Global Branding – 1

Global Branding

Professor Carl Mela

BA 460 Product Management

Fuqua School of Business

• Brand Management System

• On Building A Brand

• Managing Across Brands

Global Branding – 2

Agenda

• Rational for Global Marketing

• Benefit of Global Marketing

• Liabilities of Global Marketing

• Building Global Brands

Global Branding – 3

Why Use Global Brands?

• Economies of scale– Production– Marketing (e.g., one agency)

• Prestige of global availability

• Consistency (McDonalds)

• Rapid adoption of innovations

• Benefits of learning across cultures

• Less risk of arbitrage (e.g., diverting low price brands from other markets)

Global Branding – 4

Why Not Use Global Brands

• Consumers differ across cultures– Needs, attributes, marketing response

• Environment differs across markets– Competition, regulations, channels, etc.

• High tech, high image (jewelry), corporate image (airlines), new channels (internet), point of origin brands (champagne), and standardized needs (medical) are categories where global makes more sense

• Is the Duke MBA a global brand? Why?

Global Branding – 5

Building Global Brands

• Exporting brand– Costly, high control, slow

• Brand acquisition– Costly, medium control, fast

• Brand alliance– Cheap, low control, fast

Global Branding – 6

Building Global Brands

• Global brands vs. Global leadership in brands

• Share best practices across nations

• Develop consistent planning process (but not plan) across countries

• Develop organizational structure to integrate best practices

Source: Aaker and Joachimsthaler (1999)

Global Branding – 7

Building Global Brands

• Brand elements must transfer across categories

• Ensure product does not interact adversely with environment

• Develop distribution (pull won’t work without)

• Communications - standardize some messages, but vary creative

Global Branding – 8

Summary

• Global brands have benefits ..

• But also liabilities

• Key solution is to be global leader in branding as opposed to global brand