Nearly two years ago to date, I was lost in a Carrefour Hypermarket in Dubai whilst trying to find staple household items such as bread, milk and eggs. The absence of familiar brands that made my product purchase decision making cycles infinitely easier made me quickly realise that I was far from home.
Apparently I was not alone in feeling a little homesick after not being able to connect with familiar brands in a foreign country.
In her article titled ‘Using brands to overcome culture shock’ (2012), Dr. Eliane Karsaklian finds that “the negative attitudes and feelings of an inescapable loss of country differences created by the vision of same brands and same advertising everywhere in tourists and other ephemeral travellers, are positive to expatriates who look for stability and familiarity when freshly arrived in the host country.” (Karsaklian, 2012)
Dr. Karsaklian further elaborates, stating that “global brands are precious helpers, by providing practical and emotional safety by reconstituting memories of situations from the homeland”, and that “living abroad, expatriates seem likely to stick to their values by buying brands that convey those same values.”
In a study conducted on expatriate shopping behaviour in the Netherlands, expats were asked about products from their home country that were unavailable in regular Dutch stores. The majority indicated that there are indeed specific products that they miss: mainly foods, clothing, books and media, and personal care products.” (G.J. Wijnen, 2012)
Expatriate consumer behaviour highlights the significance of brand association and personality development in any marketing strategy, be it global or localised.
Brand association is described as the intangible cognitive and emotional associations that the company helps the customer connect to its brand, whereas brand personalities capture information specific to the brand, as well as holistic perceptions about the brand and company position in the marketplace (Iacobucci, 2013, pp79).
Brand association and personality could also be described in terms of a relationship between the consumer and a brand. Keller (2012) uses the term ‘brand resonance’ to characterise the nature of consumer-brand relationships. Brand resonance is “the extent to which a person feels that he or she resonates or connects with a brand and feels ‘in sync’ with it.” It is measured in terms of intensity (depth of psychological bond) and activity (frequency of purchases and use).
An example of a company that every expatriate has taken refuge in (due to their firm understanding of the importance of brand association and personality) is McDonalds. One of the aims of McDonalds is to create a standardised set of products that taste the same, regardless of what country you find yourself in (C. Vignali, 2001). The company ensures consistent quality across its vast network, through the establishment of tight supplier specifications, as well as global quality assurance teams and a regimented staff training program (C. Vignali, 2001).
“When I arrived in the airport, I felt as the only fish in the ocean, because I didn’t know anyone. Then, there was an ad for Heineken beer and I went to a bar to drink it with some Lay’s chips while seeing ads for cars and watches at the bar’s TV, and was wondering in which McDonald’s I would have dinner that evening.” (Karsaklian, 2012, pp 11)
In summary, the common expatriate experience of looking for stability and familiarity in brands when freshly arrived in the host country shows us the true potential and importance of brand associations and personalities. Every company should aim to market its produce so that the effect of removing it from consumers would have a real and deeply felt impact.
Do you have your own expatriate experience relating to the importance of brand association and personality? We’d love to hear about them.
References
D. Iacobucci, Marketing Management (MM), South Western, Cengage Learning, 4th Edition, 2014, Ch 6 – 8
K.L. Keller, Understanding the richness of brand relationships: Research dialogue on brands as international agents, Journal of Consumer Psychology 22, 2012, pp 186 – 190
E. Karsaklian, Using brands to overcome culture shock, Australian and New Zealand Academy of Marketing Management (ANZAM), 2012, accessed through http://www.anzam.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf-manager/222_ANZAM-2012-041.PDF
C. Vignali, McDonalds: “think global, act local” – the right marketing mix, British Food Journal, 2001, Vol 103, pp 97 – 111.
Marketing Management Blog 
Consumers across the world can be divided into four groups;
1) Global citizens- people who are concerned about the company’s behaviour on the environment.
2) Global dreamers- category of consumers who accept all the brands’ myths.
3) Anti-global- consumers who avoid transnational products.
