Pre-Reading
Pre-Reading Activity
Look at the definition below. Then, discuss the questions below.
brand recognition: the ability of potential customers to recognize a company’s logo, products, or services without any effort
- What brand do you think is the most well recognized around the world?
- What are your favorite global brands? What other international brands do you know?
- How do brands build brand recognition?
- Is it easier for certain types of companies, for example clothing companies, to have strong brand recognition? Why or why not?
This is a shorter reading; it’s 448 words long. It’s a good opportunity for you to practice reading fast like we learned about in Reading 1. Use a timer to track how long it takes you to read this. If you read it in 2 minutes, then your reading speed is 224 wpm, but if you challenge yourself to read it in 1.5 minutes, then your reading speed would be 300 wpm.
Reading 5: Expanding Around the Globe [1]
U.S. Brands Face Global Competition
America dominates consumer goods brands. Here, wealthy consumers have supported Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and countless other companies. Many of those brands then spread around the world.
From Samsung to Toyota to Mercedes Benz, companies in Europe and Asia are creating top-quality goods and selling them as such rather than competing on price. “There are longer-term trends toward greater competition. The United States was the only global brand country [but] that’s no longer the case,” says Earl L. Taylor, chief marketing officer of the Marketing Science Institute. “Consumers prefer brands that they take to be of higher quality” regardless of the country of origin, he notes. “Increasingly, there will be other successful global brands in the U.S. [market].”
Of the brands at the top of Interbrand’s recent list of the world’s most valuable, four of the top five still originate in the United States; the five most valuable are Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft, while Toyota (Japan) comes in at number five. American companies have lost the most ground in the middle tier of recognizable brand names, says George T. Haley, professor of marketing at the University of New Haven’s School of Business.
One area from which U.S. brands are feeling the pressure is the Asia-Pacific region, which harbors the fastest-growing markets today. In the kitchen appliance category, two Chinese companies, Haier and Kelon, are becoming top competitors for well-known U.S. brands Whirlpool and Maytag. In fact, Haier bought the American company GE’s appliance division in 2016. The Chinese branding trend is not confined only to large goods. Sporting goods and sportswear brand Li Ning, well known within China, is building its international profile. While the Chinese basketball team wore Nike uniforms at the Athens Olympic Games, the Spanish team wore Li Ning apparel. The threat to U.S. brands is not restricted to China, however. South Korean brands, such as Samsung, LG, and Hyundai, have emer