CONTROL RISKS SCREENING LAUNCHES INTERNATIONAL VENTURE.

MAY 2007: In today's global marketplace, more and more companies like Control Risks Screening are taking their offerings to world markets. However, international advertising has always been a conundrum. How do you cross cultures and geography with the same message?

"Advertising is very much a reflection of the culture where it is born," says Tom Simmons, creative director of The Thomas Simmons Agency, which was hired to develop an advertising approach that would work in U.S. markets, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim. "What is edgy and humorous here is offensive in another culture and even illegal in some. Conversely, some European advertising is too sexually explicit to run in the United States."

Control Risks Screening, a joint venture between Control Risks and American Background, Inc., provides employee-screening solutions to companies with offices around the world. The company promises to conduct background searches in compliance with all laws of each jurisdiction, an offering that no other background screening company makes.

"At the product level, local advertising needs to be locally developed," says Simmons. "But as far as positioning and value promise are concerned, it is possible to make statements that work everywhere. It's just very tricky.

"In all of the markets where Control Risks Screening plans to offer services, we felt that art was a common language," Simmons asserts. "So we appropriated a very well-known graphic image and turned it into an ad."

The image of a man in a long coat and derby is familiar to millions of people who have seen works by Belgian artist, Rene Magritte, especially The Son of Man. In the place of an apple obscuring the man's face, the ad replaces the man's head with a globe. An umbrella above his head incorporates the Control Risks Screening logo. In the background, geographic icons, such as Big Ben, the Taj Mahal and financial towers of Kuala Lumpur, indicate global locations. The headline proclaims: Employment screening that works wherever you do.

The Thomas Simmons Agency represents clients in consumer, business-to-business and emerging technology sectors. For information, call 540-882-4418 or e-mail .

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