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SINGAPORE—Dove
was a tired old name before it hit on a key message that
underpins most of the world’s top brands: common threads
running through the diversity of cultures.
Dove hit
the big time when it tapped on the need for self-esteem
among women faced with oppressive media standards of
beauty. The new message—celebrating beauty in
diversity—tugged at the souls of women of all ages, all
colors. Its latest advertisement, unveiled at the Cannes
Film Festival, shows a woman being poked and stretched,
bleached and permed to cyborg standards, ending with the
line, “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.”
While
Dove may remain just one of the eggs in Unilever’s
basket, thus out of reach of top global-brand status,
Harvard Business School senior dean John Quelch says it
displays shared traits among the world’s leading brands.
Brand
Gore
“Global
brands solve important problems,” Quelch stressed at the
start of the Global Brand Forum here. “And global brands
make a positive difference in the world.”
They
also have ambitious missions. Google, the
California-based firm founded by immigrant students,
aimed high: Organizing the world’s information and
making it universally accessible (free).
It also
homed in on individuals’ yearning for untrammeled
choice, provided the best service for those on the
information quest, and ended up owning one word: Search.
Global
brands must also display consistency.
Thus, Al
Gore, once just a US presidential race loser, a rather
plodding satellite to the charismatic Bill Clinton, once
laughed at as just one more goofy tree-hugger, has
emerged as a global brand of authority, a
prophet—always, at some point, a voice in the
wilderness.
Gore
fuses a now-credible message—global warming—with a call
to action that has aging rock stars and rebellious,
tech-savvy youth responding with the same level of
enthusiasm. Soon, Quelch forecasts, Gore will be a
lifestyle brand.
Rewards
for leaders
THE
bigger a brand becomes, the wider its reach, the faster
it starts reaping the rewards of globalization: Economic
integration, comparative advantages, mobility of capital
and goods and people and talent and technology that
spans borders.
Global
brands enjoy price premiums—the world is a village where
keeping up with the Joneses remains a favorite sport.
Brand
leaders also enjoy lower marketing costs, procurement
and supply-side efficiencies, the leverage of event
sponsorships, less administrative complexity, lower
costs for new market entries and faster distribution
access for new products.
A global
corporate culture with a common purpose works to cement
these gains, ridding corporations of traditional
top-down bureaucracy. Swift idea transfer and reverse
learning eventually ensures a more dynamic work force,
boosting employee recruitment and retention levels.
The top
brands always start with functional quality, then build
on this advantage by using imagery and shared values.
Quelch warns that the order of priorities is vital;
Preaching about values is useless if quality sucks.
It is
important, he says, to invest in research and
development to keep on top of the competition.
Eight of
the top 10 brands on the 2007 list (Brandz 100) of
consultancy firm Milward Brown are American and Quelch
credits. This is partly to the high premium placed by US
firms on R&D. Tide, the laundry soap brand, Quelch
points out, has innovated 42 times in 50 years.
The
Japanese did, the Koreans did, and Quelch believes
China, despite its current quality control woes, will
soon take the same route of its Asian neighbors.
Ties
that bind
YET,
capital alone doesn’t make for a great brand. Even
capital and quality products won’t guarantee that.
The
global branding game calls for emotional ties,
highlighting the aspirational qualities of products and
services, and perceived higher standards of corporate
social responsibility.
The US
government may act heavy these days, perhaps accounting
for the slide of some American firms in the recent
Businessweek/Interbrand global brands survey.
But
there is still magic in an American brand—though US
firms like IBM and Boeing have won by rebranding as
manufacturers of truly global products, the latter by
highlighting that 30 countries help produce its 787 hit
model.
American
brands occupy 50 percent of the top 100 brands list
because, whether one likes the
US
government or not, American society still retains the
cache of its more innocent, more optimistic days. And,
unlike their government, US firms try to build bridges
among cultures by focusing on similarities rather than
differences in their various markets.
Superbrands send a message of inclusion, rather than
exclusion. The top ones, notes Quelch, have found that
it is more effective to build on shared values rather
than chase after market differences. Brands now manage
clusters based on market geography and stages of brand
development.
‘Global
pull, local push’
While
globalization can further strengthen master brands, it
can also make them more vulnerable as accidents can set
back reputations.
The
world’s former have-nots, now playing catch-up with
their richer brethren, also require a different
handling, never mind that emotions and drivers and ways
of thinking are uniform across 95 percent of the human
species.
Tapping
into regional pride—think credit-card commercials with
flying heroes and heroines and truly Asian
transport—will draw emerging markets, says Quelch. This
celebrates, like Dove does, the wonders of diversity as
it upholds shared values—an important message for former
colonies—efficiency, swift service and a commitment to
the consumer.
It helps
for global brands to acquire local brands, find local
endorsers, work with local partners and executives, and
act as good local citizens.
But,
says Quelch, market leaders are taking stock of the
world and consumer trends. The primary question two
decades back was, “Why not global?” At a time when huge
Asian economies are booming—sending entrenched Western
leaders scrambling for a share of their [slowly] opening
markets—the question is becoming, “Why global?”
Not
every brand needs to go global, says the Harvard dean.
There are plenty of opportunities for local
entrepreneurs. Besides, he points out, no brand ever
became a global leader without first seeking dominance
in the home market. |
