Overseas Consumers Increasingly Shunning U.S. Brand Name Products

Published on Wednesday, December 29, 2004 by OneWorld.net

U.S. Businesses Overseas Threatened by Rising Anti-Americanism

by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's foreign policy may be costing U.S.
corporations business overseas--according to a new survey of 8,000
international consumers released this week by the Seattle-based Global
Market Insite (GMI) Inc.

Unfortunately, current American foreign policy is viewed by international
consumers as a significant negative, when it used to be a positive.

Dr. Mitchell Eggers, GMI's chief operating officer and chief pollster
Brands closely identified with the U.S., such as Marlboro cigarettes,
America Online (AOL), McDonald's, American Airlines, and Exxon-Mobil are
particularly at risk. GMI, an independent market research company, conducted
the survey in eight countries December 10-12 with consumers over the
internet.

One third of all consumers in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan,
Russia, and the United Kingdom said that U.S. foreign policy, particularly
the "war on terror" and the occupation of Iraq, constituted their strongest
impression of the United States.

Twenty percent of respondents in Europe and Canada said they consciously
avoided buying U.S. products as a protest against those policies. That
finding was consistent with a similar poll carried out by GMI three weeks
after Bush's November election victory.

"Unfortunately, current American foreign policy is viewed by international
consumers as a significant negative, when it used to be a positive,"
according to Dr. Mitchell Eggers, GMI's chief operating officer and chief
pollster.

"Some American brands become closely connected to their country of origin
and are quintessentially American," he added. "They represent the American
lifestyle, innovation, power, leadership, and foreign policy."

Whether the U.S. foreign policy under Bush is affecting the sales of U.S.
corporations overseas is being hotly debated by advertising and public
relations firms, as well as the companies themselves. Last month, Kevin
Roberts, chief executive of advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi, told the
Financial Times that he believed consumers in Europe and Asia were becoming
increasingly resistant to having "brand America rammed down their throats."

Simon Anholt, author of 'Brand America' has also predicted a consumer
backlash against U.S. foreign policy. He recently told the British trade
magazine, 'Marketing Week', that four more years of Bush's foreign policy
could have grave consequences for U.S. companies' international market
share.

"There have already been casual protest brands, such as Mecca Cola, which
are primarily political," he told the weekly. "But things are now moving
beyond that. For instances, German restaurants are beginning to refuse
American Express cards. This is new territory."

Other analysts have been skeptical, arguing that recent declines in sales
in France and Germany by McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and Marlboro were due far
more to other factors, including flagging economies in both countries or a
simple failure by companies to adapt rapidly enough to consumer tastes.

But the new survey, as well as the one taken by GMI last month, suggests
that the unpopularity of U.S. foreign policy may indeed be playing a role,
at least for companies that are either strongly identified with the United
States or that are perceived as having similar characteristics as its
foreign policy.

"American companies are accused of aggressiveness and arrogance because
they insist on imposing the American way of doing things on their
international markets; they are inflexible," according to Allyson
Stewart-Allen, co-author of 'Working With Americans,' a business best-seller
published by Prentice Hall in 2002.

She argued that the more U.S. companies distance themselves from their U.S.
identity, the better they will survive in the international marketplace.
"U.S. companies abroad now need to focus on adding yet more value and
repositioning their brands to consumers in the intensely competitive global
village in which they compete"

"The more aligned they are with those customers--regardless of their
U.S.-created DNA--they'll win." American companies need to focus on
alignment with international markets and embrace their market differences
and idiosyncrasies.

The survey cited 40 U.S.-based companies and asked consumers who said they
were trying to avoid buying U.S. brands to rate each one of them by how
closely they were identified with being "American," and whether or not they
deliberately avoided buying their products.

The survey then plotted each company's position on a quadrant divided into
"safe" and "insulated" squares at the bottom and "at risk" and "problem
squares" at the top.

Those deemed "safe" or "insulated" generally were either not seen as
particularly "American" (Visa, Kodak, Kleenex or Gillette), or they
apparently lacked real competition (Microsoft, Heinz, and Disney).

Visa was the single best performer: only 17 percent of consumers identified
as intending to avoid U.S. brands thought that it was "extremely American,"
and only 15 percent said they intended to boycott it. Fifty-four percent
said they had used Visa at least once in the previous month.

"Problem" companies, on the other hand, included those which more than a
third of boycotting consumers said they intended to avoid, and more than 40
percent of consumers said they considered to be "extremely American."

On that scale, Marlboro was found to be the most problematic. Sixty percent
of respondents said they avoided the product, while two-thirds said they
considered it to be "extremely American." Only McDonald's had a higher
"American" score, at 73 percent, but only 42 percent of respondents said
they avoided the Golden Arches.

In contrast to Visa's performance, 48 percent of boycotting consumers said
they would definitely avoid using American Express; 64 percent said they
thought the company was "extremely American," and only two percent reported
using it during the previous month.

Other problem brands included Exxon-Mobil, AOL, American, Chevron Texaco,
United Airlines, Budweiser, Chrysler, Barbie Doll, Starbucks, and General
Motors.

The latest poll found that more than two thirds of European and Canadian
consumers have had a negative change in their view of the United States as a
result of U.S. foreign policy over the last three years. Nearly half believe
that the war in Iraq was motivated by a desire to control oil supplies,
while only 15 percent believed it was related to terrorism.

Nearly two thirds of European and Canadian consumers also said they believe
U.S. foreign policy is guided primarily by self-interest and
empire-building, while only 17 percent believe that the defense of freedom
and democracy is its guiding principle.

Half of the entire sample said they distrusted U.S. companies, at least in
part because of the U.S. foreign policy. Seventy-nine percent said they
distrusted the U.S. government for the same reason, while 39 percent said
they distrusted the American public.

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