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17
Global Branding
John Roberts and Julien Cayla
INTRODUCTION
Global brands and other intangible assets are
increasingly important for corporations
(Srivastava, Shervani and Fahey 1998;
Luehrman 1997). The brand Coca Cola is
estimated to be worth more than sixty billion
US dollars (Interbrand 2007). Brands such as
Coke, Intel or Microsoft now represent the
majority of the market value of the compa-
nies that own these brands. Brands that span
world markets have come to stand for qual-
ity, reliability and even glamour (Steenkamp,
Batra and Alden 2003), allowing the compa-
nies that own them to extract a significant
premium from these positive perceptions.
The rise of global brands can be explained,
at least partly, by the desire of Western com-
panies to expand beyond their borders and to
do so in an efficient way. Since the second
world war, global trade has expanded more
than 14-fold (World Trade Organization
1998), fuelled in large part by the success of
multinational corporations seeking new mar-
kets. This rapid expansion has partially ful-
filled Levitt’s prophecy (1983) about the
inevitability of globalization.
However, Levitt’s thesis of a homogenized
world consuming the same brands is far from
being fulfilled. As several researchers note
(Ger and Belk 1996; Douglas and Wind
1987; Kotler 1986) major differences in the
perceptions, preferences and behavior of
consumers in different cultural contexts are
bound to greatly constrain the emergence of
homogenized consumer tastes. Marketing
scholars recognize that these differences
demand a combination of customization and
consistency dictated by context (Keller 2003;
Quelch and Hoff 1986).
Global brands are the symbols of a rapidly
globalizing world. The greater penetration of
electronic media, growth in travel, migration,
labor mobility and an altered political land-
scape facilitating greater free trade, have all
led to an increased importance for transna-
tional structures and their symbolic forms,
such as global brands. These trends are well
documented in marketing and other social
sciences (see, for example Appadurai 1996;
Hofstede, Steenkamp and Wedel 1999,
Quelch 2003, Keller 2003, Ries and Ries
2002, Yip 2003, and Holt, Quelch and Taylor
2004). Global brands are playing an increas-
ingly important role in consumer lives. These
brands enable consumers to feel connected to
consumers in other nations (Holt, Quelch and
Taylor 2004) thereby, partially fulfilling the
prophesy of a ‘global village’ (McLuhan
1964). Global brands also increasingly frame
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GLOBAL BRANDING
the way we view a globalizing world and its
contradictions (Thompson and Arsel 2004;
Holt 2002; Ritzer 1993). Like other symbols
(Levi-Strauss 1975), brands have come to
provide a means for us to make sense of the
world. Protests against global brands such as
Nike or McDonald’s have become vehicles to
express the fears and anxieties created by a
globalizing marketplace and a new interna-
tional division of labor (Klein 1999).
In this chapter, we examine two facets of
this marketing equation: drivers of brand glob-
alization coming from the supply side, such as
economies of scale, learning, innovation and
growth objectives; and the demand side, such
as the desire of consumers to feel connected to
a larger sphere than their immediate commu-
nity, their increasing sophistication and their
desire for premium products. By situating
global brands within these two streams of
research – managerial and consumer-centric –
we hope to shed light on the marketer–con-
sumer interface in the development of global
brands. Importantly, our research agenda
calls for a combination of these two perspec-
tives to shed light on global branding issues,
to focus transnational branding activity
where it can add most value to the consumers
at whom it is targeted and to generate the
greatest rewards for those organizations that
undertake it.
WHAT IS GLOBAL BRANDING?
When approached from a managerial per-
spective, global branding refers to brands
that are marketed globally. For example, AC
Nielsen identifies 43 global brands (Branch
2001). It defines those brands to have sales of
over $US 1 billion and at least 5 per cent of
their sales derived from outside the home
region. Brandchannel, the internet news site
of the brand valuation service, Interbrand
(2007), uses a criterion of one third of a
brand’s sales coming from outside the home
country and imposes a condition that in each
country it must have ‘a common goal and
345
similar identity’ for a brand to be global. Two
observations emerge from these definitions.
First, globalization is clearly a relative (and
subjective) concept. Secondly, these defini-
tions are very market- and sales-based. They
say nothing about what manufacturers see as
a global brand, nor consumers. To under-
stand that better, let us clarify what we mean
by a brand and what we mean by global.
What is branding?
