Journal of Technology Management in China

Improving global competitiveness with branding strategy: Cases of Chinese and

emerging countries' firms
Francis R. Ille Claude Chailan

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Francis R. Ille Claude Chailan, (2011),"Improving global competitiveness with branding strategy", Journal of
Technology Management in China, Vol. 6 Iss 1 pp. 84 - 96
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JTMC
6,1

Improving global competitiveness

with branding strategy
Cases of Chinese and emerging
countries firms

84

Francis R. Ille and Claude Chailan

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International University of Monaco, Fontvieille, Principality of Monaco

Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compare how some firms from China and some from other
emerging countries (EC) are using a variety of branding strategies to improve their global
competitiveness. A total of 14 firms have been compared on criteria related to possible acquisition of
foreign brands, development of local brands, personality of the leaders and in some cases use of
ideological messages.
Design/methodology/approach The paper is mostly based on case studies coming from
literature, interviews from marketing executives of major enterprises from China or other EC. It is
mainly exploratory in its approach.
Findings The critical success factors for the competitiveness of emerging countries brands are
either coming from the choice to create a local brand from scratch, to buy an existing famous brand,
or to imitate successful foreign brands. Few strategic differences appear between Chinese firms and
the ones from other EC. The factors explaining success or failure are linked to the type of industry
and the way it relates to the country of origin effect, the level of marketing maturity as well as the
personality and visibility of the entrepreneur.
Research limitations/implications The study does not aim at being statistically representative,
the firms which are selected may not be a full representation of Chinese firms branding strategy or
from emerging nations.
Originality/value The definition of the brand strategy for emerging countries firms is a relatively
new subject and this study is a contribution to helping enterprises in finding the best approach as well
as giving examples for academic studies on Chinese firms marketing efficiency.
Keywords Brands, Corporate branding, Globalization, Emerging markets, China
Paper type Research paper

Journal of Technology Management

in China
Vol. 6 No. 1, 2011
pp. 84-96
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1746-8779
DOI 10.1108/17468771111105677

1. Introduction
During the first half of 2009, the FTSE International Emerging Markets Index from the
Financial Times was up 41.1 percent, whereas the FTSE All World Developed Markets
Index was up only 7.2 percent (Oakley, 2009). During the past decade, some of the Brazil,
Russia, India, China (BRIC) (ONeill, 2001) countries have been moving from pure
manufacturing, outsourcing or off-shoring destinations to the status of developers and
innovators of new products under their own brand names.
Still, most of the emerging countries brands were practically unknown from most
Western consumers.
In order to increase their profitability by climbing up the value chain, many
headquarters in Bangalore, Beijing, Moscow, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Shenzhen
or Tianjin have realized that one of the critical success factors for their international

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reputation is related to their brand image and several strategies have been considered
then implemented in order to achieve this status.
It is a euphemism to state that the development of China in the last 20 years as a
major economic power due to its enormous manufacturing capabilities has not been on
a par with the reputation of its brands. When describing the components of what will
make China an innovation-oriented country along with human resource development,
innovation culture, incentive system and intellectual property rights, Wei and Li (2009)
describes how Chinese firms are still market opportunist and competitive strategies
are price based. The fact that the image of China is not one of an innovator and brand
developer, contributes to this shortage in country of origin effect (COO). Most EC suffer
the same type of COO deficiency.
If innovation is recognized as the most sustainable source of competitive advantage
for enterprises in twenty-first century, Western enterprises have now realized that
innovation does not only come from hard technologies, but also from the soft ones
including marketing skills. (IBM, 2010), this is why they capitalize strongly on goodwill
and brand image when they innovate.
The ranking of Chinese brands by the international branding organizations such as
Interbrand (2006) or Sysomos shows that few of them have achieved the international
recognition which is necessary to compete globally.
This importance of brand acquisition or brand building has been a major factor of
competitive innovation for the marketing strategies of the Chinese firms which want
to reach the level of global brands.
2. Literature review and methodology
The marketing strategy of Chinese multinational enterprises in order to penetrate
foreign markets has been studied by Larcon (2009) and namely the fact to establish
joint ventures in these foreign locations in order to avoid retaliations from foreign
governments in the form of import taxes. But one of the major difficulties they face is
the recognition of their brands. In terms of brand management of Chinese firms, the
key publication in English is the study from Bell (2008) but few articles have been
published is major journals in the last couple of years.
Several articles have addressed the branding approach from emerging countries
(Schultz, 2008) differentiating between the old Chinese models in which the transformation
of raw materials into manufactured goods was not aiming at selling Chinese branded
products with the Indian model turning the primary materials into Indian branded goods.
This has changed dramatically in the last ten years (Magnusson et al., 2008) with the
objective of Chinese enterprises to be independent from Western developers, first for
technology products and then for consumer packaged goods.
In the automotive industry, for example, an interesting study has been made to
compare the brand personality perception by US consumers of automobiles with
Chinese or Indian brands (Fetscherin and Toncar, 2009) showing that while the cars with
Chinese brands were perceived as more daring, up-to-date and outdoorsy, Indian cars
were perceived as being less intelligent, successful and upper-class.
The general branding strategy can be positioned on two axes representing on one
direction the choice of acquisition of a foreign brand and in the other direction the level
of westernisation vs localisation of the image (Chailan, 2010) defining the four
following quadrants in the typology matrix:

