With marketing budgets under close scrutiny, global tech marketers need to ensure that marketing messages are spot on. Yet, "spot on" is not the same for all audiences across markets. While corporate marketing wants to maintain consistent brand messages and images, product marketing wants to establish crystalline product messages, and regional or field marketing organizations need campaign messages to resonate with local audiences. Central control can be seen as dictatorship — with little regard for regional differences. Yet, unbridled independence is anarchy — and a costly proposition for marketing. Successful marketers combine central coordination, regional participation and review, and executive accountability to produce a portfolio of simple, yet flexible, messages. Local marketing teams select or adapt messages to account for differences in critical business issues and buying criteria across markets.