The American Marketing Association defines
a brand by ‘A brand is a name, term, sign,
symbol or design, or combination of them,
intended to identify the goods or services of
one seller or group of sellers and to differen-
tiate them from competitors’ (e.g., Keller
1993, p. 3). For our purposes, we find it
useful to think of a brand as a signal. That
way, we can investigate it from the manufac-
turer’s perspective (which does the manufac-
turer want the consumer to understand when
they see the brand?) and from the demand
side (what do consumers believe about a
product based on the presence of a brand
name?). We consider these two perspectives
(that of the manufacturer and consumer), par-
ticularly with respect to the purpose or bene-
fit derived; we are interested in what the
brand does for the company (which we term
the brand role) and what the brand aims to do
for the consumer (which we call the value
proposition or brand identity). It may also be
useful to distinguish between what the com-
pany wants the brand to do for consumers
(the brand identity) and what customers actu-
ally see it as doing (the brand image). We will
examine global brands according to their abil-
ity to meet the objectives of their manufactur-
ers (brand roles) and to meet the need of their
target consumers (value propositions). Global
brands cannot be deemed managerially suc-
cessful if they do not fulfill both supply and
demand sides of the marketing exchange
equation. We regard this duality as fundamen-
tal to the understanding of global (and indeed
all) brands’ performance in the marketplace.
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346 CHAPTER 17
Supply side: The role of brands in meeting
company objectives We define the supply
side objective of the brand to be the ‘brand
role’ Keller (1993, p. 683 and 685) suggests
that brand globalization allows companies to
capture economies of scale in production and
distribution, lower marketing costs, increase
power and scope, afford consistent brand
image, enable the leveraging of good ideas
quickly and efficiently, and implement uni-
form marketing practices.
Cost and economies of scale issues appear
high on the agendas of practicing managers. To
quote Harish Manwani, President Home and
Personal Care of Unilever (Raman et al. 2003)
A vibrant brand requires a regular stream of exciting
new features and continuous updating. But the
costs of innovation are so high that it makes finan-
cial sense only in the largest markets or, preferably,
when resources can be pooled regionally or globally.
In fact, the pooling of such resources is necessary for
companies to compete effectively.
Sources of growth are also a major motive for
firms, with the Ansoff matrix suggesting that
growth in new markets is one of the two
major sources of growth (e.g., Aaker 2005).
Similarly, there are many examples where
multinationals use their global brands as vehi-
cles by which to transport innovations from
one country to their worldwide network, or
some part of it. For example, P&G’s Pantene
Shampoo is now the largest selling shampoo
brand in the world. Procter and Gamble ini-
tially launched it in the United States, Taiwan,
France and the United Kingdom, before
progressively rolling it out to over 78 coun-
tries (Advertising Educational Foundation
2007). Finally, market defense and resisting
competition may be a major reason to create
a global position for brands. To quote Charles
Hughes, CEO of Land Rover North America,
‘You can’t be a major player if you don’t
compete in the world’s largest auto market’
(Fournier 1996).
What is global?
Alden, Steenkamp and Batra (2002) find sup-
port for the existence of a global consumer
cultural positioning from a supply side analy-
sis. They make a useful classification of
firms’ positioning and communications
strategies as local, foreign or global. Local
positions appeal to the brand’s pedigree in
the country in which it is marketed, while
foreign brands are associated with coming
from overseas and usually from one particular
country. Finally, global positioning suggested
that the brand is a more transcendental, stem-
ming from a view of ‘the crystallization of the
world as a single place’ (p. 77). Not only do
Alden, Steenkamp and Batra find evidence of
these three distinct types of communication,
they also find their usage varies by category
and geography. For example, global position-
ing is least prevalent in the United States and
most prevalent in Thailand. Local position-
ing is relatively more prevalent in food cate-
gories than others. Finally, the authors
discuss migration paths between the three
types of positioning. As an economy evolves
or a brand gains acceptance, a firm may
decide to shift emphasis from a local basis to
a global one.
Local positioning We see many multina-
tional firms trying to gain the advantages of
being local, using ‘glocalization,’ that is the
adaptation of global positionings to local
preferences (Thompson and Arsel 2004;
Robertson 1995). For example, Unilever uses
the same imagery for its ice cream world-
wide, but different brand names (e.g., Streets,
Walls, Kibon). HSBC, a large bank present in
many countries, positions itself as ‘The
world’s local bank’ attempting to gain the
benefits of both positions. Coca Cola has
tried to achieve similar results with its ‘Think
local, act local’ campaign, moving away
from what was a very American GI-based
pedigree. It is worth noting that the sustain-
ability of different strategies depends consid-
erably on the market position and objectives
of the firm. For example, if Coca Cola wishes
to have a greater than 60 per cent share of a
hypothetical country’s carbonated beverage
market and 50 per cent of consumers avoid
American products where possible, a US
foreign position is not going to be viable.