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(1) Firms buying existing Western brands with a strong image (Lenovo buying
Thinkpad, the Indian giant Tata buying Jaguar Land Rover, TCL buying
Thomson, etc.).
(2) Creating global brands ex-nihilo by using western marketing principles
(Haier and Huawei in China, or Reliance and Infosys in India).
(3) Firms which have developed their local brands based on a favourable COO
effect in their domain of expertise, to reach primacy in their field (Tsingtao in
China, Zain and Teva in the Middle East, Ararat brandy in the Caucasus).
(4) Creating global brands by using local image and marketing techniques related
to their language, culture, even possible ethnical or religious belongingness,
with the examples of Baidu in China, Televisa and TV Azteca in Mexico,
or Mecca Cola in Muslim countries.
We will use Chailans typology as a base for our methodology in order to compare the
chosen brands on the basis of their marketing strategy and more precisely their
approach to global recognition. This will be complemented by the study of other
factors such as the influence of the company leader.
3. Case studies
The cases that are described below are coming primarily from China or from a couple
of emerging countries: BRIC like India, or other smaller countries in which one or
several brands are becoming known at an international level: Mexico, Israel, Kuwait,
the UAE or Tunisia and Armenia.
For the various firms, we have been looking at the way Chailans typology could be
applied, but also the personality of the leader/founder in relation to the firms recognition.
3.1 Companies from emerging countries which have bought existing well-known brands
3.1.1 Lenovo is an excellent example of an emerging country firm which has tried to reach
the global brand position by purchasing an existing world famous brand in the PC
business. The company that was created in 1984 under the name of Legend (Quelch and
Knoop, 2006) by Liu Chuanzi, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was rather
successful in China but practically unknown outside. They bought the PC business from
IBM in 2004 to strengthen their brand image, after switching their name from Legend to
Lenovo. Hence, they acquired a major competitive advantages coming from the
co-branding strategy in adopting the Lenovo-IBM logo on its product (Ille, 2009). They also
extended the Thinkpad image by sponsoring the Olympics in Turin in 2006 and Beijing in
2008. In the deal that was reviewed by Ms Mary Ma, Lenovo CFO, Fortune magazine
worlds 27th most powerful businesswoman in 2005, Lenovo had the right to use the IBM
logo on its products for five years while keeping ownership of the Thinkpad brand forever.
The recent years have shown some difficulties for Lenovo to live up to its expectations
showing that acquiring a global brand was probably not enough to guarantee success
(Kotler and Pfoertsch, 2007). Likewise, the refrigerator brand Frigidaire created by
General Motors in 1918, which was so famous in the 1930s that it became a common word
for refrigerator in several languages, became less successful when it was later acquired
by the Swedish group Electrolux Home Products (Kelly, 2005). Hence, it appears
that acquiring a prestigious brand does not guarantee continuous success although the
will of the management to be perceived as a global entity was obvious.

