Chapter 1: THINK, DESIGN, and GO NATIVE
‘The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.’
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, Irish playwright and critic
LET ME TAKE YOU BACK to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The flood of new terms added to the uncertainty and confusion already caused by the virus. Remember how it felt hearing about this mysterious illness for the first time? I remember, for example, how we casually referred to it as ‘Corona’ in the early days, often humorously clinking Corona beer bottles together—a bit of irony that I’m sure presented a unique branding challenge for the company at the time!
Now, imagine that uncertainty multiplied by the challenge of language barriers.
For newly arrived migrants and multilingual communities in Australia, the way the pandemic was described in English media often didn’t align with how it was discussed overseas. Even in English, terminology around restrictions, isolation, and case definitions was confusing or inconsistent. So imagine how that complexity multiplied across languages and cultures. COVID-19 communication wasn’t just about sharing health updates; it was about helping people make sense of the message itself.
The problem was clear: without accessible, in-language, and in-culture communication, public health campaigns risked confusion, exclusion, and distrust.
LEXIGO’s mission was to bring clarity and consistency in COVID-19 communication across 63 different languages in partnership with the Australian government.
You read that right—63 languages!
This wasn’t just a matter of translation. It was about empathy, collaboration, and intention—the very principles of design thinking. To succeed, we needed every message to:
- Match official government health guidelines
- Resonate with community linguistic and cultural nuances
- Build trust during a time of fear and misinformation.
This meant working with communities, not just speaking at them. Terms were sometimes co-designed, not just translated, so the meaning was clear and the intent was trusted.
It was a massive undertaking. Picture a team of native translators, cultural experts, and community members all collaborating to find that perfect balance between accuracy and cultural sensitivity. And let me tell you, the feeling of getting it right was immensely gratifying.
The outcome? We managed to create a unified, clear understanding of COVID-19 across a multitude of languages and cultures. We built trust, eliminated fear, and brought communities together during one of the most challenging times we’ve faced as a nation.
The experience was a powerful reminder of something I’ve always believed in: effective communication goes beyond words. It’s about making connections, understanding differences, and creating a sense of belonging, regardless of language barriers.
The Three Phases of NX
This experience became a powerful reminder of what I’ve always believed: communication must be native to the audience’s lived experience.
That’s where the NX framework comes in. It builds on the audience-first perspective by delving deeper into the linguistic and cultural contexts they exist in. While traditional marketing focuses on consumer behaviour and preferences, NX emphases the Native Experience: messages crafted with empathy, tailored to cultural and linguistic nuances, and co-created with the communities they aim to serve. It’s an approach that does more than recognise the audience—it celebrates and respects their cultural and language diversity as central to the marketing process.
It guides professionals and marketers through in-language and in-culture campaign efforts to ensure they THINK, DESIGN, and GO:
- THINK: Learn, prepare, and assemble diverse teams.
- DESIGN: Shape strategy and creative outputs with trust and inclusivity.
- GO: Launch, adapt, and evolve campaigns in real time.
It’s impossible to cover every complexity in a single book, but this three-phase method is a jumping-off point that will help open perspective to create a truly Native Experience for your target audience that resonates and respects them, no matter the language or culture.
However, the phases are only the structure. The engine that makes NX work is how we involve people. That’s where co-design and co-creation come in:
- Co-design happens at the very start. It means sharing power to shape the brief, frame the problem, and set the direction with communities instead of for them. In government or non-profit contexts, that might look like facilitated workshops with campaign stakeholders, residents, service users, or advocacy groups before a campaign is even scoped.
- Co-creation continues the collaboration. It’s the process of developing, testing, and refining solutions alongside communities as you roll them out. This could mean community review panels for translated content, feedback loops during campaign pilots, or participatory evaluation methods that show whether the work truly resonates.
Together, co-design and co-creation keeps NX grounded in reality. They ensure every phase—THINK, DESIGN, and GO—is powered by lived experience, cultural intelligence, and community trust. Without them, NX risks being just another framework; with them, it becomes a living practice of inclusion.
Beyond Monocultural Communication
Gone are the days when communication and advertising were solely shaped by a company or organisation’s culture, branding strategies or the dominant culture or country associated with the brand. Today, word of mouth is a pivotal trust and sales metric, and the community member or consumer sits at the heart of communication and marketing dynamics. For public sector and non-profit teams, that means residents, service users, and stakeholders. People place a high value on the opinions within their inner circles about a brand or organisation. A disconnect does not go unnoticed, such as when a brand that champions diversity lacks cultural representation across its staff, leadership, and suppliers. Customers are quick to spot such inconsistencies and are likely to share these observations within their networks.
