• by Seana Mulcahy , March 15, 2004

Anti-US Foreign Policy and anti-American sentiments have grown since 9/11. What have brands done about it? Some have been as bold as ever. Others have scaled back, and several are just plain confused.

Well, dear readers, I am happy to say that branding isn't politics... necessarily. There have been several recent studies on the most successful global brands. According to Business Week magazine, consumers in other countries tend to separate political beliefs from brand favorability.

2003 Global Brands Scoreboard
The table that follows ranks 100 global brands (shown are the top 10) that have a value greater than $1 billion. The brands were selected according to two criteria. They had to be global in nature, deriving 20% or more of sales from outside their home country. There also had to be publicly available marketing and financial data on which to base the valuation.

2003 Brand Rank	Brand Name	2003 Brand Value ($Mil)	2002 Brand Value ($Mil)	Change in Brand Value (%)	Parent Company	Country
1	COCA-COLA	70.45	69.64	1	Coca-Cola Company	U.S.
2	MICROSOFT	65.17	64.09	2	Microsoft Corp.	U.S.
3	IBM	51.77	51.19	1	International Business Machines Corp.	U.S.
4	GE	42.34	41.31	2	General Electric Company	U.S.
5	INTEL	31.11	30.86	1	Intel Corp.	U.S.
6	NOKIA	29.44	29.97	-2	Nokia Corp.	Finland
7	DISNEY	28.04	29.26	-4	Walt Disney Company	U.S.
8	MCDONALD'S	24.70	26.37	-6	McDonald's Corp.	U.S.
9	MARLBORO	22.18	24.15	-8	Philip Morris Companies Inc.	U.S.
10	MERCEDES	21.37	21.01	2	DaimlerChrysler AG	Germany
http://bwnt.businessweek.com/brand/2003/index.asp

HBS professors Douglas Holt and John Quelch, along with Earl Taylor of Research International in Cambridge, Mass., have been conducting work on "Managing the Transnational Brand: How Global Perceptions Drive Value."

According to their research, consumers usually evaluate transnational brands through five different lenses:

Perceived quality-When people expect that transnational companies produce higher quality products.

Global status-The idea that transnational brands confer an elite status on the buyer.

Country-of-origin quality-The idea that "a food chain" of production means that higher-quality goods are created in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Holt and colleagues suggest that this idea has been dampened by the preponderance of outsourcing.

Citizenship-Transnationals ride a see-saw on citizenship in the eyes of consumers. Transnationals tend to be admired or derided for their perceived power as social forces.

American values-Coca-Cola, Marlboro, Nike, Pepsi, and McDonald's

What was learned from this and many other studies like it is:

There is a global thirst for American brands globally.

Most people choose US brands even when US backlash is present.

McDonald's and Coke tend to lead the pack.

About 88 percent of people, a consistent figure across most of the countries surveyed, selected well-known global brands rather than local alternatives when asked which products they would like to buy.

Consumers were clearly able to separate their feelings about U.S. foreign policy and U.S. brands more than had been predicted. (According to Professor Quelch of HBS.)

PEW Research Foundation conducted a study of 16,000 people in 20 countries, plus the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The bottom line was favorable opinions about the US have declined significantly.

Slight declines in American favorability toward brands came from countries such as France, Germany and Italy.

Most people have a hard time associating a brand with the country that created it. Sure, there are blatant associations with the Harley Davidson's, Chevy's and Levis of the world.

Countries that reject the US still believe in its values. Such studies found that the US stands for freedom, self-expression, and technological advancement.

When branding globally, it is imperative to recognize that American values can help or hurt.