4) Global agnostics – consumers who do not give any special attention to global brands.
The relative sizes of all the above categories are consistent throughout the world. Marketers understand and study the above categories before entering the market and develop suitable strategies.
Holt, D.B., Quelch, J.A., Taylor, E.L., 2004. How Global Brands Compete?, Harvard Business
Review, 82, 68-75
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Hello Group ,
I appreciate you blog as you have not given any theories or definitions about the chosen topic instead you have shared personal opinions which is precise and perfect about the particular topic and sharing of your personal experiences has created a positive impact on my mind.
Keep Going. Cheers!
Thanks
With Regards
Nishanth
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Awesome blog and indeed you are not alone in feeling a little homesick because of unfamiliar brands. I think that products with strong brands tend to carry on through all the changes that a company may going through and we as consumers are more likely to stick to familiar brands no matter where we are in the world as the brands tends to build customer loyalty leading to repeated purchases. This becomes a plus for the company beacuse they increase their profits. Strong brands are said to convey emotion too and from my own expatriate experience, I would go to a store for shopping and once I see familiar brand I immediately purchase with no second thoughts just because I am used to the products example vaseline, colgate, kitkat, dairymilk cadbury (I love chocolate). Emotions are conveyed in the sense that I would not even look at the rest of the products available simply because they are not familiar. Clearly without familiar brands and in a new country very many people would feel lost and confused on what products or services to start using.
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Completely relate to your point!
A few years ago I spent a couple of months in India. Even thought I considered myself well traveled it was the first destination which felt very foreign. I remember on the second week of my trip I sought solace in a westernised mall selling Tommy Hillfiger, S&B, D&G and other well known brands. I spent hours traversing through the shops which looked identical to their counterparts in Melbourne.
Ultimately I did end up making purchases in an Indian branded store ‘Allen Solly’. It was far more expensive than all the other locally produced shops but had a sense of quality which in retrospect I can say was due to it’s proximity to other well known brands.
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I definitely agree with you here, as an Irish expat settled in Australia for the last 15 years, there are still some things that I miss about Ireland and I wasn’t at all surprised to read that they’re the same things most of us miss http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/tayto-cadbury-kerrygold-products-irish-4734318
Tayto crisps were top of my list, second was the Irish/UK version of Cadbury’s chocolate (yes, despite the global brand name, it does taste different here). Both the brands and the product have the power to trigger a deep emotional connection with the past.
I was pleasantly surprised to find both on the aisles of my local Woolworth’s and although I don’t get homesick anymore, it’s nice to take the odd ‘trip down memory lane’ and sit back with a pack of crisps and a Wispa and remind myself of home!
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I so understand…I love the fact that Coles stocks the quintessential Kiwi products from my youth…although the packaging seems somewhat smaller these days. L&P or chocolate fish anyone?
My (non-healthy) dietary decisions aside, your blog prompted three questions for me.
The first was in relation to our second case study, where Kellogg’s is a global brand, but they tailor their products differently to the palette (and culture) of the country they are selling in. So, yes, whilst the brand might be global…is it exactly the same product you are purchasing in Country A versus Country B? (Think about your Cadburys example).
My second point ( the inverse of this) is that a brand may be different but the product remains the same. For example, ‘Burger King’ in the US is known as ‘Hungry Jacks’ in Australia. Even mega-global brands like Coke go by different names. Do you fancy a Diet Coke or a Coke light…same, same, but different.
The third question probably harks back to consumer behaviour and the influence of product selection and indoctrination from childhood. Knowing we tend to assimilate with products that our parents used, does it stand to reason that in an ever increasing global economy that we will start to all crave the same products and in turn, the market will become reduced to monopolies or duopolies? With the gradual erasure of international boundaries…will heterogeneity slowly become a thing of the past and will we become bored with travelling between countries where there are no cultural differences?
