Your audience, wherever they are in the world, wants to feel understood - not edited into a global narrative with a standard voiceover and forced subtitles.

This article explores how we tackled that exact challenge for Cox Automotive, a global car sales and services group. We produced a video series that told real employee stories across six countries, without losing cultural relevance or personal nuance.

Here’s what we learned.

The challenge: tell global stories that feel personal, not generic.

Cox Automotive asked us to help them create a series of employee stories. These would be used for recruitment, internal culture, and brand visibility.

The brief was to capture eight unique stories from employees in six global locations.

With just 2.5 days’ filming time per location, the job was to keep the messaging consistent. That meant one thing: understanding each story well before we started filming.

The solution: lead with research, not assumptions.

Before stepping on a plane, we spent time talking to each subject over Skype. We didn’t start with cameras - we started with curiosity.

Each conversation helped us learn about the employee’s story, understand cultural priorities (career, family, work-life balance), prepare a draft script in their own words and identify key phrases and ideas to reuse as voiceover.

The calls were recorded, transcribed, and shaped into a story that we’d build around on location. That way, the final video wasn’t an awkward or overly formal interview - it was their story, in their voice.

Why this works.

Most global business videos fall short for three simple reasons:

1. They're written centrally – often by head office teams unfamiliar with the local culture.

2. They use a one-size-fits-all script – and try to make it sound personal through subtitles or voiceover.

3. They rely on unprepared employees – who feel uncomfortable or unqualified to perform on camera.

Here’s what we did differently…

1. We led with pre-production, not post-production

Before we arrived, we sent out a research doc asking what mattered most to each employee. Across locations - from Bangalore to São Paulo - two main themes kept coming up: career development and family.

We used these as the story anchor points and sent interview questions in English ahead of time so participants could prepare.

This matters because no one was caught off-guard, we avoided miscommunication, we used authentic real words and phrasing, making the result feel fluent and familiar.

2. We worked with local support, not just our own team

We had only 2.5 days in each location. To make that work, we needed speed without cutting corners. We brought in a local fixer to handle translation, transport, and logistics and a local camera operator, who understood the setting and style expectations

That freed up our team to focus on storytelling - not chasing down lunch or moving lights.

3. We avoided putting people on the spot

Many of the employees didn’t speak English as their first language. Some had never spoken on camera before.

So instead of long interviews, we gave them short, written scripts based on their Skype call, recorded voiceovers and pieces to camera in short bursts before editing it all into a concise, compelling 2-minute video.

The result: no subtitles, no dubbing, no awkward performances.  Just real people, telling real stories.

What this means for your business.

If you’re a business leader commissioning global content, here’s what to think about before you hit record:

• Don’t rely on a generic script. Learn what matters to your team in each region.

• Prep your subjects properly. Give them time to reflect, and a structure to follow.

• Work with local crews when you can. It reduces friction and boosts quality.

• Focus on how people feel. If they’re uncomfortable, the video won’t land.

And most importantly - do your research before the shoot. The camera only tells part of the story. It’s the work you do beforehand that makes it all come together.

See this approach in action.

This article focuses on the thinking behind global storytelling — but if you’d like to see how this approach played out in practice, you can explore our full case study on the Cox Automotive employee story series, including the filming approach, locations and final outputs.