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GLOBAL BRANDING
Localization, globalization, or a hybrid strat-
egy is needed. Coca Cola pursued such a
hybrid strategy in India where initially it
withdrew a local brand it took over (Thums
Up), but then decided to use the brand for
market coverage of Coke rejecters.
The more parochial a society, the higher
the need will be to establish local acceptance.
As Toyota moves to being the world’s largest
auto manufacturer in a large part due to its
success in the US market, it worries about
this. To quote Toyota CEO, Katsuaki
Watanabe, ‘We constantly need to think
about the potential for backlash against us. It
is very important for our company and prod-
ucts to earn citizenship in the US We need to
make sure that we are accepted’ (Welch
2007). Toyota is taking out full page ads pro-
claiming its US heritage (e.g., in Business
Week January 15, 2007 ‘While Utah has
some lovely skiing trails, we go there for the
airbags’).
Foreign positioning The positioning of a
brand as coming from or belonging to a spe-
cific foreign country obviously highlights the
characteristics of that country. That will be
advantageous when inferences about that
country are positively valenced in the prod-
uct category. Thus, for example, BMW
emphasizes its German engineering to lever-
age country-of-origin effects related to the
perceived technical capabilities of Germany.
Heineken beer, even though it is from
Holland, is perceived to have a German-
sounding name and Germany is seen as a
country that should be able to make good
beer. Heineken had beer mats made with
‘Printed in Germany’ on them, leveraging
those associations. Ries and Ries (2002)
advocate this strategy on the grounds that a
firm ‘can’t escape [its] foreign pedigree’, so
it may as well make the most of it. The
bottom line with foreign positionings is that
if the brand is a signal (as we have argued),
we need to understand the (positive and cred-
ible) signal that we want consumers to take
from our foreign pedigree. If that is suffi-
ciently valued by a large enough proportion
of the target market to enable a company to
347
meet its objectives, a foreign positioning may
be advisable.
Global positioning Global positioning is
becoming increasingly popular. With many
global products the country of origin is not
clear and, by its very positioning, it is not
meant to be important. For example, the
energy drink, Red Bull originated in
Thailand, but was extensively modified in
Austria, before being successfully marketed
in the United States. While Coca Cola has
tried local and hybrid strategies to move from
its American heritage, it has also attempted
global ones, encapsulated in the tag line, ‘I’d
like to buy the world a Coke’. Such cam-
paigns have emphasized the links between
consumers in diverse places, from various
backgrounds, sharing the experience of
drinking the famous beverage. An important
point to explore though, is whether such
global claims render obsolete country-of-
origin claims. In other words, should global
brands abandon their national heritage in
order to appeal across national boundaries?
Holt, Quelch and Taylor (2004) finish their
article on global brands with a word of cau-
tion; ‘Our view of Global branding should be
not interpreted as a call to rid transnational
brands of their national heritage, for two rea-
sons’. The first of these is that they can lose
valuable country-of-origin effects and the
second is that many brands need what they
call a myth (or a story) and that story must
have a setting. Keller (2003, p. 707) lists the
conditions in which globalization of brands
is likely to present a successful strategy. They
include common customer needs, global cus-
tomers and channels, favorable regulatory
and trade environments, and compatible
technical and marketing skills. Day and
Reibstein (2004) also provide a good analy-
sis of factors favoring global brands.
The global brand in summary
We can summarize global branding from
a supply-side perspective as shown in
figure 17.1. The firm must decide on its
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348
Brand strategy
Positioning (Benefits)
Role (Firm objective)
Strategy Realization
Sourcing
Product/price
Communications
Distribution/partners
Figure 17.1 Elements of international branding from a manufacturer’s perspective
strategy and the path by which it realizes that
strategy. Both of these elements may be
addressed by some combination of global,
foreign and local elements. These choices
will be predicated on how well each option
realizes the company’s objectives. That, in
turn, will depend on consumer evaluations
and behavior, as well as environmental con-
ditions such as economic, regulatory and
competitive climate.
FROM A MANAGERIAL TO
A CONSUMER-CENTRIC VIEW OF
GLOBAL BRANDS
Global brands have often been defined, man-
aged and viewed internally, from the per-
spective of a firm trying to harmonize its
offerings across markets. As Schuiling and
Kapferer (2003, p. 99) argue: ‘the push
toward development of international and
global brands has been driven more by
supply-driven considerations linked to costs
than by market considerations’. For example,
moves by Procter and Gamble or Unilever to
streamline the number of brands they pro-
mote worldwide are mostly motivated by
cost savings and communication synergies.
Because much of the writing and thinking on
global brands has taken an internal approach,
CHAPTER 17
Local Foreign Global
Elements of the
branding strategy
and execution
we still have a restricted understanding of the
relationship between consumers and global
brands.
