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The myth of the global brand

By Eric Pfanner

Published: January 11, 2009

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PARIS: Much ink has been spilled about how the world is shrinking, with people from Boston to Bangalore wearing the same clothes, driving the same cars and watching the same movies.

A book titled "The Global Brand" might seem to fit squarely into this category.

Think again. In the book, Nigel Hollis, chief global analyst at the market research firm Millward Brown, argues that the trend is actually headed the other way. Yes, better transportation links and modern communications are bringing people closer. But instead of becoming more alike, they are more eager than ever to assert their differences, Hollis writes. And marketers - at least those who want to create global brands - ignore this at their peril.

"There are some underlying decisions people make when they decide to go global," Hollis said during an interview. "One is that the world will become more and more homogeneous. That is just not happening. There's a lot of evidence that despite the spread of globalization we still live in a very localized world."

One bit of evidence, according to Hollis: There is actually no such thing as a global brand. Even the likes of Coca-Cola have their weak links - it lags behind Pepsi in India, for example.

Collectively, local brands still account for the overwhelming majority of consumers' purchases. Of more than 10,000 brands in a database compiled by Millward Brown, only 3 percent show up in seven or more countries.

Even brands that many people think of as global, like McDonald's, have learned that in order to succeed they need to adapt their products and their marketing activity to suit local tastes. McDonald's may have unified its advertising under the global slogan "I'm lovin' it." But, as John Travolta noted in "Pulp Fiction," trying to order a Quarter Pounder with cheese will get you nowhere in France.

This approach, which marketers refer to as "global/local," has been around for a while, and Hollis has a vested interest in supporting it. His employer sells consulting services to clients seeking to move their brands into new markets. The more complicated the world seems, the more consulting there is to do.

But Hollis says now is a good time to remind marketers of the virtues of thinking local, because the economic downturn is putting pressure on budgets, tempting companies to revert to one-size-fits-all approaches.

"Many brands are trying to get efficiencies," he said. "They are asking us whether they should do global marketing campaigns."

In some cases, these can work well. Apple, for instance, sold millions of iPods with a single global campaign featuring silhouetted dancers gyrating against colorful backdrops. And some campaigns that were only regional probably should have been used globally: Take the Sony ad for its Bravia televisions that featured thousands of rubber balls bouncing down a San Francisco street. The ad, created for Europe, never made it onto U.S. television, but its global appeal was demonstrated when it spread widely on the Web.

Technology and consumer electronics companies may be unusually suited to global approaches. The things they make are less culturally sensitive than, say, food or personal-care products, whose manufacturers have generally been more reluctant to embrace purely global strategies.

Unilever, for instance, sells the same deodorant around the world under a variety of names: Degree in North America, Sure in Britain and Rexona in much of the rest of the world. A few years ago, sales of Guinness beer surged in Africa on the back of a campaign far removed from the beer's Irish roots; it featured action movie-style ads, with a Jamaican-born actor as the hero.

Many carmakers have also eschewed global or even global/local approaches, preferring to market their vehicles with entirely local campaigns. As the industry reels from the economic downturn, that approach may get another look - something that could hurt them in the long run, if Hollis is right.

"The vast majority of people still live very local lives," Hollis said. "By all means go global, but the first thing you have to do is win on the ground," he added. "You have to go local."