A new report from McKinsey indicates “US patients and physicians are more likely to base their choice of hospital on nonclinical aspects of a visit…”

As with any business category, consumers are influenced by how they feel as a result of an experience, whether for a hospital stay or in purchasing a latte.

We previously asked the rhetorical question of whether the CEOs of hospitals possess the fearlessness needed to find their respective brands.

As McKinsey suggests, they often do not:

[F]ew hospitals have the marketing skills, the organizational structure, or the operating approach needed to deliver a distinctive experience in the way that retailing and hospitality companies do.

As competition for commercially insured patients heats up, US hospitals will have to invest in the capabilities needed to learn what these patients want and to deliver an experience that could attract them. Hospitals that succeed should gain a sustainable competitive advantage.

Until hospital CEOs and their marketing staffs begin to understand the traditional approach of a new ad campaign, or a PR push for press mentions, does not deliver the competitive advantages of effective brand strategy—the differences illustrated here—they and their in-house marketing team will miss the competitive advantage that comes with owning the health care conversation within their respective markets.

And, for some, the job insecurity of hospital CEOs will continue.

[More posts about Health Care Branding | More posts about Hospital Branding | More posts about Emotional Branding | More blogs about Hospital Branding]

A fashion brand springs literally out of nowhere on track to register $100 million in sales this year. And, they did it without advertising. Impossible? Not at all, in the latest example of brand building without advertising in a report from the New York Times:

[L]ife is…good for Bert Jacobs…[and] his brother John…

From a single childlike drawing of a character they named Jake and their uplifting three-word slogan [the original is shown to the right], the brothers have developed a fashion brand sold in 4,500 independent retail outlets in the United States and 27 other countries…

Life is good, which rations its use of capital letters, offers one more example of a small company creating a big brand. Though most consumers associate great brands with marketing giants like Procter & Gamble, General Motors, Apple and Nike, the ability to build a powerful brand is no longer reserved for the big spenders. Small companies with great ideas and well-planned strategies — Kryptonite bicycle locks, Stonyfield Farm yogurt, Zipcar — have spawned prominent brands.

“A big brand comes from big insights about culture and consumers and what it is that they need,” said Susan Fournier, a brand expert and associate professor of marketing at the School of Management at Boston University. “To me, that has nothing to do with big budgets.”

Exactly. Building a brand into a successful business does not require the budget of a Fortune 500. If it did, of course, a Fortune 500 brand such as General Motors—with an annual advertising budget that in years past was $2.5 billion—would be assured lasting success.

The Life is good story is another example of how a cost effective brand strategy trumps an expensive advertising strategy, each and every time.

How did Life is good create an own the conversation strategy? By differentiating their brand through emotion:

“Life is good tapped into an emotional ethos that struck a chord with where the culture was at a certain point in time. That is not done by a marketing budget but by their customers who become evangelists and give the brand visibility and credibility.”

From the beginning, Life is good shunned advertising:

The Jacobs brothers considered a consumer advertising campaign several years ago but decided to wait until growth slowed to start it. Growth has never slowed. Instead of advertising, the company spends its money on charitable fund-raising festivals for children’s causes.

Read more about Jake and his dog Rocket in another brand success story at this link, and this one.

[More posts about Life is good | More posts about Life is good Brand Image | More posts about Branding Without Advertising | More posts about Growing A Business Without Advertising | More posts about Emotional Branding | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More posts about Fashion Branding | More posts about Apparel Branding | More posts about Brand Success Stories | More blogs about Branding Without Advertising]

The Czech Republic brand opportunity was previously discussed here.

So when tipped to a column addressing the same topic we read it with interest. The author makes this point about destination brand efforts and why they so often fail:

Sadly, last year’s attempt at designing a logo and strapline based on speech bubbles to reflect the many facets of Czech life, is typical of many misplaced place branding efforts - trying to satisfy all stakeholders but failing to capture and dominate a single market segment.

We agree. If a brand attempts to satisfy everyone, it stands for nothing.

The same column further suggests a unique characteristic of Czech life that could be mined to competitively separate the Czech Republic from other nation brands:

The other area of promise can also be found throughout the country, but it is in the capital city - Prague - where the cultural contradiction is most visible… Prague’s skyline - dominated by some 200 Church spires - yet at ground level, over half its population claim to be Atheists.