It must be a challenge for global corporations to figure out if they are Arthur or Martha whilst sticking true to the values and brand identity that underpin their business beyond immediate profit…
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Thanks for your post Group 56. It immediately made me think of two (of many) occasions where this has occurred for my husband and I. The first was a trip to Thailand we took in our first year together. It was the first time my husband had been out of the country and while it was a great holiday, it was a bit of a culture shock for him. We were about three or four days in to our trip when he requested McDonalds for lunch for a little familiarity from home. It was all he needed to get him through the rest of our trip.
The second time was when we were living in London. I still remember being so excited walking into our local Sainsbury’s and seeing vegemite on the shelf. Cliché I know, but sometimes you just need a little piece of home to relieve some of that feeling of being homesick.
It’s interesting to note how familiar brands can elicit feelings of safety and comfort through memories of ones homeland.
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personally, i think personality is associated with the brand in different cultures. I have friends in Taiwan are looking for Monsters, and asked me to bring them some every time I go visit; I have friend asking me to buy Ken’s steak house buttermilk ranch dressing from the US. from my view point, it highly related how well they are related to their own culture. Maybe when people are away from home, they would prefer something from the same place to seek the feeling of security and belonging. Second, a brand that has been promoted to a similar products from other countries, could be a sign of globalization.
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Hi HAANDR3101!
Thank you for posting a blog on brand personalty and brand association. As an international student in Australia, I can very much relate to the topic. I believe the impact of brands you use for convenience is time based. For example, the long life milk I used to purchase back home still has a high recall but its importance and association faded with time. Living in Australia, I am now much more used to thinking of local brands, say Devondale milk in this case.
On the other hand, high involvement brands like Toyota, Samsung, Sony, Rolex and others have global powers. I would call them Global Power brands. Brand association in this case remains high regardless of usage.
Reading the blog, I wondered why global brands worked so effectively and what were the key factors to market such brands. I read an article, ‘Why global brands work?’ on Harvard Business School official website. It draws a contrast between Toyota and Ford. 20 years ago, Japanese manufacturers focused on what global consumers want: world class modernity at affordable prices, therefore they sold standard products worldwide. Alternatively, Ford adapted its manufacturing from one country to another. This led to increased prices and reduced consumer willingness to buy,
The article also talks about five characteristics global brands have in common. Do have a look at the article if you have time.
Why Global Brands Work, Harvard Business School.
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5800.html
Brand personality, association, resonance, there is so much more to wonder and so much more to know!
Good luck!
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I am a Sri Lankan student. There are lot of Sri Lankan shops in Australia. They sells jams, sauces soft drinks etc where Autralian brands are readily available for much cheaper price. But because of the brand association we tend to purchase those items. The items in Those shops are unreasonably high than that of Sri Lankan price. I think its a good example for exploiting the brand sensitiveness of customers
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Had brand association been developed currently, product purchasing decision would have been changed along with the development. With my experience, brand association has exerted many influences in my daily life. When I travel to another country, I want to purchase the new brands’ products considering the good quality and the fresh feeling to use some new products. There is existing a contrast between the local brands’ products and foreign brands’ products when I buy the products, however, it can be changed with the specific circumstance, such as the convenience to purchase the products, new brand reputation and the price level of the new products. Where purchasing the new brands’ products, that is including the disappointing situation in that the little familiarity of recognizing and using the products. Thus, in my opinion, personality can directly relate to the brand association when we affect through the subjective and emotional factors resulting in final purchasing decision of customers.
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The expat brand experience does exist, I was oddly happy to find Tim Tams and peanut butter in stores in Doha, and of course these items were purchased almost immediately because of familiarity. But on discovering new brands from other parts of the world, Australian brands lost their importance. With access to Carefour, Monoprix and various other supermarkets with larger selections compared to Australia, brand loyalty quickly dissipated.
So maybe brand awareness is fickle to the consumer when other comparable items are in abundance and advertised, and not necessarily cheaper.
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Great blog!