Definitions of global brands are mostly
supply side. Brands have been defined as
global based on where the firm does most of
its business, its size, and the extent to which
its products share similar technical specifica-
tions. A case in point is the definition of
global brands in industry rankings. In their
rankings of global brands, AC Nielsen and
Interbrand (Branch 2001; Interbrand’s Best
Global Brands 2006, p. 22) look at size, geo-
graphic reach and the proportion of revenues
from outside a company’s home country.
Interestingly though, Interbrand’s ranking
regularly excludes Wal-Mart because ‘it is
not consistently branded as Wal-Mart around
the globe’ (Interbrand 2007, p. 22). Note that
there is an ironic circularity here that has
Interbrand excluding brands that are not con-
sistent enough, and then, based on the rank-
ing, advising marketers that consistency
will help them achieve better valuations for
their brands: ‘best brands achieve a high
degree of consistency in visual, verbal, audi-
tory, and tactile identity across geographies’.
Definitions and conceptualizations of global
brands are still developed from the com-
pany’s perspective, without paying much
attention to how consumers perceive global
brands.
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GLOBAL BRANDING
Consistency and global branding:
from replication to flexible
adaptation
Consistency is the last refuge of the
unimaginative.’ Oscar Wilde
Marketing textbooks suggest that brand man-
agers should keep their brands consistent
across cultural boundaries because consumers
travel more and more, and thus might be con-
fused by inconsistent branding. For example,
Keller (1998, p. 555) writes that consistency
‘becomes particularly important in those mar-
kets where there is much customer mobility or
where media exposure transmits images across
national boundaries’. Reibstein (2005, p. 176)
states: ‘for a global brand to be a true global
brand, it must also be consistent, not just in
name, but in position and what it offers’. The
problem with these recommendations is that
there is very little research evidence suggesting
that (in) consistency is actually affecting con-
sumer attitudes and perceptions. Managers and
marketing scholars assume that people are
negatively influenced by brands displaying a
different logo, message or value proposition in
different countries but there is little empirical
research to support this position or the degree
to which it holds.
We can justify the consistency of global
brands with operational arguments (cost sav-
ings; efficiencies; synergies across markets).
The importance of consistency also makes
sense from an information processing per-
spective. Social psychologists have amply
demonstrated that people value consistency,
especially when it is their own that is
questioned or examined (Festinger 1957).
Psychologists argue that people value coher-
ence and order in the presentation of infor-
mation, as a way to reduce the effort of
processing that information. Pepitone (1966,
p. 270) argues that people like consistent
structures because they ‘are simpler to main-
tain than distinctions, discrepancies and con-
tradictions’. The question then becomes how
we define consistency. A troubling issue in
the global branding literature is we have
tended to define consistency purely from
349
a supply-side perspective, without exploring
the perceptions of other stakeholders such as
consumers, investors, business partners or
suppliers. Indeed, is consistency a meaning-
ful construct when different consumers have
different mental models of the market?
Furthermore, the practices of some major
global brands are not as consistent as they first
appear. Think of a brand such as McDonald’s,
which is regularly taken as the example of a
typical global brand. McDonald’s does offer
a consistent face, in terms of its logo and it
does stand for affordable and convenient
fast-food restaurants across markets. But it
undertakes very different activities with dif-
ferent target consumers in different markets.
In Korea, McDonald’s targets women who
want to hold club meetings, study groups or
chat over coffee. In Hong Kong, McDonald’s
caters mostly to kids and teenagers wanting
study space away from cramped households
(Watson 2003). In India, McDonald’s mostly
caters to middle-class and upper middle-class
households and their desires to experiment
with new food options. McDonald’s looks
means and tastes very differently across mar-
kets. Furthermore, the company is pursuing
different avenues of brand rejuvenation
across markets. In Europe, McDonald’s has
tried to reposition itself as a trendy place
with iPod stations and design armchairs
where people get ‘good food fast’ rather than
fast-food. The look and feel of its European
restaurants is now quite different from other
parts of the world (Wiggins 2007).
Similarly, while Nike has a consistent logo
and slogan, it has pursued very different
kinds of cultural and business opportunities:
from the release of compilation CDs to
theme park retailing or entering new (and
potentially unfashionable) sports such as golf
(Grant 2006). Finally, Italian car company
Fiat usually positions its vehicles as reliable
and sturdy cars for middle-class consumers.
In many developing countries such as Brazil,
this promise was successful. In India though,
Fiat had to market itself as a premium, aspi-
rational car company. It picked cricketer
Sachin Tendulkar as its endorser, to promote
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350 CHAPTER 17
Fiat as a car for cosmopolitan Indians. Overall,
for all the talk of consistency in global brand-
ing, many companies seem to manage a lot of
highly successful executional and position-
ing variations that do not appear mutually
consistent.
