Global Branding: A Research Review

Global branding has become a key strategic option for businesses and organizations to capture growth opportunities beyond national boundaries. In this context, global branding broadly refers to marketing brands across geographic markets. While the essence of branding remains the same—to achieve differentiation and relevance for competitive advantage, the discussions and debates surrounding global branding center on accounting cross-national and cross-cultural commonalities and differences regarding consumers’ brand perception and behavior. Geographic markets continue to be principally defined by the cultural unit of country, even as regionalization of markets and branding is growing. Research on global branding is therefore built on such spatial associations and cultural manifestations. Meanwhile, given the shifting geo-political economy and the onset of a technological age, the relative stability of cultural units in a connected global system is constantly being challenged. Both consumer identity and producer identity are in a state of flux. In this respect, global branding offers a window into who we are and what we aspire to be in an ever-expanding web of cultural mobility. This article highlights the main streams of research in global branding based on the core ideas and perspectives underlying recent studies in select English-language academic publications. It is intended not as a comprehensive survey but to open up analytical possibilities in this area of inquiry. The article begins with a discussion of the general business environment for global branding to contextualize the research endeavors in this space. It then examines the key topical domains and conceptual lenses in the extant literature. It concludes with observations about some of the gaps in current research and implications for future studies.