The challenge lies in avoiding a monocultural approach to communication, particularly when aiming to engage audiences in their native language and culture. What resonates with one segment—maybe a preference for animated, interactive media—might not hit the mark with another group that leans towards concise, analytical content.
This highlights the need for a nuanced strategy that ensures that every individual feels understood and engaged in a manner that aligns with their cultural context and communicative preferences.
Such cultural awareness of target audiences is crucial to THINK, DESIGN, and GO native. That’s why NX includes people with lived experience from the communities you aim to reach in the campaign. If your aim is to authentically reach, include, engage, and grow native audiences, who better to do that than someone who understands the culture natively?
Your aim is to approach these audiences with respect and awareness of their culture, customs, and languages. It’s about communicating in ways that resonate with them, reaching out through their preferred channels and media, formats, and languages.
The three phases of NX Marketing (each with two stages) help meet this challenge:
THINK — Be Notable: Learn, Prepare, Assemble NX Teams | Be Authentic: Research, Listen, Discover
DESIGN — Be Trusted: Strategy, Scope, Build | Be Inclusive: Create, Design, Test
GO — Be Versatile: Plan, Launch, Adapt | Be Evolving: Track, Measure, Improve
Let’s start with a summary of each of the chapters that make up the NX Marketing framework. For each chapter, I’ve also included a reflective question or prompt intended to help you measure your readiness to embrace and apply NX principles within your in-language and in-culture marketing and communication endeavours.
This book is structured to make it possible to hop from one section to another as you see fit or to progress in a linear way from start to finish. Depending on your self-assessment outcomes, you may discover that your level of preparedness propels you to leap ahead, or you might prefer to measure your growth against the benchmarks provided. How you move through this book is up to you—use the framework as a compass to orient your thinking while trusting your own instincts about where you are and what will be most useful. Whichever path you choose, this book will be a guide to enrich your understanding and refine your approach at every step of the NX journey.
For each question, score yourself from 1 to 10, 1 being low readiness and 10 being high readiness. It’s important to be honest with yourself because it’s only by acknowledging where you’re starting from that you can measure your progress.
Author’s note: As you read through this book, I encourage you to make it your own by using a pencil (or pen!) to jot down notes, highlight sections, and mark ideas that inspire you. This book is a practical tool, so interact with it and make it your own. The insights and strategies are designed to be applied and revisited, so by annotating and highlighting the material, you’ll make it easier to apply to your professional challenges. Your notes will serve as milestones on your journey of growth. Imagine looking back and seeing how much you’ve evolved—evolving being one of the key ideas of this book and the ethos at LEXIGO. This book can be a living record of your growing understanding of in-language communications. Scribble, underline, highlight, and reflect!
Part I: THINK NATIVE
Be Notable
Reflect on a recent communication or marketing campaign you conducted that was targeted at in-language audiences. To what extent did you consider including co-design partners or cultural experts?
Score: 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 — 7 — 8 — 9 — 10
Crafting a culturally resonant and considered campaign might seem like a daunting task, but it’s not impossible. This chapter maps the path to creating notable campaigns that receive praise for their positive qualities. These campaigns should be admired for their cultural sensitivity, authenticity, and deep engagement with the communities you serve. The idea is to access the untapped potential of your communication efforts. Use the diversity of thought as a catalyst for creativity, innovation, and overall success.
Notability is achieved not by imitating but by integrating the voices and insights of the audience into the heart of your campaign, ensuring that every message is a true product of the community it aims to reach. Rather than superficially adapting a mainstream campaign, this alignment is about developing original content directly from these communities, reflecting their true voice and experiences.
Achieving Notability is an essential element of successful NX Marketing. It refers to the idea that the campaign’s message resonates so powerfully with audiences because it is crafted through a genuine partnership that reflects and embodies the audience’s cultural beliefs and values.
Such campaigns are created by representative teams with the knowledge and power of native experiences. In practice, that means involving community leaders, linguists, and service users alongside creatives and analysts. They are distinguished by their ability to speak not only to the audience but also from within it.
This approach marks the start of a truly Notable journey in your NX endeavours, where the audience isn’t just a receiver of the message but an integral part of its creation.
Be Authentic
Rate your confidence in distinguishing between genuine cultural expression and stereotyping in your campaigns.
Score: 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 — 7 — 8 — 9 — 10
This stage asks how your campaign will be Authentic and accountable in its communication, delivery, and goals. For many communities and audiences, their experience is the most critical factor in how they see a brand or organisation.
When communication is authentic and native, price and product almost become irrelevant because people care more about the connection they have to the message, service, and brand.
Luxury brands, for example, create excellent customer experiences. Their wild success is evidence that their target markets see them as authentic. This authenticity, however, is communicated differently, depending on the market.
