By David Watson,
Principal,
Campaign Team

The UK's sense of itself has often been summed up by the headline from a 1940s British national newspaper: "FOG IN CHANNEL – CONTINENT CUT OFF."

But this was self-importance, not isolation. Ever since we worked out how to build ships we've been all over the place, exploring, trading and generally making trouble – or as we say now, networking. But while the glory days of Empire are over, there's a legacy:

• We're the fourth largest economy on Earth and we're well-connected more or less everywhere – so we generally know what's going on in the world, and we often have a piece of it. If you want to irritate us, assume our impact matches our geographical size.
• We're several countries and it's important to get these right from the outset. The UK is "the United Kingdom of Great Britain (i.e. England, Wales and Scotland) and Northern Ireland". Each is distinct and there are rivalries. Deal with them individually if you possibly can – don't expect a Scot to come to London to meet you – Scotland's a big market, so cross Hadrian's Wall. Learning a dozen words in Welsh will make you almost unique as a foreigner – but only a fifth of people living in Wales speak, read and write the language.
• English, however, is the world's lingua franca, and although Churchill talked of two nations divided by a common language, he was wrong. It's not about how we pronounce "tomatoes" (i.e. correctly), it's whether or not you can spot such British foibles as understatement and irony. If your potential customer says your product is "not bad" that probably means "wow". If a journalist asks you how long you've been the world's leading expert in your field (and you're not), that's irony, and things are getting dangerous.
• Don't assume we've gone metric. And don't assume that we haven't either. While it's illegal to sell fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces our road signs are in miles not kilometers. Be prepared for both imperial and metric systems – and remember that our gallons are a fifth larger than yours. Nothing is simple.
• In "1984" George Orwell called England "Airstrip One" to reflect the way he thought the "special relationship" was going, but things have changed. The British are the biggest investors in the U.S. by far and that's the reason you're so high up our news agenda – it's nothing to do with awe. So take the trouble to build relationships with us before you try to make a sale or fix a media tour. Our journalists react badly to the news that an American CEO they've never heard of will be available at Heathrow for interview.

With over 3,000 PR firms in the UK, including all the world's biggest, the battle for media attention is intense and sometimes bloody. Have your PR people brief the relevant journalists over time; in particular have them brief you in depth about any you're going to meet (what have they been writing about? what axes do they have to grind? why did they ignore your main competitor? do they do lunch?); make sure you're up to speed on the media's current obsessions before you travel (listen to the radio program that sets the news agenda at www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today and take out a subscription to Private Eye www.private-eye.co.uk).

And don't get so concerned by all this that you look the wrong way crossing the road at the airport. Driving on the left might seem like niche behavior, but over 70 countries do it, including Indonesia, India, Australia and Japan. Some of that's legacy too.