growth
Brands should be more careful with cultural nuances. When global brands get culture wrong it can lead to disaster..
When global giants get culture wrong, the fallout is swift and severe. In 2017 Pepsi aired an ad featuring Kendall Jenner “solving” a protest by offering a can of soda. Viewers accused the brand of commodifying the Black Lives Matter movement. Within 24 hours the ad was pulled, and brand buzz scores plunged to a near 10‑year low as millennials abandoned the brand. Analysts estimated that the controversy erased around $2 billion in brand value.
A year later, Dolce & Gabbana’s videos showing a Chinese model fumbling with chopsticks provoked nationwide outrage. Within days, Chinese celebrities terminated their contracts, e‑commerce sites took down the brand’s products and D&G’s fashion show in Shanghai was cancelled. Asia‑Pacific, which delivered about 30 % of their sales, cratered; the brand still hasn’t fully recovered.
Even Nike stumbled: a short film intended to celebrate youth resilience turned into a PR disaster in Japan because it seemed to glorify ijime (school bullying), a deeply sensitive issue. The ad was pulled and Nike was forced to reassess its local approval processes. More recently, BMW’s Mini brand faced accusations of discrimination in China after a viral video showed Western visitors being given ice cream while a Chinese attendee was refused. The hashtag #BMWmini trended with over 440 million views, and public trust plummeted.
What unites these missteps? A failure to respect local context. Brands overlooked deep cultural symbols (chopsticks), misread social movements (BLM), or mishandled local sensitivities (bullying, discrimination).
Diasporas: The Untapped Growth Engine for Luxury and Premium Brands in 2025
Data Snapshot: Luxury’s Diaspora Opportunity
Chinese Diaspora (2025): ~72M residents globally (when accounting for 4th generations), driving demand from LA to Accra to Melbourne.
Indian Diaspora: The largest diaspora in the world (~18M globally), with rising economic influence from Silicon Valley to the Caribbean.
Diaspora Spend: In some cases, diaspora consumers spend 20–30% more on premium/luxury than their domestic counterparts because of hybrid status-driven and cultural signaling needs.
Luxury’s Growth Engine is Stalling
After a post-Covid boom, the global luxury market is hitting the brakes. Bain & Co. reports that luxury spending slowed to single-digit growth in 2024, with LVMH and Kering posting their weakest quarters since 2020. Chanel flagged “fragile demand in Europe” and “slower recovery in Asia.” In short: the easy gains are gone.
But here’s the twist: luxury isn’t shrinking—it’s shifting. Growth is no longer driven solely by established UHNW hubs like Paris, Shanghai, or New York. The new power brokers? Diaspora communities.
The Diaspora Advantage
According to our 2025 China Overseas Report, there are 72 million overseas Chinese residents, projected to reach 80 million by 2030. They hold spending power higher than outbound Chinese tourists and maintain cultural behaviors that influence both local and mainland Chinese markets.
This is a lesson for all brands: diaspora markets aren’t side plays. They are the growth engine.
Why?
Diasporas maintain strong cultural identity while adopting local consumer habits—making them dual-influencers.
They’re digitally savvy and over-index on social commerce, KOL/creator trust, and cross-border ecommerce.
They often become trendsetters for domestic markets back home (example: overseas Chinese live-streaming behaviors shaped adoption in China).
If you’re not building GTM strategies with diasporas in mind, you’re capping your growth potential.
👉 At Empowered Growth Marketing, we don’t do cookie-cutter globalization. We build diaspora-first GTM strategies that scale. Let’s talk about where your next market should be. - Book your Cultural Diagnostic