Rather than a blueprint to be replicated
across markets, it might be useful to think
of global brands as stories. A small but influ-
ential stream of theoretical and managerial
texts have analyzed brands as stories (Holt
2002, 2003, 2004; Randazzo 1993). Holt in
particular (2004) argues that iconic brands
reach their iconic status because they develop
stories resolving cultural contradictions. For
example, Holt mentions the disconnect
between the American ideals of extraordi-
nary athletes and entrepreneurial ‘warriors’;
and the reality of disaffected youth working
low-paid jobs. Holt attributes the success of
Mountain Dew to the brand’s ability to offer
an alternative identity path assuaging male
anxieties. Holt’s work focuses squarely on
national contradictions and he does not
explore how brands might be managed
globally to become and remain iconic.
Building upon Holt’s insights about brands’
mythical qualities, it may be fruitful to
explore global brands and global branding
as a cluster of different cultural ideas
(Grant 2006), archetypal heroes, and other
characteristics of powerful narratives (see
Polkinghorne 1988).
What do we gain from looking at global
brands as stories? This metaphor helps us
move away from sequential and linear
models of branding based on the delivery of
symbolic resources to consumers (see, for
example, Erdem and Swait 1998; Keller and
Lehmann 2003). Building upon Vargo and
Lusch’s (2004) seminal article on the domi-
nant logic of marketing, we argue that
such linear approaches find their origin in
marketing’s emphasis on product manage-
ment, which can help understand the equity
companies can derive from their branding
exercises, but cannot fully capture the
dynamics of brand meaning. More specifi-
cally, looking at brands through the lens of
narrative helps us move away from treating
the consumer as a malleable individual who
can be bent to the will of a firm brand, but
instead as a co-creator of brand meaning.
Examining brands as stories is a way of
thinking about brands that can help us view
differently about the process by which
brands are created and circulated, as well as
the incredible symbolic power of brands in
the global marketplace. In the next section,
we examine the symbolic, quasi-mythical
quality of global brands.
The value of global brands
for consumers
There is an emerging stream of literature
examining the relationship between global
brands and consumers (Askegaard 2006;
Holt 2002; Steenkamp et al. 2003; Thompson
and Arsel 2004), but there is still little
research investigating how consumers come
to think of certain brands as global.
Steenkamp and his colleagues (2003, p. 54)
hypothesize that consumers come to perceive
brands as global in two main ways: (1) by
learning of a brand’s global geographic
reach, through travel, media exposure or
other sources of information; and (2) by rec-
ognizing the ‘globalness’ of the brand, as
evoked by a ‘“modern”, urban lifestyle’. But
these hypotheses remain to be explored and
tested. We still know very little about the
formation of perceptions when it comes to
global brands.
What we do know is that consumers value
global brands and that there are certain char-
acteristics of global brands that they specifi-
cally value (Steenkamp et al. 2003). First,
consumers associate the wide geographic
reach of global brands with better quality.
Steenkamp and his colleagues find that the
extent to which a consumer will perceive
brands as global (what they call “perceived
brand globalness”) is positively related
to brand quality. In the words of a Russian
consumer “the more people who buy a brand....
the better quality it is.” (Holt et al. 2004).
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GLOBAL BRANDING
In other words, wide market acceptance acts
as a signal of quality. Alden et al. (1999) stress
that many global brands such as Vodafone or
Ariel, feature in their advertisements a wide
variety of consumers from different countries
to promote this wide acceptability.
Second, consumers associate global brands
with glamour, prestige and high status
(Steenkamp et al. 2003; Kapferer 1992).
Global brands convey status, power and suc-
cess because they are associated with a pow-
erful global elite of people (Holt et al. 2004).
Studies reveal that that the degree to which a
brand is perceived as global positively influ-
ences the regard in which the brand is held
(Johansson et al. 2005). The aspirational
dimensions of global brands particularly
hold in certain product categories: Global
brands that are from countries with a particu-
lar expertise (such as German cars or Italian
clothing brands) are especially valued (Holt
et al. 2004).
Third, global brands offer consumers a
sense of connecting with other consumers in
distant places. They help create transnational
connections between consumers who feel
like they belong to a larger, global commu-
nity (Holt et al. 2004). Consumer researchers
have amply demonstrated that consumers use
brands to construct social relations. One of
the emerging drivers of value for brands is
their linking value (Cova 1997), that is the
capacity of brands to enable the formation
of communities such as the Harley Davidson
or Macintosh enthusiasts (Schouten and
McAlexander 1995). Similarly, global brands
seem to foster a sense of belonging to a
larger, transnational community. This ability
for global brands to provide connections for
people who have never met each other, seems
to be a key driver for the value of global
brands. Finally, global brands have become
part of the language and the prism that
people use to make sense of the world.