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3.1.2 Two examples coming from India, emphasize the importance of buying a
strong brand.
3.1.2.1 Tata group (Kumar et al., 2009) bought the Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) brands
from for $2.3 billion in 2008; illustrating the strategy defined by CEO Ratan Tata: The only
way I can enter the US market is through mergers and acquisitions, so if I get an
opportunity, then I will look at it very actively (Khanna and Palepu, 2009). Tata hopes to
boost Jaguar image and take benefit of this development in order to acquire an
international reputation. It is probably too early to see the result of these acquisitions by
Tata and whether they will avoid brand dilution by selling at the same time the Nano
cheapest car (Prasad and Talgeri, 2008). Likewise, another Indian industrial firm, Hindalco,
traded on the Mumbai Stock Exchange, acquired in February 2007 for $6 billion, Novelis
Inc., the Canadian company, world leader in production of aluminium rolled products.
More and more the Indian multinational giants such as Mahindra, the automotive, farm
equipment and financial services giant originally from Ludhiana, Punjab, that has
submitted a letter of intent to make a bid for Ssangyong of South Korea, will be buying
brands from the western markets to become more competitive (Krishna, 2010, p. 39).
3.1.2.2 In the luxury business, brand image is even more important and emerging
countries are lagging behind. The Indian watch and jewelry brand Titan, also belonging
to the Tata group, and which, beyond its large domestic success in India, is rather
successful in the Middle East but still not able to achieve a global presence and challenge
the worlds major watch brand. According to a Tata group executive To be a global
watch player, you have to have a Swiss brand, implying that they will have to buy an
existing brand with a favourable COO (Khanna et al., 2008).
3.2 Companies which have created occidental-style brands ex-nihilo
In this category, the firms from EC have developed a local brand but using the
marketing strategies of Western brands.
3.2.1 Haier, Chinese household appliances brand, whose name was created in 1984
by Zhang Ruimin, then a young Assistant City-Manager in Qingdao, in order to sound
as a German name, implying technology competence, with a motto patently geared for
global stardom (Batey, 2002). Zhang established the base line:
[. . .] if we can effectively compete in the mature markets with such brand names as GE,
Matsushita and Philips, we can surely take the markets in the developing countries without
much effort (Palepu et al., 2005; Roll, 2006).

He associates the characteristics of Chinese culture with the business acumen of Western
leading businessmen. His All-around Optimized Management Approach, his
Integration of Individuals and Goals contributed to make Haier a company famous
for its operational excellence. In 1996, he was awarded the Five-Star Diamond Lifetime
Achievement Award by the American Academy of Hospitality Science, and in 1997 was
named entrepreneur of the year by Asia Weekly. Haier famous image was even
strengthened by the Beijing Olympics sponsorship by applying Western style recipes
for success and is one of the most well-known Chinese brand outside China. In this case,
there was no need to borrow an outside name achieve international reputation, the
quality of the management of Mr Zhang Ruimin was the key to Haiers success (Larcon
and Haier, 2010), demonstrating the importance of the leaders role. Haier realizes
the importance of convincing the western consumer about its quality (Larcon and

