In order to remain competitive, many large companies today feel compelled to create a global brand strategy. In fact, for most brands, "going global" is not only an elusive objective; it's a destructive one.
To begin with, customers for most consumer brands cannot be found in many countries of the world. Furthermore, the customer-benefits these brands provide are not meaningful, relevant or even affordable. It's one thing for a brand to create choice for an existing consumer, it's quite another to imagine a consumer that does not exist.
Brand building requires extensive human and capital resources. When a company extends these resources across global markets, it does so at the peril of the brand itself. Simply put, a brand grows when its resources are focused. Lose that focus and a perfectly healthy brand suffers.
Expanding a brand globally forces it to stand for too much. And, the broader the brand reaches, the more challenging it becomes to manage its meaning. As the saying goes, brands that stand for everything stand for nothing.
Brands require competition within their category. It's one thing for a brand to compete in an existing category; it's quite another for that brand to define, then create the category itself. Category creation is a massively time and capital intensive endeavour. And, even after significant effort, success is far from guaranteed.
For a brand strategy to be successful, it must follow a business strategy. When the strategy for growing the brand is leading the strategy for growing the business, the brand will fail.
When brands enter new markets, they benefit greatly from a strong heritage. Heritage speaks of status, character, social class, and a history. It speaks of a traditional way of life that is of value to present and future generations. Heritage speaks of inheritance, of shared experiences, and of a common history. If the heritage of the brand has little or no meaning or relevance in a new market, choose another market.
Cultural preferences are critical to the success of a brand in a new market because they influence purchasing behaviours. If the cultural distinctions of a brand do not align with the preferences of the consumers in a new market, choose another market.
Finally, consumers are not homogenous. When a brand expands into new global markets because it sees shared customer-benefits between current and future customers, it is focusing on the wrong part of the customer profile. It's not what makes the future consumer similar to your current consumer that ensures a brand's success; it is what sets them apart.
Author Credits
Messrs. Levinson, Benson, and Allison are principals of Brand Blueprint, a Brand Consultancy located in Boston, MA. Their key areas of expertise include, respectively, brand positioning, brand strategy and visual expression. CEOs, CMOs and other marketing leaders turn to Brand Blueprint when they seek to reposition, fortify or simply update their brand. Collectively, Brand Blueprint principals have over sixty years of experience advising category-leading brands such as Allstate, Bose, DeBeers, Disney, General Electric, Gillette, JP Morgan/Chase, Pitney Bowes, Rolls Royce, Seagram and Staples. For more information, please visit: www.brandblueprint.com