Global brands have come to embody many of
the excesses of late capitalism such as
exploitative labor conditions (Klein 1999).
Because of their omnipresence in public
debates and discussions, global brands such
351
as Nike and McDonald’s have come to sym-
bolize capitalism in its transnational form.
Global brands have become part of a certain
lingua franca to talk about markets. For many
consumers, global brands signal the kind of
community they do not want to belong to.
For example, Thompson and Arsel (2004)
find consumers patronizing local coffee
shops to resist the hegemony of Starbucks
and assuage the feelings of cynicism and dis-
empowerment that the global chain of coffee
shop generates. The hegemony of global
brands creates new spaces for companies
building upon anti-corporate sentiments. The
strategy of Snapple, (before it was acquired
by Unilever), Ben and Jerry’s or Mecca Cola,
all illustrate emerging forms of resistance
against global brands (Holt 2002).
GLOBAL BRANDING IN PRACTICE:
REALIZING THE GLOBAL BRAND
Armed with an understanding of global
brands and the consumer environments in
which they operate, we are equipped to con-
sider the implementation of a global brand-
ing strategy. Keller (2003, p. 696) provides a
series of admonitions for managers attempt-
ing to build global customer-based brand
equity. These start with a warning that it is
necessary to understand differences and sim-
ilarities between different markets, and a
caution not to cut corners. From there, he
addresses logistics (establish an infrastruc-
ture and build brand partnerships), localiza-
tion trade-offs (balance standardization and
customization and global and local control),
and operations (embrace integrated commu-
nications and establish operable guidelines).
Lastly, on an on-going basis, Keller suggests
leveraging brand elements and implementing
a brand equity monitoring system.
In moving from these guidelines to a set of
actions, we propose the following framework:
● establish the brand architecture, outlining the
role of each brand in each market;
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352 CHAPTER 17
● for each brand establish the value proposition
with some view as to how that will be translated
in different ways in various markets;
● consider a migration path to establish that brand
identity in each market;
● elaborate and support the brand identity with
appropriate mix elements; and finally have a
diagnostic monitoring and control system.
Brand architecture decisions are critical
because they dictate how much of the market
a global brand must appeal to. Coca Cola can
afford Coke to be perceived much more as a
foreign or global brand if it has Thums Up in
its portfolio of Indian brands, than if it does
not. The greater the breadth of the market a
brand must cover, the less depth will be pos-
sible in any given segment. Proliferation of
positions, designs and communications is a
danger in this environment because incre-
mental variations for localization made at
the margin can add up to very diffused brand-
ing viewed from a global perspective. For
example, at one stage Palmolive soap had
22 fragrances, 17 packages, 9 shapes, and
numerous positions across its different mar-
kets (Keller 2003, p. 710).
Developing the promise or value proposi-
tion consists of deciding how to gain aware-
ness in the target market, and gaining brand
associations consistent with the brand identity.
Barwise and Robertson (1992) suggest that the
different migration paths of (a) starting off
with exports, (b) acquisition of overseas
brands, and (c) brand alliances all have advan-
tages, depending on the situation. After initial
entry, Douglas (2001) proposes local market
expansion and global rationalization as logical
steps. That is, the degree of globalization is
likely to increase with the product’s maturity
(and hence legitimacy) in the market. These
observations apply to diffusion within markets.
In terms of the diffusion of global brands
between markets, Kalish, Mahajan and Muller
(1995) use a game theoretic model to argue for
waterfall as opposed to sprinkler entry strate-
gies (sequential rather than simultaneous
release) when fixed costs are high, competition
is low, life cycles are long, markets are small,
word of mouth is significant, and growth
is slow. For waterfall strategies, Hofstede,
Wedel and Steenkamp (2002) note that their
contiguity research suggests that roll out can
be accelerated by harnessing the contagion
effects of adjacent markets.
The launch that follows entry decisions
must be accompanied by a detailed elabora-
tion of the brand identity and the brand
essence on which it is based. Chapter 2 of
Aaker and Joachimsthaler’s (2002) book pro-
vides excellent guidelines on how to under-
take this exercise. The brand elaboration
stage, with its rich understanding of what the
firm wants the brand to mean to consumers
(and how that might vary by market) leads
naturally to design of the marketing mix to
supporting the brand identity, particularly a
communications strategy. At all stages of
preparing for the global brand launch and its
ongoing management post-launch, the need
for brand equity measurement is greater than
it is for single market brands. The greater the
social and cultural distance between the
locus of the decision makers and the target at
whom their projects and services are tar-
geted, the greater the opportunity for a lack
of correspondence. Detailed consumer feed-
back is one way to avoid such disconnects.
