ABSTRACT

Topic Explore the challenges faced by companies in Global Brand Development. Introduction Richard Parsons (2004) CEO of Time Warner states that, Weve gone from a place where 200 years ago your market was where you could walk in a day, to a place where your marketplace is the whole globe. Due to increasingly barrier less global marketplace, globalisation has become rampant in the last decade, and in order to gain a competitive advantage during the process of globalisation, building a brand on a global scale for companies is the Holy Grail (Cheng et al., 2005). During the global branding process there are lot of challenges faced by transnational companies in their pursuit of creating and developing brands that stretches across multiple societies, cultures and geographies which also possess the ability to connect with consumers across the world. Therefore, the companies with global aspirations need to turn all these challenges into opportunities in order for them to progress on a global scale.

The report for Global Marketing would aim to shed light on the issues and other dynamic aspects of the stages of global brand development, which would enable or enhance the formulation of informed decisions and better judgements for future challenges for companies. Research approach The governing factor in the report would be that global branding concepts are potent tools for companies to utilize in order to overcome the hurdles which come its way in the global brand building process. As mentioned by Aaker&Joachimsthaler (2000, p.308), A blind stampede towards a global brand development by a company, can be the wrong course and even result in significant brand damage. The first area of my discussion in the report would be to investigate the motivations behind developing a global brand for companies and why does it really matter to brand a product or service when going global. This would form the crux of my report as I try to find what challenges grapple companies in the development stage of building a global brand using examples of real companies. Brand building is not a solitude process. According to Jean-Noel Kapferer (2008), there are prerequisites before a brand can actually be built which encompass implementation of strategies at the product, price, place, people and communication levels. I seek to examine how following best practices in global branding can facilitate the evolution of a product or service into a global brand. As the report demands in-depth and comprehensive discussion on the problems which persists during the development phase of global brands. So it is critical to understand that the issues of global brand development is faced by all transnational companies and not all of them can be solved with the help of global branding strategies and concepts, it requires a clear vision, the expertise, capability and the mandate to drive brand building and management decisions company wide and globally. This notion is reiterated by Keegan (2008) that any company wanting to develop international or global brands should have a clear idea of why and what are they trying to achieve. Companies who wish to entertain a global audience need to acclimatize themselves to the global mind set and ensure that they have the talent that can compete in the international market. There has been extensive research conducted on global branding but there is little impetus given on academic research for global brand development and the uncertainties surrounding the same, which remains a key issue for many companies till now. I intend to approach this

topic in a holistic manner where I would explore dominant areas of global brand development like brand positioning, standardisation-localisation issue, market-entry strategy, global brand name, human resource management, market research, value proposition and communication programs. Audience Analysis The Global Marketing report would have a set number of audiences comprising of module coordinator, department committee board and may be the brand managers of the companies. They would seek from the report my ability to demonstrate in-depth understanding and knowledge of the research topic.

Research Questions What are the key challenges in the stages of global brand development across companies with global ambitions? What are the strategies used to build the global brand?

Aims and Objectives: The report will strive to answer the above mentioned question by working on these aims y

The main aim of the Global Marketing report topic is to identify the challenges that must be addressed in order to successfully build and maintain a global brand.

The Global Marketing report will further consider to simplify the daunting process of global brand development

The Global Marketing report will elaborate on the strategies for developing a strong global brand.

The Global Marketing report will seek to investigate on what perceived benefits or pressures drive down companies to go global and also to establish whether building a

global brand is a strategic imperative, a competitive differentiator or an outcome of a marketing communication strategy for the company.

The Global Marketing report will also promote the concepts of global branding borrowed from globalisation and branding literatures to transnational companies.

Objectives The objective of the Global Marketing report is to give a more rounded insight into the challenges that companies struggle with during the process of creating and developing a global brand.