In the world of luxury commerce, China is an example of a thriving market for upscale brands in a culture where societal structures are deeply hierarchical and status significantly influences consumer behaviours. In these regions, more affluent consumers often seek an experience that mirrors their social stature when shopping at high-end establishments like Louis Vuitton, Prada, or Rolex. The expectation of an elevated, almost regal customer service experience is anticipated, with marketing campaigns meticulously designed to echo the sentiment of exclusivity and distinction.
In stark contrast, Australia’s luxury market operates under a different cultural characteristic, largely thanks to ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’—a phenomenon discouraging overt displays of superiority or pretentiousness. For the most part, consumers here frequenting luxury boutiques prioritise subtlety and equality in service. They favour a shopping experience that emphasises the product’s inherent value over a polished service, which aligns with a broader cultural preference for modesty and fair treatment across society.
This contradiction between markets serves as a globalised illustration of how deeply rooted cultural values shape consumer expectations and marketing strategies. For government or non-profit communicators, the same principle applies: the ‘service experience’—how you inform, consult, and support—must reflect local norms and expectations to feel authentic.
At a local level, consider the ramifications of cultural norms. For instance, a localised campaign in China might involve personalised outreach, exclusive events, and tailored services that reinforce the brand’s status and the consumer’s aspirational lifestyle. Meanwhile, in Australia, localised initiatives might focus on community engagement, brand authenticity, and craftsmanship stories that resonate with a preference for quality and authenticity over prestige.
Let me just mention that I’m aware that these examples are generalisations—the very thing this chapter advises you not to use. In this case, however, these broad examples are designed to help ease you into the nuanced world of cultural differences in marketing and communication. As we’re just starting to explore this topic, ask yourself whether you fit within the broad audience perspectives I’ve outlined. If not, how does that make you feel? Reflecting on this can be a useful reminder of the importance of avoiding assumptions and recognising the diverse range of experiences within any given culture.
Let’s dig even deeper and imagine the approaches required at the grassroots level, where cultural intricacies can significantly impact the efficacy of a marketing campaign. While broad strategies provide direction, countries like China or Australia are not culturally homogenous but are composed of many different subcultures and individual experiences: real success lies in the ability to adapt and apply these insights in a way that feels native to each unique cultural group.
Authenticity forms the backbone of trust. It requires teams to deliver genuine and resonant messages that are culturally adapted and rooted. Authenticity in communication fosters trust and establishes credibility. Practical signals of authenticity for public information include plain-English writing, accessible design, transparent sourcing, and fair representation across images, languages, and voices.
Design: NATIVE
Be Trusted
How well do you employ strategies to build and maintain trust with your audiences?
Score: 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 — 7 — 8 — 9 — 10
In the next chapter, we delve into an important ingredient of any lasting relationship: trust. We explore how to cultivate trust in an NX landscape and build our NX strategy through careful use of trust signals.
We’ll discuss how trust is not one-size-fits-all; it must be carefully crafted to fit the cultural and social norms of each specific market. In order to build trust into our strategy, we can use a variety of tactics, including engaging with our audiences through social media, creating personalised email campaigns, hosting events and sponsorships, launching informative podcasts, and creating compelling content marketing. We carefully select and adapt each tactic to resonate with the unique nuances of each market, ensuring that the trust we establish is deep and long-lasting. For government and non-profits, also prioritise service-oriented trust signals: privacy-aware data practices, transparent corrections, clear authorisation/brand marks, bilingual hotlines, and community ambassadors.
This stage is about laying the foundations of a strategy where trust is not an afterthought but a guiding principle at the core of every action and decision.
At this stage, we ask professionals and marketers to put themselves in their audience’s shoes. The goal is to ensure communication and engagement are genuine and curated, at least in part, by people who understand the native cultures and customs of local audiences.
Navigating the landscape of language presents a formidable challenge in cultivating trust, particularly as lexicons expand and adapt to current events. The COVID-19 pandemic serves as a prime case study in the rapid evolution of language, with terminologies emerging almost overnight to facilitate clear communication. For authorities and businesses, staying abreast of these linguistic shifts was crucial to maintaining their credibility. Build processes to monitor language drift, address misinformation, and update glossaries across all languages consistently.
Be Inclusive
Rate how well your current strategies are including native audiences in your campaign development.
Score: 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 — 7 — 8 — 9 — 10
This chapter explores the importance of inclusivity by revealing LEXIGO’s approach to co-design and co-creation—a contemporary method for creating in-language, in-culture content with audiences and communities, not just for them.
As we’ll see, inclusivity goes beyond representation; it’s about actively collaborating with communities to ensure that our NX strategies are theoretically sound, practically effective, and culturally resonant.