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
Global marketing is a fast-changing field as
we learn more about this fascinating area and
as turbulent market and inter-market dynam-
ics create new challenges (see, for example,
Kalish et al. 1995). We close by looking at
what we think are some of the important
issues in global branding that we need to
address.
Measuring brands on a global basis
As Lusch and Harvey (1994) rightly note, little
research has investigated the true asset base of
the corporation in the global marketplace
(exceptions include Srivastava et al. 1998).
5178-Kotabe-Chap-17 8/8/08 5:22 PM Page 353
GLOBAL BRANDING
Some methods to measure brand differences
across countries and the results from imple-
menting them are available from the Winning
Brands service of AC Nielsen (Gordon
2003). However, the conceptual challenges
of calibrating brands across markets still per-
tain; how can we gain a comparable metric
when different consumers in different mar-
kets are using different criteria? Clearly
some flexible or multidimensional rules are
necessary.
The perceptions of globalness
We need to better understand the relation-
ships between consumers and global brands.
A starting point may be to investigate how
consumers come to categorize brands as
global. Steenkamp and his colleagues (2003)
suggest that consumers may either become
exposed to the same brands in different coun-
tries through travel; or elaborate perceptions
of firms as global because of their brand
communications emphasizing globalness
may apply. But to our knowledge, there is
no empirical research looking into these
processes.
Furthermore, we need to better distinguish
between various global brands. There are
many kinds of globalness and global posi-
tionings: some brands such as Armani or
Chanel are heavily built on the notion of her-
itage and culture of origin. Part of the appeal
of such brands resides in consumers’ desires
to demonstrate competence with regard to
foreign cultures to communicate cosmopoli-
tan tastes and build their cultural capital
(Hannerz 1990). Other brands such as Coke
or Nokia build a large part of their appeal on
the basis of their transnationality. By transna-
tionality, we refer to the ability of these
brands to create an imagined community of
consumers. In his influential work on nation-
alism, political scientist Benedict Anderson
(1983) explains that newspapers enabled
people who had never come into contact with
each other to care about each other. Print-
capitalism, in the form of newspapers and
353
novels, enabled the construction of national
connections and identities. Similarly, brand
managers are increasingly trying to create
communities of consumers at the local
(McAlexander, Schouten and Koenig 2002)
or transnational level (Cayla and Eckhardt
2008). Future research should investigate
how consumers relate to these transnational
brands and how they use such brands, and
their claims of connecting people, in their
identity projects.
The paths to globalness
Global branding researchers may want to
look at critiques of methodological national-
ism (Beck 2000; Taylor 1996) and think of
global branding research as the study of
brands in the global marketplace, rather than
the study of international brands. The gist of
this critique is that in the wake of the Second
World War, the nation became the favored
and almost exclusive unit of analysis for the
analysis of problems in geography, econom-
ics and other social sciences. With this focus
on nations, social sciences replicated the
advent of new institutions such as the United
Nations, the WTO or the IMF. The focus on
the nation became natural. International mar-
keting further increased the focus on the
nation by defining itself as business between
nations. Drawing from its roots in interna-
tional trade, the discipline of international
marketing has developed a similar focus
on nations. Global brands are then often eval-
uated on the basis of their geographic reach
in many nations (Interbrand 2007). This
focus on the nation as the unit of analysis
becomes also evident in the literature on the
standardization of marketing activities.
A main stream of research analyzes the
extent to which global brands might adapt
their strategies to national characteristics
(Roth 1995).
There are different dimensions in the
globalization of the marketplace that call
into question this focus on nations in interna-
tional branding research. First, there is the
5178-Kotabe-Chap-17 8/8/08 5:22 PM Page 354
354 CHAPTER 17
phenomenon of ‘born global’ firms (Knight
and Cavusgil 2004) whereby firms achieve a
rapid geographic reach within a short period
of time. Born global firms often expand rap-
idly, without any long-term domestic experi-
ence. The process of developing global brand
strategy is thus likely to be quite different for
these brands. Particularly relevant for research
on global branding is the case of internet
brands which can reach millions of people
rapidly. Studies of such brands might
uncover novel types of relationships between
consumers and global brands. Second,
migration patterns and the use of brands by
immigrant communities to build connections
with other members of the same Diaspora
(Gillespie 2002) highlight the emergence of
what we could call diasporic brands, that is
brands that tend to focus on certain ethnic
communities as they migrate throughout
the globe. An example is OCBC, a large
Singaporean bank that caters to ethnic
Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia, and
Indonesia. Third, there is the phenomenon
of online brands such as social networking
websites, which escape the boundaries of
geography or the neat categorizations of
international marketing. Research on such
brands promises to fill an important gap in
our understanding of the relationship
between brands and globalization. But to
conduct such research, we must re-conceptu-
alize culture and the relationship of global
brands to it. Geographic location can be far
less critical and at times misleading in defin-
ing culture and cultural particularity.