Methodology

There are two types of research methodologies as the figure shows above and I will be following the deductive approach to carry out my research, All the research, findings and information for the report would be drawn from secondary data gathered from acad emic books, magazine articles, professional interviews, published journals and standard websites on global brand management. Academic Books and Published Journals are both credible sources of data and I would be strongly relying on these to collate information about famous

brand building projects, building global brand techniques in different economies and also the success stories. Many of the Journals of Brand Management I was looking for was not in the Campus Library. This led me to search articles and journals through websites like Business Wire, Harvard Business Review, News Bank, Palgrave Macmillan and Emerald Insight. Even though there is wealth of knowledge on these websites but my concern was whether all the global brand management information has any relevance to my topic of discussion. I focussed on searching online journals through keyword search which enabled me to narrow my area of search. This includes general databases like Academic Search Elite or EBSCO EJS which provided me with relevant and full text of articles. There is constant information looming around long-term and short-term global brand development strategy and many opinions are raised about its importance, which are often influenced by brand management consultants. A majority of these can be found in magazines, articles and on the internet. But the credibility of these resources is questionable. They can also be written by people who don't know a lot about the subject and have formed an opinion on minimum information. For instance - articles favouring a brand management consultancy programme. This data can be misleading and biased whereas articles written by brand managers and Brand analysts have more credibility around them and raise important questions and viewpoints which I believe to follow strongly in the report. Excellent resources on global brand development campaigns on websites like Brand Strategy Insider and Chartered Institute of Marketing are mecca of information where there is ongoing discussion about extolling the virtues of global brand management field and its great influences on the overall successful operation of building a distinct image for a global brand. Being a member of these websites enables me to receive privileged information. It will be a valuable addition to my report to use information from these websites which also gives a good insight into the best practices of global brand management. All in all, this research topic has been widely discussed and written about which provides me with a detailed point of view on the prominence of project management field. But using all the available data would be very time-consuming and there is a possibility that my finding will not cover every aspect of the topic that is intended by the research topic. I aim to overcome this constraint by spending more time on the research.

Literature Review Below are some of the essential reading materials which are closely linked to the research topic. A Stage Model of International Brand Development The perspective of two manufacturers from two newly industrialised economies South Korea and Taiwan by Cheng, Blankson, Wu and Chen This journal proposes, Stage model of International Brand Development, in the light of a gap present in the international branding literature. It suggests that the early stage of development is based on the home market subsequently leading to the initiation of expanding into foreign markets. This model serves as a diagnostic tool for companies to analyse feasible strategies that can be utilised to counter problems like Organisational efficiency and lack of country-specific knowledge in order for them to move up the stages of development process. Global Brand Strategy Unlocking Branding Potential across countries, cultures and Markets by Sicco Van Geldar The author of this book findings are based on how to reach the full potential of a global brand in diverse markets. He puts forward best practice approach to global branding which subdues voices of anti-globalisation and environmental activists that can be detrimental to the success of global brands. Brand Leadership by David Aaker and Erich Joachimsthaler The authors of this book establish 10 guidelines to follow in order to ensure success in building a brand with the support of case studies. Brand globally, market locally by Jennifer Barron and Jim Hollingshead This piece of work puts emphasise for companies to follow three steps to create a global brand. The authors suggest that understanding consumers is a key to developing strong global brands. Creating Powerful Brands by Leslie De Chernatony and Malcolm McDonald

This book is considered to be a comprehensive summary of the recent on-going research and projects in brand-building. It proves to be a guiding force for companies to navigate through challenging times in their pursuit to capitalise on marketing their products or services on a global stage.

The Bibliography (Appendix 1) section lists other academic literatures which I have collated for writing the Global Marketing report including academic books and journals.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT CHART:

Conclusion

I hope the outcome of my dissertation report would throw some light on something which has not been discussed before and help raise some solid points on strategies that can aid the development process of global brand. Global brand development is an evolving field which makes this endeavour more intensive. Building enduring brands on a global scale are more rigid and challenging as oppose to building brands for local audience. This would form an interesting point to cover as it is missing from many global branding course books which is to compare the difference in building brands both locally and globally and how differently companies conceptualise brand building programs and lead them from inception.

The Global Marketing report would cover lot of areas but the cornerstone of the report would be to understand the challenges in the route to building a global brand and the ways in which these challenges can be tackled.