As reprinted in The Age, in 2003 the Los Angeles Times looked at the state of religion in the Czech Republic, finding:

Recalcitrant and suspicious, Czechs are not entirely godless. They just don’t care for organised religion…

There’s a hostility toward what religion did to them in the past… The Czechs say they’re the most atheist country in Europe, and they say it with some pride. This is how Western civilization may look in 50 years, because people here believe they live a full life without any religion.

If a country were looking to change the conversation about itself to that of an unforgettable place, few would engender more emotion than to stand as the place of no religion. Such a brand position would tap into a ready made global market of approximately 15% of the world’s population, or some one billion people of secular/nonreligious belief.

As with any effective brand position, you must give up something to gain market share. Its part of an own the conversation® strategy. By acknowledging, for example, that John 3:16 believers are not a target market, a brand promise based on a core idea such as “where spirituality lives without religion,” would offer competitive separation and a unique entry point for engagement of a sizable slice of the global tourism market.

Such a promise is a provocation. To qualify as a provocation, a brand promise must contain what most would refer to as negative messages for the goods and services the brand represents.

Fortunately, consumers process these negative messages positively. As long as the message authentically maps to one of the positioning points of your brand, consumers rarely take the meaning literally, and the negative aspects of the message give it greater depth, creating a greater opportunity for audience attraction, engagement and ultimately conversion.

For the Czech Republic, such a promise would change the conversation to a basis the Czech Republic could easily claim, own and extend on a global basis. For example, use of such a brand strategy could ensure massive free media coverage, if managed properly on an evergreen basis. And, it would further elevate tourism as an economic driver in the Czech Republic.

While not a strategy the evangelical or fundamentalist believer would embrace, for those charged with the success of Czech Republic tourism, such a brand demonstration would be the answer to a prayer.

[More posts about Brand Differentiation | More posts about Brand Positioning | More posts about Brand Promise | More posts about Destination Branding | More posts about Place Branding | More posts about Nation Branding | More posts about Czech Republic Brand Image | More posts about Prague | More posts about Czech Republic Tourism | More posts about Czech Republic | More posts about Brand Opportunity | More posts about Emotional Branding | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More blogs about Destination Branding]

The power of emotion behind decision-making comes from what might seem a surprising source.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a young aristocratic French lawyer, traveled to the United States in 1831 to study its penal system. His visit resulted in the classic De la démocratie en Amérique, also known as Democracy in America, a 19th century masterpiece of United States cultural and political analysis. de Touqueville offers this insight of the power of highly charged imprints upon the human mind, and how they guide us throughout life:

[To understand a man] we must watch the infant in his mother’s arms; we must see the first images which the external world casts upon the…mirror of his mind, the first occurrences which he witnesses; we must hear the first words that awaken the sleeping powers of thought, and stand by his earliest efforts—if we could understand the prejudices, the habits and the passions which will rule his life. The entire man is, so to speak, to be seen in the cradle of the child.

Some 170 years ago, de Tocqueville had it right. To understand any audience and identify the basis upon which decisions among competing choices are made, good brand research uncovers what the individual does not know they know, by reaching into the subconscious and uncovering what was experienced - imprinted - at an early age.

It is these imprints — the experiences of early childhood — that form the context through which an individual will view the world throughout their life and, as it relates to an understanding of brand effectiveness, react to communications seeking to influence them. These subconscious imprints, or mental codes, each communicate relevance, assurance, childhood joy, trust, and an expectation. The stronger the emotion associated with the experience, the stronger the imprint. Think of it this way, in an example from The Culture Code:

[A] child [is] told by his parents to avoid a hot pan on a stove. This concept is abstract to the child until he reaches out, touches the pan, and it burns him. In this intensely emotional moment of pain, the child learns what “hot” and “burn” means and is very unlikely ever to forget it.

Imprints are the subconscious memories we file away, forgetting them until they are recalled at some later date if the appropriate emotional trigger is experienced.

Before the importance of research into the effects of human emotion upon brand development was understood, de Tocqueville prophetically pointed the way to success. He could foresee the power of imprints, those first impressions, in most any effort to own the conversation within any industry.

Surfacing these imprints, this context, and understanding each as they relate to the relevance and reputation of your organization or product or city, is what leads to the story behind a brand that becomes unforgettable, and one taking its place alongside others ingrained in popular culture.

