From Local to Global: Brand Replacement from a Consumer’s Perspective

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In recent years, an increasing number of companies have been trying to optimise their portfolio and globalise their brand in the belief that they will gain financial reward. This strategy often leads to the replacement of richly valued local brands in favour of global brands. However, local brands have a home-field advantage because they are more familiar, have a strong relationship with their consumers and therefore are entrenched in the local culture. Therefore, brand switch implies an important change in the relationship with the consumer (satisfaction, commitment, trust and loyalty) which can cause financial risk (loss of market share and sales). Despite its growing presence, branding in an international context and more specifically brand name change strategy have received limited research attention. The objective of this research is to understand the consumers’ reactions to the replacement of their local brand. By identifying the transfer of values from the abandoned brand to the new brand, we will analyse whether the image of the global brand remains similar abroad or if it gains values from the local brand. A longitudinal methodology was used (over 3 years) to observe the replacement of a beloved local brand (Marie Thumas) with the global brand (Bonduelle). A qualitative study enabled us to identify the associations which consumers link to both brands and understand better their relationship with the local brand. It was discovered that the brand was part of the national culture and its origin was a significant driver of purchase and attachment which could obviously jeopardise the success of the brand switch. Therefore, we have identified key elements to drive the brand change strategy (information on the replacement, attachment to the local brand, acceptance of the replacement, perceived quality, awareness and recognition). To understand the processes involved in the transfer of values, we based our research on Michel’s (1998) theory, which illustrates how the central core and the peripheral system may evolve in a brand extension or co-branding context. The results of our study indicate that the associations linked to the local brand were progressively transferred to the global brand and vice versa. The transfer concerned functional as well as symbolic values. Consequently, the image of the global brand may change slightly due to some associations from the local brand being integrated into its representation which seems to increase local acceptance. Besides, the relationship between consumers and the replaced brand (attachment, usage habits) plays a moderating role in the transfer of values. Finally, this study contributes to the proposal of key success factors for brand replacement from a consumer perspective and illustrates that even if consumers accept global brands, they will never forget their local brands!