Image Transfer-A Growing Problem for the International Retail Trade

Abstract

Companies like McDonald's, Benneton and lately several supermarket chains are crossing the European borders. These companies are characterized by massive efforts to build up a common image for their outlets across the borders, but several of them have had to face the fact that a bad image spreads as easily as a good one! Because the mother company is usually far away it makes up a rather abstract concept in the consumer's mind, and rather than being based on personal relations with the firm in the marketplace the consumer's reaction towards the company will often have political or moral overtones, and therefore be very dficult for the company to cope with In this article the image transfer between mother company and local retail outlet and vice versa is mapped in the illustrious case of Shell and competitors in the time of the violent attacks on Shell outlets in many European countries in the late eighties as a reaction to Shell's engagements in South Africa.