[More posts about Brand Relevance | More posts about Brand Research | More posts about Emotional Branding | More posts about Alexis de Tocqueville | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Democracy In America | More blogs about Brand Research]

A public service campaign in Australia flips the reckless driving conversation on its head to emotionally hit young men where it hurts most. The campaign demonstrates the effectiveness of engaging an audience emotionally, whether advocating a purchase or a change in behavior. From Newsweek:

When you first read the slogan, SPEEDING: NO ONE THINKS BIG OF YOU, you might think it was a reminder that people think poorly of those who break the law. Think again. This new road-safety campaign…is aimed a bit more below the belt—by suggesting those men who speed have small penises. In…advertisements, young “hoons”—Aussie-speak for speeding or reckless drivers—are mocked by unimpressed women who wave their little fingers at the drivers in a parody of their manhood.

The wagging finger is a commonly used insult in Australia, often leveled at drivers of monster SUVs or expensive sports cars to suggest their vehicles are compensating for a deficiency elsewhere…

[More posts about Australia | More posts about Public Service Branding | More posts about Emotional Branding | More posts about Pop Culture | More blogs about Emotional Branding]

Architectural design conceived as part of an overall brand strategy can effectively demonstrate the promise behind a brand.

An architect with Seattle’s NBBJ remarks:

[B]randing [i]s the chemical reaction in the back of your head that happens when you are exposed to a brand. For instance, when I’m exposed to Volvo, I think of safety. Physical space in a building speaks to you the way branding does. Architecture is a form of branding; it is more than making a place functional. It can affect emotions and decisions, just like great marketing does.

We agree.

For example, Starbucks works to ensure their retail and business office spaces are designed to demonstrate to every employee and customer the essence of their brand.

Great architecture addresses basic human needs, attracting the equivalent of members to a club by projecting inclusion and the opportunity for affiliation. It is branding. By design.

[More posts about Brand Image | More posts about Retail Branding | More posts about Emotional Branding | More posts about Architecture Branding | More posts about Architectural Design | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Brand Demonstration | More blogs about Architecture + Branding]

We like this quote pointing to the difference between branding and marketing:

Branding isn’t about giving away T-shirts with your logo on it. It’s about creating an experience or emotion that is memorable enough to talk about or to recommend.

Read more in this from CRN Australia.

[More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Branding v Advertising | More posts about Emotional Branding | More blogs about Branding v Advertising]

Notwithstanding the recent musings of its chairman, Starbucks these days is thinking of itself less as a coffee chain and more as a global platform with over 13,000 points of distribution. As reported in the New York Times:

When Bette Gottfried, a 48-year-old regular at a Starbucks in Ardsley, N.Y., saw that her favorite coffeehouse was promoting a film, she wasn’t immediately interested. “At first I was leery,” said Ms. Gottfried, dressed in workout clothes, wearing her hair in a ponytail and sitting near the window with her daily decaf mocha (“low-fat milk, no foam, no whipped”). “I thought, ‘Who are they to get involved in the movies?’ ”

Ultimately, however, she decided to take her 9-year-old daughter to see the film, “Akeelah and the Bee,” precisely because of the involvement of Starbucks. “I trusted seeing the movie, because it was promoted here,” she said. After all, she liked the company’s coffee; she had already bought and liked several CD’s it produced and sold, compilations of music by Carole King, Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra. Why wouldn’t she like a Starbucks movie? She did, and now she’s considering picking up its latest cultural sales item: “For One More Day,” a book by Mitch Albom…

[Starbucks] is increasingly positioning itself as a purveyor of premium-blend culture. “We’re very excited, because despite how much we’ve grown, these are the early stages for development,” said Howard Schultz, the chairman of Starbucks. “At our core, we’re a coffee company, but the opportunity we have to extend the brand is beyond coffee; it’s entertainment.”

…Schultz explained, “With the assets [we have] in terms of number of stores, and the trust we have with the brand, and the profile of our customers, we’re in a unique position to partner with creators of unique content to create an entertainment platform and an audience that’s unparalleled.”

…As Mr. Schultz sees it, customers get a new cultural experience and Starbucks gets a “halo” — the associations people have with beloved music, with “quality, good will, trust, intelligence.”
…

“It adds to the emotional connection with the customer,” said Mr. Schultz, and keeps the Starbucks experience from feeling, as he put it, “antiseptic.”