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Haier, 2010). In order to become more global, they have staffed the European HQ with
European executives (Latessier, 2010) to better understand their perception of Chinese
products. Haier tried to buy the Maytag brand in 2005 but their bid failed, this would
have given them a strong position in the US in the field or appliances where the
emotional factor has been found to outweigh rational factors (Carey, 2005).
3.2.2 Another Chinese brand, Huawei, headquartered in Shenzhen, has become one of the
leaders of the telecom hardware industry. In March 2010, Huawei was ranked fifth behind
Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google, in the ranking of the world 50 most innovative
companies, ahead of Novartis, Walmart and Hewlett-Packard. Its founder Ren Zhengfei is a
former People Liberation Army Officer and for this reason the US Government seems to
have security concerns over Huawei equipment (Hille, 2010). Of course, they are
manufacturing technology products that do not have the same target population as
consumer goods but they will probably become very soon as famous as Cisco, Nokia,
Samsung or Motorola by creating a Western type Chinese brand (Zhong Nanhai Blog,
2009). When facing the internationalization of their brand, they do not follow exactly the
American global model but rather the local traditions in a kind of glocalization
thinking global, acting local (or globalocalization, as the word was coined by Akio
Morita) process. For example, Joe Leahy, from the Financial Times (May 2010) was
reporting that Chinese expatriates from Huawei in India are adopting Indian customs, with
Indian names for example Weimin Yao, Huawei Vice President has become Rajeev ,
wearing saris for the Diwali Hindu festival and learning Hindi. That is probably a good
way to be integrated by foreign cultures when competing with Cisco or Ericsson.
3.2.3 Reliance, the Indian firm created by Anil Dhirrubai Ambani, ranks among
India top three private sector business enterprises in terms of net worth as well as
ranked in the world top 500 most valuable brands (Haigh and Krishnan, 2006). Reliance
name is all over India and the neighbouring countries synonymous of quality, be it in
the fields of communication, energy, insurance or portfolio management for enterprises
and individuals. Although the fight between the Ambani brothers: Anil, Chairman of
Reliance Natural Resources, and Mukesh, Chairman of Reliance Industries, who shared
the legacy of the founder has made the headlines of the financial press ((The) Feud,
2009), the Reliance Communication brand has become a symbol of Indian technology in
the field of telecom services, namely through Reliance Infocomm. Reliance has become
Indias biggest private sector company and is now under process of completing a joint
venture with Atlas Energy (Wagstyl, 2010).
3.2.4 Infosys Technologies Ltd a global most admired knowledge enterprise has
been a pioneer of knowledge management and one of the first brands to demonstrate
Indian software expertise (Mehta et al., 2007). The software giant (Capelli et al., 2010),
created by N.R. Narayana Murty, Nadan Nilekani, N.S. Raghavan, Kris Gopalkrishnan
and S.D. Shibuhal, in 1981, in Pune, had to face the challenge of building a global brand
out of a service industry and built its strategy on their global delivery model (GDM) for
multi-location engagement teams (Murty and Desai, 2005). Infosys realized that it could
not compete with IBM, Accenture or the major IT consulting firms in terms of
recognition and therefore capitalized on in predictability, namely in the fields of
banking and insurance applications.
Haier and Huawei in China, Reliance and Infosys in China have all become
successful by developing the brand they created without having to buy some outside
brands but the role of the founder was a strong component of their development.

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3.3 Companies which have used local brands already existing in their home country
In that case, the brand name can have a strong local image, but not necessarily portable
abroad, as a consequence of difficulties such as the pronunciation of the foreign brand
name, or even its reading/identification when written in a non-latin alphabet, like
Cyrillic, ideograms or because the word is not acceptable in other languages.
3.3.1 Tsingtao beer of which the brewery was created in 1903 to produce German
style beer for the German troops occupying the Shandong peninsula after the boxers
war (Hull, 2007), from the name of the town now spelled Qingdao, Shandong, in the
pinyin transcription. In this case, the brand is so powerful in its home market that
Anheuser-Busch bought 27 percent of it, another 32 percent owned by the Chinese
Government through the Chinese State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration
Commission of the State Council State (SASAC). The Anheuser-Busch shares were
bought by Asahi Breweries in 2009 (Miller, 2009). The 2008 Beijing Olympics were an
opportunity to promote Tsingtao through the motto Passion, dream and success
(Zhao, 2007). Although, China was totally cut off from the western economy between
1949 and 1979, it was a state-owned enterprise (Hill, 2004) and they were able to keep
their competitiveness as a branded consumer product and to rejuvenate its marketing
in the 1980s, in such a way to attract foreign investors 30 years later.
3.3.2 In the Middle East, Zain Telecommunication, headquartered in Kuwait, is aiming
at becoming a top-ten global mobile operator by providing a world-class service to
customers in the Middle East and Africa (Emerging Market Monitor, 2010). It started as a
modest, single operator serving 600,000 customers in the Emirate of Kuwait to become a
conglomerate with a commercial presence in 23 countries from Nigeria to Bahrain and
from Jordan to Zambia with a 13,000 dedicated workforce serving 70,000,000 customers in
Africa and the Middle East. Their marketing strategies are based on motto such as
accelerate-consolidate-expend (ACE) (Dinar Standard, 2006). Just like Nestle, which early
realized that the territory of Switzerland was too small for its success, Zain very soon
decided it had to work outside the tiny emirate of Kuwait. The success of Zain has
stimulated some other Middle Eastern telecom operators such as Qatar Telecom Co (Qtel),
which continues its development in the Gulf as well as Indonesia.
Both examples show that it is also possible to grow successful local brands and make
them famous abroad, without acquiring a foreign one. Zain and Qtel both originate from
oil exporting countries where cash is not an issue, but Tsingtao survived the little
marketing development of the years of Maoism and is still in good shape.
3.3.3 Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, from Israel started as a small foundation
exploiting the scientific expertise available in their country with a population of PhDs
per square meter higher than in most countries to become later the largest producer of
generic pharmaceuticals in the world (Khanna et al., 2006). Of course, the brand power is
known mainly by medical professionals but its image has been built on quality and Israel
medical research reputation. In their case, Teva forgot about European countries which
seemed to be a good choice for proximity reasons and concentrated on the US market
which offered a more uniform and liberalized market for generic pharmaceuticals.
Among the critical success factors, the way they were able to master the US regulatory
environment as well as their speed of developing new molecules were both determinant.
Generics now represent 72 percent of the US pharmaceutical market volume (de Guzman,
2010). Tevas Legendary Chairman, Eli Hurvitz, was recently replaced by the founder of
Ivax Corp., Philip Frost (Business Middle East, 2010). This means that even in the highly