I have been arriving Australia for 6 weeks, I am so miss the brands that are in my hometown. In Australia, there brands are very unfamiliar when i have go out and walk in the shopping centre, may be the most familiar brand for me is the Mcdonald’s.
But the woolworths give me an impressive perceptions to me, i dont know why, may because the good brand name, or my first purchasing activity is in woolworths after i arrived.
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The international section of my local Coles/Woolies used to be a quarter of one side of an aisle, now it’s an entire aisle and the different countries represented keep growing. Even just one or two brands from home can make people feel comfort. It’s a smart move by the big supermarkets to offer as many international brands as possible – even just to get them through the door for one item could see loyalty to that supermarket from there forward.
As a food lover, one of my favorite things to do when I go back to Canada is to go grocery shopping and gleefully grab all the things I loved in high school (mostly sugar based items surprisingly). If I see a product here that isn’t normally available I will pay hugely inflated prices for it just for a touch of nostalgia. I once paid $15 for a carton of North American cereal (Cinnamon Toast Crunch for any Canadians/Americans out there!)
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I can relate to this blog, being an Australian and having lived in the Ukraine for 6 months and also having visited China on a couple of occasions recently. As for my own experience, whilst in the Ukraine, I must admit, the main focus during shopping expeditions was, ‘Is there anything in this place that is familiar?’ I can assure you, that any food item that had a familiar brand name was purchased.
However, something that was very familiar was McDonalds. The beauty of McDonalds is that you know what you’ll get, because their ‘perceived’ standards are similar all over the world and their products are universal, generally speaking. I found myself eating their at least once or twice a week as a result.
Furthermore, I know someone who recently moved to Nanjing, China for a 3 year assignment and they had great difficulty in locating a simple product such as dishwashing powder.
Consider the quote from Cheng et al. 2005, “In order to gain a competitive edge during the process of internationalization or globalisation, firms have attempted to develop their brands on a global scale. The benefits of developing such brands include high quality and prestige perceived by local customers, ease in attracting potential employees and partners overseas, along with cross-border learning and cultural benefits, all of which result in cost efficiencies of marketing strategies and facilitate international market entries.”
Furthermore to this, such firms can attract a constant consumer base, no matter where in the world, as per my previous McDonalds example. This is definitely a globalised segment base that firms should be tapping into.
Cheng, J. M, Blankson, C, Wu, P. C. S, Chen, S. S. M 2005, ‘A Stage Model of International Brand Development: The perspectives of manufacturers from two newly industrialized economies—South Korea and Taiwan’, Industrial Marketing Management, Volume 34, Issue 5, pp. 504–514
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I’ve certainly felt the pull of brand familiarity when traveling overseas. I’m vegetarian, but I still remember seeing the McDonalds sign on my first trip to China in 2006, and being pleased that I could walk in and get some fries without having to work out what I could eat from a menu in a restaurant (although the fries probably weren’t vegetarian!). I don’t even go to McDonalds here, but the brand is so well-known that I knew what I would be getting, even in the centre of Beijing! Interestingly, I believe their menu isn’t the same in all countries – perhaps this could lead to some disappointment in the brand for some people?
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Great post!
Being an expat myself I really identified with your post. Interestingly enough, however, I wasn’t all that phased by the absence of some of my favourite Canadian commodity items when I came to Australia, I was more affected by the natural erosion of the part of my Canadian identity that was associated with my network of friends and family back home.
The more I assimilated into my life in Australia, the more the connection with my identity as a Canadian seemed to be fade. To mitigate these feelings, I re-opened my Facebook account (that I had closed several years beforehand) and re-connected with my network back home. I also added myself to groups that connected me to Canadian expat communities in Australia as well as other Canadian companies/brands that resonated with my national identity i.e. CBC News Facebook page etc.
An interesting article called, Facebook vs Forums for Expat Marketers states that, online interaction is one way marketers are tapping into and targeting the expat community. Most of this interaction takes place on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter with 60% of expats regularly using Facebook. The growth in the number of expat related pages like InterNations, that receives over 200 Likes on many of their posts and have nearly 10,000 Likes on their page itself, demonstrates the expat demographic is making its mark.
