Twenty years ago the term "global marketing" was a major buzzword in marketing circles. Coined and popularized by Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt, it meant that a brand could be packaged,
advertised and marketed the same way in any country in the world. The goal was for brands to be like Coca-Cola, a familiar icon worldwide. Today, the reality is somewhat different, especially when it
comes to packaging. Marketers are finding that, despite their best effort, when former House Speaker Tip O'Neill famously said "all politics is local," he might as well have been talking about the
marketing of consumer goods.
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