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technological pharmaceutical industry, brands from emerging countries can compete

with the products of the giants Novartis, Pfizer, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi
Aventis. Some critical success factors in Tevas case were innovation, technology image
linked to high R&D image and quality of management. Of course, Teva does not sell its
generics under the Teva brand name but the medical doctors prescribing them know
perfectly who produces them.
3.3.4 In the late nineteenth century, in what would become later the Soviet Union,
Nerses Tairyants established a brandy production in Erevan, Armenia, associating it
with the most prestigious mountain of the Caucasia, Mount Ararat. Ararat cognac
became so famous that the French spirit giant Pernod-Ricard bought Yerevan Brandy
Company with the Ararat brand name. The Shustov family who owned Armenian
brandy factory have been using some marketing techniques as early as 1912 when they
were named Official Purveyor to the Russian Imperial Court and they ancestors of
undercover marketing techniques by sending some friends in restaurants where they
order the brandy and shout when it was not available (Johnson, 2009). Armenian
brandy was promoted by Josef Stalin himself when, after the Yalta conference, he sent
up to 400 bottles to Winston Churchill (Kwaiatowski, 2008). The COO effect was a
positive factor linked to image of Armenia as a spirit-making area.
3.3.5 Another example of building of a brand starting from a local enterprise is given
by the Indian firm Wipro, which was an insignificant vegetable oil company in 1947 and
became a multinational technology conglomerate in the twenty-first century: Wipro
Technologies, one of the leading software companies in India. Its founder, Azim Premji,
demonstrates great leadership style including sound values, personal integrity and
professional will and helped him to give the impetus that drove Premji to churn Wipro
from a $2 million company to a $1.76 billion one serving customers across the globe.
Premjis sharp strategic vision and crisp communication skills led his team to strive for
excellence. He has been known for his modesty, simplicity and non-extravagance
(Shalom and Ravi, 2009). This example supports the fact that the charismatic role of the
CEO is a major factor for brand development (Bhalla, 2008).
The examples of Tsingtao, Zain, Teva, Ararat and Wipro in different countries
show that it is possible to be successful by using brands developed locally and acquire
markets abroad.
3.4 Creating new brands ex-nihilo
In this case the creation of the brand was done locally out-of-nothing by capitalizing
with some local aspects related to the language, the culture or even the religion.
3.4.1 Baidu, founded by Li Yanhong in 2000 in the Beijing Zhong Guan Cun Chinese
silicon valley is an example of a brand developed as a search engine for the Chinese
market (Baidu means hundreds of times). According to their site (www.baidu.com)
as a native speaker of the Chinese language and a talented engineer, Baidu focuses on
what it knows best Chinese language search. It has become the core engine used in
any campaign such as Search Engine Optimisation or Search Engine Marketing
(McDougall, 2007). Google may have to leave China for some censorship issues, but
observers mention that it was not going to be successful in any case (Madden, 2010).
Since Chinese branded companies are supposed to lack own innovations (Bell, 2008)
some are combining characteristics of Western brands (quality, service, trustworthiness
and modernity) with the consumer need for low prices. Sasserath Publicis (2006) call

