Global Consumerism

Kleenex®, Band-Aid® and Coke® all marketed their brands too well over the years. To many, every tissue is a Kleenex®, and every small plastic or fabric bandage is a Band-Aid®. On the other hand, people may refer to all (or perhaps only the dark) soft drinks as Cokes®, but that company enjoys a high level of customer loyalty that other common brands do not.

Building the Brand

The opposite side of well-known brands is that consumers readily differentiate product classes between brands. Ketchup is not referred to as a generic Heinz® as is the case with tissues and bandages, yet consumers make clear distinction between Heinz and other brands of ketchup. They also have their favorites and generally will not stray from the one to which they have assigned their loyalties.

Coca-Cola has the world's most recognizable brand and is available all around the world. The entire beverage industry has undergone changes in recent years that have affected Coke along with its competitors.

Nearly from its inception, the mission of the Coca-Cola Company has been to make the product a universal, global one.

One sees them everyday. Pictures of cars, images of gleaming coffeepots, and dancing soap bubbles. Ask any adult in their late twenties to sing a jingle from McDonald's, and the version given will more than likely include 'Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us...'. Why after all these years has the jingle become part of the collective consciousness? Because that's the power of advertising.

Advertising has been synonymous with the human experience since very early times. This has been shown to be true as excavations in Pompeii and early Rome show advertisements for property rental and goods(Wissen Erleben 2002). In America, advertising began around the early 1870's and included a new idea: mail order catalogues. These were developed in response to the location of most of the consumer base. They were very rural and families did not live near one another. This helped to solve the situation, and since then catalogue sales have been a cultural fact, and a form of advertising that has gone global.