This strategy of rethinking Starbucks as a platform through which to feed a range of music and other entertainment product offerings relies upon the law of borrowed equity — use of the reputation of another brand to add value to your own. Whether for Starbucks, or a casual dining chain such as Applebee’s, such a strategy can work, but only if those entrusted with the brand remain focused on their core product offering.

Difficult to accomplish, extending a tightly focused brand to a “platform” outside of a core product category. But it is possible. Just ask Virgin.

[More posts about Brand Management | More posts about Brand Relevance | More posts about Brand Extension | More posts about Retail Branding | More posts about Restaurant Branding | More posts about Beverage Branding | More posts about Emotional Branding | More posts about Starbucks Brand | More posts about Applebee’s Brand | More posts about Virgin Brand | More blogs about Brand Extension]

Seeking a new CEO and recovering from a string of missteps, including a recent announcement to shutter Forth and Towne, Gap Inc. [NYSE:GPS] faces a number of challenges to revitalize the company and its brands.

The first challenge is strengthening it’s flagship GAP brand.

One suggestion of how to tackle the problem comes in this from Adrants:

There’s a simple solution to fixing Gap, the brand. Get rid of the celebrities and start investing in the emotional meaning of the word Gap itself. The brand name has gotten lost in the celebrity shuffle.

The feelings that rub off on the word Gap need to come from a genuine place, not from a never ending parade of celebrities. The core values of the brand need to be defined in a personal and intimate way that plays off the word itself.

One example of how this idea could be brought to life as a story of the brand:

A teenage boy and a girl are sitting on a bench with a “gap” between them. Neither one has the courage to start a conversation, but clearly they are enamored with each other. Suddenly a no name street musician sits down between them and starts belting out a soulful ballad. Then he walks away. The two kids immediately start talking to each other. The Gap logo [appears with a new] Tagline: Get Together.

It’s this feeling that needs to drive the inner core of the brand. Without it, the brand is lost in the emotional retail space. By developing a series of “Gap” stories, there’s a way to reinvigorate the brand from the inside out, rather than the outside in.

If you get the emotional story right, the feelings rub off on the merchandise.”

As a starting point, good advice for an iconic brand that has lost its way.

[More posts about Brand Management | More posts about Emotional Branding | More posts about Apparel Branding | More posts about Retail Branding | More posts about Brand Differentiation | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Gap Inc. | More posts about Gap Brand Strategy | More blogs about Gap Branding]

From the U.K.’s The Independent:

“Brand promise is created by a name, especially where fragrance is concerned,” says James Craven of Les Senteurs, a specialist perfumery in Belgravia. “Scent itself is ethereal and almost subliminal, so good names are powerfully suggestive; do they conjure up an image or suggest emotional implications or attributes?”

For Craven, the best perfume names summon up a “story” to back up the scent; Guerlain’s Shalimar, for instance, with more than a hint of the Orient. Its name means “temple of love” in Sanskrit, and it was inspired by the Indian emperor Shah Jahan, who built the Shalimar garden in Lahore as a tribute to his wife (and went on to build the Taj Mahal as further homage after her death). Or the same company’s L’Heure Bleu, which, according to Craven, calls to mind “twilight, the reflective hour, when you meditate on transience and lost love.”

We agree. Any great brand name offers a great story, mining the stories, myths, and imagery we each learn at a young age.

Today’s perfume names often dispense with such poetic niceties and settle for “globally appropriate” haikus. These can be po-faced - Truth, Eternity, Angel - or vaguely transgressive - Opium, Addict, Higher, Crave. “Will we soon have Junkie by Cacharel or OD by Dior?” wonders Craven. “Names are chosen more by global branding marketers these days than by the perfumers themselves, which is why they’re becoming ‘edgier’ and, paradoxically, duller.”

But companies ignore “globally appropriate” names at their peril. Givenchy’s latest launch, a perfume named Ange ou Démon, is meant to invoke “the two sides of woman; the angel and the devil that lurk within”, to British ears, it sounds more like a chav-tastic couple named Ange and Damon.

Despite other shortcomings, Auge ou Démon is a two-sided, positive and negative name the Law of Negativity loves. As for another fragrance product name satisfying this theory, one of our laws of branding, the story continues:

Image-obsessed celebrities are usually too canny to fall into these traps when launching their own perfumes; Liz Taylor’s White Diamonds suggested opulence, while Britney Spears’s Curious certainly reflects her parenting techniques. But, while Alan Cumming’s image may be that of an omnisexual Puck, his Cumming: The Fragrance is perhaps a little too upfront. “It certainly conjures up an image,” says Craven, with some distaste, “but a rather unsavoury one.”

