As many readers will know, last week finally saw the official launch of The Global Brand. The launch event went very well, but some of the media interviews took a decidedly odd turn thanks to the financial crisis. For example, Fox Business News asked my opinion of President Sarkozy’s intentions, something Carla Bruni might have been better able to comment on.
The launch event was held at The Lighthouse at Pier 61 in New York City. After a brief presentation by yours truly - which apparently took many by surprise because it was so short - we moved on to the panel discussion. Mary Ann Packo, CEO of Millward Brown North America, did a great job of moderating the panel and keeping the conversation moving, and the panelists added their own unique perspectives on the issues facing global brands today.
From left to right my fellow panelists were:
Hayes Roth, CMO at Landor Associates
Richard Gelfond, Co-Chairman & Co-CEO of IMAX
Andrew Bienkowski, Vice-President of Global Brands at Kimberly-Clark
John Seifert, Chairman, Global Brand Community at Ogilvy & Mather
The overall consensus was that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for brands hoping to go global, but one key to the success of strong global brands is the common understanding and shared trust of those responsible for them. If there is not a common understanding of what the brand stands for, the brand fragments and economies of scale are lost. Without trust, it is all too easy for members of the brand team to end up working at cross purposes, failing to accept global initiatives as “not invented here,” or refusing to recognize when things really are different in a specific country.
After the presentation I settled down to sign books while everyone else ate and drank. If Hayes had not left a plate of food for me I might have fainted from hunger!
Earlier in the week I had been interviewed for ABC New Now about the book, and I was also scheduled to appear on Fox Business News on Thursday. Unfortunately the financial crisis overshadowed the need for new insights into brand building, so based on my Chief Global Analyst title, Fox decided to ask me about the European response to the crisis. Off topic and out of my comfort zone, I declined to answer. How would I know what President Sarkozy hoped to achieve by calling four of the five major European powers together to discuss the financial crisis? I presume he was trying to create the perception of a united front for the major economies, but, if so, why was Spain not included in the meeting?
This will be the last post about the book for a while, unless something exciting happens at the event in Toronto next week. Later this week, in response to an e-mail purporting to come from the North Pole, I will consider whether people can accurately identify their emotional response to advertising. Meanwhile, if you have any thoughts on the topic of global brands, I would love to hear them.
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