Thousands of people in Madrid have, one more year, enjoyed Cirque du Soleil’s magical spectacle, “Saltimbanque”, which will soon return to Bilbao. Once again, the largest circus company in the world has surprised and delighted us with their show and their numbers, capable of raising the circus to an art form. Beyond the irrefutable talent of its professionals, Cirque du Soleil bases its success on an accurate strategy, the envy of any company that is thinking about the internalization process. Knowing each market and each audience is one of the great success that have contributed to making Cirque du Soleil a worldwide phenomenon, applauded and recognized all over the world. How is it possible to triumph in Tokyo, Madrid, and New York with the same offer? Globalization holds no secrets for Cirque du Soleil… Or does it?

Founded in Canada almost 20 years ago, Cirque du Soleil has more than 2,400 employees, of which 500 are artists of 40 different nationalities. Among trapeze artists, tightrope walkers, and clowns, close to 25 languages are spoken. The company has been through more than 130 cities worldwide since its creation, where it has received applause from about 33 million spectators. In 2002 alone, Cirque du Soleil achieved an audience of about 7 million people. Can you imagine it? 7 million new customers in 12 months…

The Canadian company moves like a fish in water in the global village, because the company itself is global. It knows each country, each market, and each audience down to the last detail. And this isn’t by chance, but rather comes from a meticulous study of local tastes and needs. It has three fixed shows (all of them in the United States) and five shows permanently touring the world, through America, Europe, and Asia, with a constantly rotating staff. The first three have already come to Spain and, oddly enough, they haven’t come in order, since Saltimbanque is one of Cirque du Soleil’s first creations, and it is nevertheless the last one to reach Europe. Why? Perhaps because the most intelligent thing to do is seduce new spectators with more recent, eye-catching creations, so that once the spectators are “loyalized”, they will go to see the older, perhaps less impressive shows. An obtainment or loyalization strategy with the product! That’s intelligent, don’t you think?

Look at the titles of the tours: Saltimbanque, Quidam, Alegría, Dralion, Varekai… They are perfect names for exporting, pronounceable in any language, easily adaptable to the local environment. They sound Spanish in Spain, French in France, Japanese in Japan… The envy of any brand creator. Cirque du Soleil has achieved what all companies dream of, but what very few achieve: giving the same thing to each audience, without it looking the same; diversifying resources maximally in order to optimize them; obtaining millions of customers all over the planet and, even more difficult, loyalizing them at relatively high prices. The company has been able to connect to a global audience, making efforts to know their local needs. In Spain it even dropped its original name in French to become simple “Circo del Sol”!
Knowing the potential market and audience is essential for any company that wants to launch a product in its country of origin or in other destinations. There is no possibility of success without an in-depth knowledge of the territory we are going to operate in. The annals of marketing tell of one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies that years ago wanted to launch its most famous product (aspirin) in Middle Eastern countries. Aware that a large part of the population did not know how to read at that time, and that the product was entirely unknown, the great multinational opted for a simple campaign. It inundated these countries with billboards that contained a sequence of three images: a man suffering from a headache, the same man taking the pill, and finally, the same man smiling. This company forgot a significant detail: Arabs read from right to left!

The anecdote reveals how important it is to know what we are selling, to whom, and how. The essence of “customer intelligence”. Launching onto the market without having prepared the terrain is terrible risky… Not even Cirque du Soleil dares to jump without a net!