Learn more about Alan Cumming’s new business venture, by watching the commercial here.

[More posts about Brand Promise | More posts about Emotional Branding | More posts about Fragrance Branding | More posts about Perfume Branding | More posts about Alan Cumming | More blogs about Fragrance Branding]

A struggling Chinese manufacturer [and] the remnants of a failed British automaker…plan to pool their resources to rescue the iconic MG sports car from the automotive junkyard. This and more from the Los Angeles Times:

A consortium led by Nanjing Automobile Group announced a $2-billion plan Wednesday to construct a state-of-the art production facility in China, reopen a shuttered MG factory in England and open an assembly plant and a distribution center in the small town of Ardmore, Oklahoma…

In particular, experts lauded Nanjing’s decision to base its expansion on a globally recognized brand, because Chinese companies generally are stronger in manufacturing than in innovation and sales…

The acquisition of the MG brand name and tooling — combined with the low-cost advantages of manufacturing cars and parts in China — will give MG Motors North America Inc. an advantage in the competitive U.S. market, said Duke Hale, president and chief executive…

“Our competition, they’re going to bring cars specifically and exclusively designed in China,” Hale told reporters Wednesday at a news conference in Oklahoma. “We’ve got cars with European styling, European engineering, European flair and, oh, by the way, the big bonanza: a brand name called MG.”

In a classic example of the Law of Borrowed Equity, Nanjing and perhaps as importantly, China as a nation brand, stand to reap the benefits to their reputation among American consumers if they get the product right, when new MGs begin to roll off the Oklahoma assembly line in 2008.

The New York Times offers this powerful example of emotions still associated with the MG brand, an automotive badge absent from the U.S. market since 1980:

“It’s the first sports car that I remember as a child,” said Paul Fucito, who grew up around the corner from an MG dealership in New Jersey and remembers its closing.

Mr. Fucito, 34, a spokesman for George Washington University, has never lost hope that he will one day own an MG, although the company’s bankruptcy last year raised doubts for him about the chances of that happening. He participates in several online forums devoted to the brand and fantasizes about a new MG, painted British racing green, with wire wheels and chrome accents.

“It’s been that dream car that I’ve always wanted,” he said.

If the built-in equity of a decades-old brand can evoke similar feelings across a mass market, MG’s return to America can be hugely successful. To evoke the emotion and demonstrate the compelling difference needed to throw sales ahead of projections, MG should listen to this advice.

[More posts about Brand Opportunity | More posts about Brand Rehab | More posts about Nation Branding | More posts about Global Branding | More posts about MG | More posts about Nanjing Automobile Group | More posts about China | More posts about Oklahoma | More posts about Emotional Branding | More posts about Laws of Branding | More blogs about Brand Opportunity | More blogs about Brand Rehab]

Intel is engaged in a major rethink of its brand strategy, according to this report:

Intel employees already are briefed on the details of the new brand… It’s an open secret that Intel always envied the emotions covering brands such as Apple…so it should not be too much of a surprise that Intel is heading towards an emotional brand as well. “The new brand promise will establish a personal and emotional tie between Intel and consumers all over the planet,” we were told. To explain its branding strategy, the company even pointed to Apple’s iPod Nano - and called it a “marvel of marketing.”

Intel will announce the new brand in mid-December.

For effective branding not only must a product be good, the product must also feel good.

Will Intel be able to duplicate the emotional immediacy possessed by brands such as Apple, or Virgin, or Disney? Will the Intel brand feel good?

Let’s watch.

The Alaska Travel Industry Association (ATIA) is creating quite the buzz for Alaska tourism with a new campaign, Alaska Before You Die, featuring billboards in major U.S. markets illustrating the tag with “B4UDIE” on an Alaska license plate.

The ATIA took a courageous step by refusing to play it safe and instead develop a provocative conversation starter, sucking the oxygen out of most other discussions of travel and tourism. By focusing the media tourism discussion in the U.S. on Alaska, it’s become a brand strategy marvel, and all for only $180,000 to be spent over one month.