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them clever brands. Baidu has achieved the clever brand compromise, namely by
using its knowledge of Chinese users specific needs.
3.4.2 Another possible justification in the strategy of some brands from emerging
countries is reaching some of the 200 million people who, according to the United
Nations (2006), are living outside their home country. Guzman and Paswan (2009) gives
the example of two Mexican cultural brands: Televisa and TV Azteca, both Spanish
language broadcast brands. When comparing the perception of brands personality,
Guzman finds that Mexicans living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas associate
criteria such as sincerity, excitement, sophistication, competence and ruggedness with
both brands more than the Mexicans living in Mexico. This implies that a kind of
nationalist support to the brand is more powerful with people living outside their
homeland and could be a strong justification for populations that have large diasporas
(Chinese, Indians, Mexicans in the USA, etc.) to support their product abroad.
3.4.3 An interesting branding strategy in some developing countries is the one calling
to nationalist or religious feelings in order to create support to some ideology or religious
faith. A good example is Mecca Cola, the firm from Tawfik Mathlouthi, a Tunisian
entrepreneur, who has created as soft drink aiming at supporting the Palestinian cause.
The brand is a drinkable manifestation of hostility toward America, and it appears to
be taking off (Hanft, 2003). The company is headquartered in Dubai, UAE, and although
competing with Coke and Pepsi, takes advantage of its representation in the Arab world
in which a part of the people are ready to sympathize with the Palestinians. As an
interesting point, Mecca Cola was inspired from the Iranian Zam Zam Cola and has
generated its own emerging countries competitors with Qibla-Cola, Muslim Up and
Arab Cola. Most of these brands are giving away around 10 percent of the profits to
Islamic Aid or Palestinian organizations (Times, 2002). Religious branding is also
exploited in India where religion is a way of life (Bhalla, 2008). Likewise, Benedictine
liquor, produced in the French region of Normandy since 1510 and that celebrated
recently its 500th birthday, is produced by monks and uses religion as a promotion tool.
When analyzing the reasons for the absence of strong Islamic brands, Sharma and
Williams (2006) argues than one of the reasons is the level of marketing sophistication
of the Muslim communities as well as the income distribution and the major barriers to
acceptance by the non-Muslim word. This element of little marketing culture can also
be frequently found in other EC.
4. Brand strategy may also be influenced by the following factors
Besides, the strategic choice analysed above between developing your own brand or
buying an existing one, we have found that some other important elements have
strongly influenced the success of brands coming from emerging countries in general
and China in particular (Lou and Davies, 2006) such as the following ones:
.
COO effect. It is easier for Germany to develop a brand in the manufacturing
industry or for France in luxury goods than India for luxury or an African country
for manufacturing. Likewise, a brand from China may suffer from the image of its
political orientation, or poor quality. On another hand Japan, between 1950 and
1980, has demonstrated that this COO effect could be changed like it has been the
case for Toyota cars moving from the junk status to the panacea of quality
within three decades. Therefore, China and emerging countries have to keep on
innovate to improve the image that influences the COO effect (Ramo, 2007).

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According to a study conducted by Shapiro and Associates, only 17 percent of