Expats undoubtedly lack brand loyalty in their new country of residence, however, social media acts as a bridging mechanisms or forum between advertisers and expats to keep them connected to the brands (and people) they love. In fact, according to marketingprofs.com, 62% of advertising and marketing executives expect companies to increase their spend on Facebook marketing in the next 12 months (a study done back in 2013).
For example, HSBC Expat Explorer Survey campaign gathered data from ‘5,000 expats across the globe and collated it into a table and map of statistics, making it the biggest survey of its kind. Through using primarily social media it managed to reach 200,000 people across the Internet upon its launch, with no advertising spend at all. A similar strategy to target expats on sites like Facebook was used by American sports channel ESPN when it began its European operations. Here the idea was to create a buzz powered by the strong opinions that many people have on sport. After launching a campaign targeting American expats in the Netherlands and France, its overwhelming success led to a subsequent expansion to include Switzerland and Germany’ (Ashcroft 2013) http://expatmarketing.com/news/online-advertising/facebook-vs-forums.
According to There Are a Million Expats on Facebook, and now you can Target them, ‘Facebook estimates that at least 92 million of its users are expatriates and these people do not use the network to only stay connected to their friends and families. Brands, celebrities, sport teams and news outlets are also a great way for them to keep in touch with home. With expat targeting, @etihadairways reached 536K Indian expats, leading to 700 bookings!’ http://wersm.com/there-are-92-million-expats-on-facebook-and-now-you-can-target-them/
‘A true global brand (and perhaps neither surprisingly nor coincidentally, the biggest brands), carries one brand name and logo anywhere it is offered, and it is available in most markets win the world. Amzaon.com look just like Amazone.co.uk and Google.com looks like Google.fr.’ (Iacobucci, 85) despite a few variations that may ‘localise’ the look of the logo on particular days. The Facebook logo promotes a global consistency in design that people not only associate with but seek comfort in as expats, as it is symbolises and instant portal back home where you can stay connected with your network through pictures, instant chat, common interest groups, and even phone calls. ‘There are corporate efficiencies to using the same brand information, communications and strategies everywhere. Strictly speaking, true global brands are those that seek, achieve, and maintain similar positioning in all their markets’ (Iacobucci, 85).
http://expatmarketing.com/news/online-advertising/facebook-vs-forums
http://wersm.com/there-are-92-million-expats-on-facebook-and-now-you-can-target-them/
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-13/brain-drain-expats-overseas-return-economy-reverse/4814886
Iacobucci, D 2014, MM4, 4th edn, Cengage South-Western, Mason, OH.
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being a international student, i totally agree with the point of view in the article. the brand association just like the normal habit for people. When i came australia first, i am shopping in the Coles, some drinking brands is the local which is very unfamiliar, but the Coke always be the Coke. It is very popular in the world. i buy a box of Coke without hesitation even if the price is expensive than other drink. Because the customer prefer to buy the familiar products, it is not related with quality.
the other interesting story people in the foreign country will be interested the store which has the same name with own country. And they will like shopping in there no matter it is the same or not.
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Nice post Group 56. It immediately made me think of one occasion where this has occurred for my friend and I. The first was a trip to France. It was the first time my friend had been out of the country and while it was a great holiday, it was a bit of a culture shock for him. We were about three or four days in to our trip when he requested rice dish for lunch for a little familiarity from home. It was all he needed to get him through the rest of our trip.
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Great Blog!
Brand association just like the normal habit for people. When I came to Australia to buy daily products and groceries I started shopping in the Coles, I was confused to buy products because there were many brands selling same products and I wasn’t aware of such brands. Brands such Coke will always be the Coke but it tasted different in flavor from my country. Like all customer prefer to buy the familiar products with which I am related and opted for store which sells of my home country but the price is high. It’s the brand association with the product of home country that makes the customer feel comfortable and customers relate to it.
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