One reason Alaska B4UDIE succeeds lies in the positive and negative qualities of the message. Most destination branding projects fail because the participants insist upon conveying the same relentlessly upbeat messages in the same way to the same people. As Igor’s Theory of Negativity explains, when a name, tagline, or advertisement contains both positive and negative qualities, it becomes compelling and memorable by creating more avenues for consumer emotional engagement. Think Banana Republic.

Alaska demonstrates why they are worth listening to. It’s all you could ask 4 to own the conversation in any industry.

The release of Martha Stewart from the United States federal prison system prompted a number of news reports about how her experience will affect Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia [MSO].

Here’s how Ms. Stewart’s experience will affect her company. Although certainly not how she would have preferred it, by serving her time in a federal prison Martha Stewart was tendered a gift — a five-month gift of intense market research — learning how a broad cross section of women lived, and hope to live, their lives.

This research will lead to a repositioning of the Martha Stewart brand — one driven to further build the brand through emotional connections with the market. As reported by the Associated Press in the New York Times:

With barely a break since she was released from a federal women’s prison…on Friday, a beaming [Martha] Stewart told several hundred employees Monday that she’s learned a lot about the country through the cross section of people she met in prison. That’s made her realize that the company she founded…focused too much on the technical aspects of entertaining or cooking in its editorial content, and not enough on why people need to take care of each other.

Noting a growing need to “preserve meaningful traditions” in a rapidly changing world, Stewart pledged…the company is going to deepen its bond “with the millions who read our publications and watch our television programs. And we’re going to engage and inspire new readers and new viewers for whom these topics may have seemed alien, unfamiliar or even — believe it or not — superficial.”

…Where Martha Stewart Living once focused on functional benefits in its editorial, it is now becoming more aware of the “emotional power of the brand.”

For her company this is powerful brand strategy. The emotional power of a brand is unlocked by identifying how a consumer feels and acts when using or affiliating with a brand, and WHY she feels and acts in that way. These emotional benefits, when connected up with the brand’s key point of difference, lie at the heart of any great brand strategy. This connection elevates a brand to one of contemporary relevance, and separates a brand from those of competitors.

While Martha Stewart cannot rewind the events of the recent past and start over, she can begin anew. With five months of introspection and the equivalent of intense market research into human thoughts and feelings, the company will benefit from Ms. Stewart’s heightened self-awareness of the emotional drivers behind the businesses of MSO.

For Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and for Martha Stewart, it’s a good thing.

At least one global Swedish brand has a brand reputation greater outside its home country than within.

As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, Swedes are often surprised at the brand reputation of Ikea in the United States:

In the Bay Area, home furnishings megastore Ikea is a retailing phenomenon, with long lines of customers and a popular buzz as a place for inexpensive but fashionable merchandise.

It’s another story in its home country of Sweden….

“In Sweden, you don’t brag about buying things at Ikea,” said Marie Soderqvist, chief executive of United Minds, a Swedish consulting company. “A home only furnished with Ikea products is seen as impersonal, a bit of a bad job.”

…Swedes in the United States are sometimes surprised by the Ikea mystique.

“In Sweden, going to Ikea is like going to the supermarket to buy paper towels in bulk. But in (America), Ikea is a wonder of super design,” said Barbro Osher, the Swedish consul general in San Francisco….

For its part, Ikea acknowledges the differences in perception.

“In Sweden, we are so present and visible that we are seen as an everyday thing…,” said Clive Cashman, Ikea’s chief U.S. spokesman.

Ikea…is a global brand…180 stores in 23 countries, with $15.5 billion in annual sales. Ikea has 22 locations in the United States…and 14 in Sweden…. In the Ikea world, U. S. sales are second, beaten only by German sales. Sweden comes in fifth.

In the United States, Ikea makes the most of its image as an exotic Swedish store. It keeps the Swedish names on all its products and is famous for the Swedish meatballs served in its in-store restaurants.

“They have much more of a Swedish image here than in Sweden,” said Stig Hagstrom, a Swede who lives in the Bay Area.

Keying-in on and understanding cultural differences is key to the success of any global brand. Understanding the emotional motivators behind consumer behavior is critical to an understanding of cultural difference and brand perception, in framing the competitive context by which a brand moves through the world, from culture to culture, through market to market.

IKEA understands this context. It is an understanding that creates a global brand, rather than one viewed narrowly as Sweden’s low-end home furnishings merchandiser.