Americans expressed high interest in buying products imported from China
(Tucker, 2006). This effort to work on the image from the country has been
demonstrated in several studies (Akotia, 2005), namely in Africa where the local
brands lack foreign countries recognition.
Product category. Russian raw materials (Gazprom, Lukoil, Rosneft, etc.), South
African diamonds, do not require the same level branding than products for
which know how, expertise, etc. such as fine watches, software or financial
services which infers that brand strategy of emerging countries products (ECP)
depends of the type of industry and is easier for non-sophisticated products.
Degree of marketing maturity of the country. The countries which went through
a planned economy discovered marketing in the 1980s/1990s and started
developing their brands much later than countries coming from market economy,
for example, Lada did not use marketing campaigns (Daye and Emil, 2009).
Among the Chinese brands Haier, Tsingtao beer and Lenovo were among the first
ones to develop their communication, but still far away from the Western products
in terms of budget. We can hence infer that branding strategy of firms from EC
also depends on the marketing maturity including the cultural background
and the stage at which they were involved in marketing exposure.
Use of personality of the founder/CEO as a promotion tool. Zhang Ruimin for Haier,
Captain Wei Jiafu for Cosco (Meyer, 2008), Yang Yuanqing for Lenovo, Ledjmi
Mittal for Arcelor Mittal, Nandan Nilekani for Infosys, Azim Premji, for Wipro,
although all coming for emerging countries, just like Bill Gates for Microsoft,
Jack Welch for GE, Steve Jobs for Apple, Tom Watson for IBM or Bernard Arnault
for LVMH, all had at the same time the charisma and the reputation to bring their
brands to the highest level in world recognition. Every year, all marketing
professionals read with great interest the list published by the Financial Times of
the Most respected businessmen, (or businesspeople, since more and more ladies
are now been part of it), because they know it strong influence on the brand image.
This leads us to another possible explaining factor for a brand business success:
human personality of the leader strengthens the brand efficiency of emerging
country brands.

5. Conclusion
Our analysis tends to support Amitava Chattopadhyay, Professor at INSEAD Singapore
(Brown, 2010), who predicts that the number of Asian brands will now grow rapidly and
will reach the top 100 of Interbrand league to join the only eight Asian companies,
Japanese and Korean, appearing in the 2010 ranking. The odds are that more firms from
China and India will acquire Western brands but we have seen that this did not guarantee
success. As argued by Wang Fengying, CEO of Great Wall Motor, the first Chinese car
manufacturer to get approval to sell its cars throughout the EU (Waldmeir, 2010),
it could take 20 years before the Chinese brands can reach true global competitiveness.
But the determination of some clever and charismatic BRICs CEO can contribute
highly to the change in the COO effect, just like it was the case for Japanese brands
between 1960 and 1980 with people like Akio Morita for Sony, Konosuke Matsushita
for National Panasonic and Kiichiro Toyota for Toyoda.

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Therefore, based on the sample of enterprises that we have been using, we found out
that Chinese firms trying to improve their competitiveness by implementing innovative
branding strategies were very similar to other firms either from BRIC or other emerging
countries: some of them buying existing Western brands to benefit from a long-term
image, some developing their own brands, either by using some western approach, or by
capitalizing on their own local idiosyncrasies. In addition to the use of Chailans
typology in identifying the options of brand development we have found what seems to
be a link between the firm leaders personality and the business success of the firm such
as in the clever brands. Therefore, as there is no sure recipe for success, imagination
and innovation of the leading team will be the critical success factor to reach the global
recognition status.
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About the authors

Francis R. Ille is an Associate Professor of International Business at the International University
of Monaco. He has been a Visiting Professor at Ocean University of China in Qingdao in 2005 at
IILM, Delhi, India in 2009 and a guest lecturer in several Western universities, namely in the
Balkans states. His previous 30 years business career took him from Procter & Gamble to IBM
for which he held marketing and sales management positions in Africa, Middle East, Indian
Ocean, as well as in the headquarter of IBM World Trade Corporation, in White Plains,
New York. He also participated to several consulting missions as an expert for TACIS
programmes of the European Commission in the fields of development of the private sector in the
Commonwealth of Independent States and Africa. He has published in the Journal of Chinese
Economic and Foreign Trade Studies. Francis R. Ille is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: fille@monaco.edu
Claude Chailan, prior to joining the academia, held high-level positions in International
Management from 1985 to 1999, including senior positions at Dannon, Sara Lee and LOreal. He
was actively involved in the development of international brands in France, Mexico and
Venezuela. Claude Chailan is currently Professor of Marketing at the International University of
Monaco, and Visiting Professor at ITESM, Puebla campus, in Mexico. He is a guest lecturer in
several foreign schools (ESAN in Lima, ESA in Beirut, CFVG in Hano), and several French
universities. Claude Chailan received his Masters degree from ESSEC Business School in Paris
and his Diploma in Political Science from IEP, Aix-en-Provence. He also holds a Doctorate in
Marketing Management from the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis. His articles have been
published in journals such as EuroMed Journal of Business, Journal of Product and Brand
Management, or Journal of Marketing Management.

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