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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
VII. Special Topics and
Perspectives
20. International
Advertising and Promotion
How Many Truly Global Brands Are There?
In his classic 1983 book The Marketing Imagination,
Harvard marketing professor Theodore
Levitt argued that the world was becoming a
common marketplace where people have the
same basic needs, wants, desires, and tastes no
matter where they live. Levitt called on marketers
to develop global marketing strategies
and true global brands that could be sold under
one name around the globe. Many multinational
companies heeded the call for globalization, and
their ad agencies were given the charge of helping
them turn their products into global brands
that could be promoted with the same advertising
theme and approach worldwide.
A number of consumer-product companies
such as PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble,
and Nestlé have been successful in turning many
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
of their products into global brands. However,
while many companies refer to their products
as “global brands,” precious few consumer
packaged-goods brands are really global in
scope. According to a recent study by the A. C.
Nielsen Company, one of the world’s leading
market research firms, only 43 consumer-product
brands can be considered truly global. To be part
of Nielsen’s global brand list, a brand was
required to have sales of over a billion dollars
(U.S.), have at least 5 percent of its sales outside
of its home region, and have a geographic presence
in all major regions of the world. The study
findings are based on data from 30 countries
that account for 90 percent of the world’s gross
domestic product (GDP) and are spread across all
the major regions of the world.
The 43 brands on the Nielsen global brand list
represent 23 companies and more than $125 billion
in annual sales. Brands with major presence
in North America dominate the list. PepsiCo had
the most brands on the list, with six, while Philip
Morris Companies (including Kraft Foods) and
Procter & Gamble each had five brands, followed
by Coca-Cola with four, and Kimberly-Clark,
Gillette, and Mars with two each. The product
category with the most global brands was beverages,
which is probably not surprising to any
global traveler. Nearly one-third of the brands on
the list were some type of beverage, including
five carbonated beverages, two juice brands, one
sports drink, two coffee brands, and three beer
brands. Beverage companies are clearly ahead on
the globalization curve, both in the number of
products and in the level of sales. The total Coca-
Cola brand was number one among the beverages,
with over $15 billion in sales.
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