Building a Global Brand Is Not Easy

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Dominique Turpin, Nestlé professor and president of IMD business school, says that big global brands are now born everywhere but building one is not easy.

Much as in developed markets, a brand must offer something meaningful, innovative and different for the consumer. And the innovation does not relate only to the product. It also applies to pricing, advertising, communications and a company’s entire business model.

This all looks simple on paper but is hard to put into practice.

Read the entire article here.

How to Get World Attention on Your Brand

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Every entrepreneur and small business owner wants customers to find them.  In other words, to be discovered.  To know you exist.  How do you make it happen?

Try designing not once, but twice, the First Lady Michelle Obama's inaugural gown and you are sure to become a worldly household name.  And that name is Jason Wu.

Read:  First Lady in Red:  Michelle Obama Repeats Jason Wu for Inaugural Ball

What It Takes To Build a Global Brand

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How do you craft a universal message that resonates with folks across the planet?  Elizabeth Wasserman, for Inc.com, does a good job examining what it takes to build a global brand.

Forty years ago, there were only a handful of truly "global brands" and they were made up of only the biggest corporations -- Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Colgate-Palmolive, IBM, Shell. Then a rash of upstarts came along, such as Nike, Microsoft, Apple, and Honda, and pushed their brand reputation further than their actual sales footprint. But now that barriers to international trade have come down and the Internet has helped small and mid-sized companies compete on the global stage ...

She covers:

• What a global brand is.
• What you need to expand a brand internationally (steps to take).
• Digging deeper:  trademark, copyright and patent protection.
• How to build international brand awareness.

Read the entire article here.