These examples also illustrate the neces-
sity to go beyond narrow definitions of
global brands. Rather than solely focusing on
ubiquitous brands with deep geographic
reach, we need to study a larger repertoire of
brands and their relationship with globaliza-
tion processes. There is no question that cer-
tain brands occupy a remarkable place in the
collective imagination and the public sphere.
The omnipresence of US brands such as
McDonald’s, Starbucks or Nike and the
strong negative feelings they evoke needs to
be further researched. But studying less
prominent brands might also help us better
understand the different paths to globalness.
The increasing number of ‘born global’ firms
(Knight and Cavusgil 2004) suggests that
smaller firms will increasingly develop a
global positioning. Comparing such firms to
iconic global brands such as Nike will help
us understand how firms approach the global
marketplace differently.
Combining managerial and
consumer-centric approaches
Finally, we need to combine a managerial
and consumer-based approach to researching
global brands. This may involve the collabo-
ration of academics from these two traditions
or the combination of several, complemen-
tary methodologies. The managerial litera-
ture and the consumer research literatures on
global brands have evolved separately. On
the managerial side, the debate has centered
on the opportunities for the standardization
of marketing activities (e.g., Yip 1999). In
terms of consumer research on brands,
researchers have mostly had a psychological
focus on the relationship between consumers
and brands and the use of brands for personal
identity projects. While managerial research
has often disregarded how consumers might
respond to organizational strategies of stan-
dardization, consumer research has provided
a limited understanding of the relationship
between brands and globalization, and the
managerial actions these should guide.
Rather than treating consumer and mana-
gerial concerns as separate research domains,
we encourage researchers to combine mana-
gerial insights with consumer research on
global brands. A fruitful direction would be
to understand and explain the disjunctures
between managerial strategies and consumer
perceptions. For example, researchers may
investigate how successful companies are in
communicating their globalness. Given the
proclaimed advantages of appearing as
5178-Kotabe-Chap-17 8/8/08 5:22 PM Page 355
GLOBAL BRANDING
global, many managers want to claim that
positioning for their brands. Managers of
Singapore-based company OSIM, a manu-
facturer of massage chairs and other techno-
logical devices, want their company to
appear as global to reap the benefits of that
positioning. For these managers, a global
positioning helps build their brand as a
modern brand. Yet many consumers of OSIM
chairs may not value such propositions.
Combining case studies of companies trying
to become global with research on how con-
sumers perceive such brands may help us to
understand how consumers come to think of
certain brands as global and what obstacles
these brands must overcome.
We argue that the metaphor of global
brands as stories is especially useful for the
study of global brands and the combination of
these two perspectives. We have argued that
global brands can be conceived as stories with
multiple parts and audiences. Companies
have already been urged to develop their
brands as forms of corporate narrative
(Dowling 2006). Conversely, there is some
evidence that consumers process brand infor-
mation in the form of narratives (Adaval and
Wyer 1998; Wyer 2004). Weick (1995, p. 127)
argues that ‘people think narratively rather
than argumentatively or paradigmatically’.
Building upon this insight that people com-
monly think in story-like form, Escalas
(2004) shows how consumers interpret infor-
mation about brands by fitting them into a
story. When conceived as an evolving story,
the construction of brands becomes a multi-
partite process involving a host of authors
who all add their own associations: con-
sumers, managers but also popular culture
and influencers in different cultural contexts
(Holt 2003). A company may try to engineer
some of these associations but eventually, the
brand’s meanings are bound to remain the
diverse and fragmented parts of a co-created
brand story incorporating heterodox threads.
Future research should examine the new role
of companies in telling global brand stories,
especially as we move to an environment of
355
value and meaning co-creation (see Vargo
and Lusch 2004).
The metaphor of global brands as stories
also opens new methodological avenues. For
example, the study of global brands seems
especially suited for the kind of multi-sited
research for which anthropologists have been
calling (Marcus 1986). If brands are really
‘brand cultures’ (Schroeder and Salzer-
Morling 2006), then they might also be
conceived as traveling brand cultures, pick-
ing different associations and evolving as
they are introduced to different markets. It
would seem to be especially fruitful to com-
bine the kind of detailed cultural branding
analysis carried out by Holt (2004) but to
apply the same approach to global brands, as
they are designed and marketed in different
markets.
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