Co-design brings power-sharing at the start of the process—working with communities to define the problem, shape goals, and set the brief. Co-creation brings inclusivity to the forefront through delivery, fostering a sense of ownership among community members as ideas are developed, tested, and refined. It’s a transformative approach that values community intelligence, authentic representation, and innovation. It’s about creating a collaborative environment in which contributors are acknowledged and rewarded. It’s about ideation, drafting, refining, and testing creative assets through community validation—whether that’s through participatory methods and discourse analysis in academic contexts, or practical feedback loops in community campaigns.
In any form of marketing, inclusivity is a must-have. It’s a powerful tool for innovation, a catalyst for authentic engagement and a pathway to long-term loyalty. By co-creating with communities, you can ensure your marketing efforts are as diverse and dynamic as the cultures you aim to engage.
GO: NATIVE
Be Versatile
How would you rate your ability to adapt quickly to changing cultural trends and market dynamics?
Score: 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 — 7 — 8 — 9 — 10
Launching is a critical phase of any campaign—but it’s not as simple as pressing ‘Go’. For communicators in government, non-profits, or public-facing organisations, launch moments often carry extra weight: a poorly timed or tone-deaf campaign can quickly undermine trust, while a well-executed one can build credibility for years.
We need to be prepared and agile enough to deploy campaigns across different channels while measuring their outcomes in real time. Versatility means being ready to adjust mid-course—not waiting until the post-campaign review. It means monitoring audience response, community sentiment, and external conditions (like policy changes, global disruptions, or social movements) and shifting resources quickly when needed.
This chapter is about planning your NX launch and launching. It introduces a comprehensive toolkit that shows you how to use grassroots distribution and other hands-on approaches effectively. It also provides insightful strategies for selecting the best media mix, allocating resources for maximum efficiency, and establishing feedback loops through KPIs. For public institutions, this might include service uptake data or citizen engagement metrics; for corporates, conversion rates or brand lift. In both contexts, the goal is the same: create campaigns that are resilient, responsive, and relevant.
Be Evolving
Rate your success in evolving with live market’s cultural and sentiment shifts.
Score: 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 — 7 — 8 — 9 — 10
The final stage in your NX journey is the critical post-launch period of a campaign, which requires meticulous attention to long-term tracking, listening, and adaptation.
This chapter explores the continuous cycle of monitoring, analysis, and refinement—recognising that campaign success isn’t fixed at launch but is constantly shaped by shifting social, cultural, and environmental conditions. You’ll find the tools to help you interpret data as numbers and narratives, revealing how your NX performance is landing in real contexts.
We’ll look at how to gather community feedback effectively, conduct research, and redesign strategies in response to what your audiences are telling you. For public-facing organisations, this may involve service uptake data, satisfaction surveys, or multilingual call-centre queries. For corporates, it may be brand sentiment, sales lift, or audience engagement metrics. Both sectors should pair these dashboards with qualitative insights—community panels, listening sessions, and participatory evaluation—to uncover why shifts occur, not just what the data shows.
Think of a live campaign as a living entity that must be nurtured, understood, and occasionally redirected. You will learn to evolve to meet new challenges and opportunities, ensuring that your campaigns remain relevant and resonant in the marketplace—and helping to prepare you for your next NX journey.
Before we move on to the first step of the method, Notable, don’t forget to add up your scores to see where you stand on the NX readiness scale.
0–20: Beginning the Journey — You are at the early stages of your NX journey. There is considerable room for growth in understanding and applying NX principles effectively. Focus on PHASE I: THINK (CHAPTERS 2 and 3, BE NOTABLE, and BE AUTHENTIC), which will lay the groundwork for your journey ahead.
21–30: Emerging Explorer — You’ve made some inroads, but there’s more to discover. Delve into PHASE II: DESIGN (CHAPTERS 4 and 5, BE TRUSTED and BE INCLUSIVE) to build on your trust and inclusivity in NX markets.
31–40: Skilled Traveller — You have a solid foundation and are well-prepared to polish your skills. Delving deeper into CHAPTERS 4 and 5, BE TRUSTED and BE INCLUSIVE, in PHASE II: DESIGN will allow you to explore its concepts in more detail, enhancing your agility and proficiency in your approach.
41–50: Cultural Connoisseur — You show a high level of cultural intelligence and marketing savviness. To fine-tune your strategy, revisit CHAPTERS 6 and 7, BE VERSATILE and BE EVOLVING, in PHASE III: GO, which will help you maintain and evolve your cultural edge.
51–60: NX Navigator — Congratulations, you are a NX Navigator! Your scores reflect a strong capability and readiness in NX Marketing. Still, there’s always more to learn. Use the book and its online resources to deepen your knowledge and stay ahead of the curve.
