Investigating the Process and Challenges of Building a Global Brand
Introduction
Alam (2016) defined global branding as the extent to which brand evaluation and adoption occur in the geographic continuum.
A global company is a firm that operates in more than one country and captures R&D, production, logistical, marketing, and financial advantages in its costs and reputation that are not available to purely domestic competitors.
Background
Global branding is a degree to which a brand is evaluated and adopted in a geographical continuum; international brands must grow globally to sustain locally. Generally, the building of brands poses categorical challenges in terms of customization, market share, customer behavior, brand equity, product life cycle, environmental change, communications, licensing, positioning, concepts, and so on.
Today’s business is marred with several challenges that are incredibly intense. The brand building stakeholders must be potent enough to comprehend the elements of a brand, link the process of brand building with multipronged social-commercial conditions, and act on the challenges to sustain and empower brand value in the competitive marketplace.
Shipping products from one country to another was a complex undertaking that only big corporations could manage. Later, advancements in transport and technology made it possible for businesses, including smaller ones, to move products quickly across the globe, giving rise to globalization. With increased globalization and saturation in the home market, many brands have shifted attention to the international markets. Companies such as Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and McDonald’s have established operations in different parts of the world, thereby building global brands.
Benefits of Global Brands
Research by Nainawat established that building global brands leads to several benefits to a company (2015). First, it enables them to attain economies of scale both in production and supply. Nainawat also noted that a global brand could help a company to lower market costs when entering a new market (2015). For instance, it is easier for McDonald’s to enter a market than an unknown brand (Yeu et al., 2012). Additionally, Nainawat pointed out that building a global brand creates a premium value for companies due to the favorable association in the consumers’ minds (2015). That way, the company can fix premium prices and achieve optimum profitability. However, succeeding in global markets requires businesses to have a strong brand.
Strategies of Building Global Brands
Strategies of global branding are logical if the target consumers are found across different borders of countries and are exposed to products elsewhere. According to Kumaran and Sritharan (2018), global branding strategies are more vital if target consumers are exposed to advertising worldwide. International firms follow different types of strategies to manage their global brands including brand expansion, brand creation, brand domain, brand reputation, brand affinity, and brand recognition.
Study Rationale
The global business environment has become more competitive (Bhattacharya et al. 2020). Therefore, there is a need to emphasize branding in modern marketing and understand how marketers can follow to build global brands successfully. Moreover, study has a more significant potential to enhance the current understanding of branding in international marketing. Additionally, this study will reveal the crucial role of effective marketing mix strategies in global marketing and branding. Finally, this study’s methodological approach will reveal the crucial role of a market’s image and level of competitiveness in international branding.
This study’s value exists in developing a new, practical methodological approach for developing global branding strategies.
This study will create opportunities for entrepreneurs who want to venture into the international markets.
It will enable entrepreneurs and global brands or firms to enter international markets to develop appropriate brand strategies to make them more competitive.
Research Aim
- Understanding the major concepts of brand management
- Providing supportive evidence for entrepreneurial opportunity
- Building marketing justification
- Identifying key branding issues in the market sector
- Establishing the size and nature of market opportunities
- Bridging the literature gaps and developing the brands knowledge
Research Objectives
This projects has three main research objectives namely:
- To consider the role and place of branding in the modern concept of marketing in the international markets.
- To review and analyse theories and concepts of building international and global branding models.
- To select and classify the main management strategies in the international market.
Entreprenuership Theory
Understanding entrepreneurship theory is critical to this project, and entails the understanding of who an entrepreneur is and what is their roles. An entrepreneur is basically someone who identifies a business opportunity to create goods and services for consumption. Entrepreneurship has several roles in the global markets including contribution to the development of new technologies, and helping in modifying the local conditions of doing business.
With saturation in the domestic market, the intense competition level requires an individual who will identify business opportunities overseas and develop brands that can compete globally (Nambisan, Siegel & Kenney, 2018). Problem-solving is one of the characteristics of entrepreneurship.
There are several entrepreneurship theories that are critical to this study. Several thinkers have proposed different entrepreneurship theories that are critical to the enhancement of global processes of branding. Some of the theories include:
- Economic entrepreneurship theory
- Psychological entrepreneurship theory
- Sociological entrepreneurship theory
- Anthropological entrepreneurship theory
- Opportunity-Based entrepreneurship theory
- Resource-Based entrepreneurship theory.
Outcomes
Nainawat (2015) pointed out that brand managers should understand the brand meaning and develop appropriate market products accordingly. Globalization is often thought of as a necessary condition for the existence of global brands and Global Consumer Culture (GCC). However, global brands existed long before the transition toward an increasingly integrated world (Ambavale & Surti, 2015). Failure to build global brands has led to failure of companies such as Gillette, Jaguar and Arcelor brands. Such brands failed due to several reasons including; poor strategies and failure to address challenges encountered, and limited documentation of the processes, models, and challenges. Another outcome of the project is that increasing value and efficiency of a brand portfolio is vital in dealing with the current, highly competitive business environment. Lastly, there is a need to emphasize branding in modern marketing and understand the process marketers can follow to build global brands successfully.
Reflection on Project Experience
There are businesspeople who have a negative reputation with their employees because of arrogance or stubbornness. This is where some entrepreneurs fall short.
Although there is a need to take the business seriously, employees who feel unhappy in their work environment are less likely to become productive. Entrepreneurs are leaders, who should impart positivity with their employees.
It is challenging to develop and sustain a spiritual life, which we need to overcome. Consequently, it has been proven that unhappy employees are less likely to become productive in their operations. Therefore, there is a need to nourish our souls through reflections by attaining a meaningful life and being an instrument of hope to others.
Reflection on entrepreneurial competency skills Development
I believe there is a need to emphasize branding in modern marketing and understand how marketers can follow to build global brands successfully. This research has a more significant potential to enhance the current understanding of branding in international marketing.
This study’s value exists in developing a new, practical methodological approach for developing global branding strategies. I believe this research will create opportunities for entrepreneurs who want to venture into the international markets. It will enable entrepreneurs and global brands or firms to enter international markets to develop appropriate brand strategies to make them more competitive.
References
Alam, M.R. (2016). Brand building challenges in global market: An overview. International Journal of Management and Applied Sciences, 2(5), 150-156.
Ambavale, R. and Surti, N. (2015). Is brand everything? Issues and challenges of branding in global market. International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management, 4(1), pp.14-18.
Bhattacharya, S., Biswas. S., Gangopadhyay, S. Majumder, J. (2020). Global Branding: A Literature Review. International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, 9(4), 2613-2616.
Kumaran, A. and Sritharan, R. (2018). Global Brands: Issues, Challenges and Strategies.
Nainawat, R. (2015). Challenges of brand building in the global markets. International Research Journal of Management Science & Technology, 6(4), pp. 86-90.
Nambisan, S., Siegel, D. and Kenney, M. (2018). On open innovation, platforms, and entrepreneurship. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 12(3), 354-368.
Yeu, C.S., Leong, K.C., Tong, L.C., Hang, S., Tang, Y., Bashawir, A. and Subhan, M. (2012). A comparative study on international marketing mix in China and India: The case of McDonald’s. Procedia-Social and Behavioural Sciences, 65(1), pp.1054-1059.