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Ask any multinational manufacturer of fast-moving consumer goods about its global brands. The company's marketing people will immediately respond with a list of familiar names which are claimed to be outstanding successes worldwide. But press the matter a little further. it usually transpires that some brands are quite differently received 'here' than 'there', and differently positioned in the market. Or that certain brands carry particular names in particular markets. Or that promotion and packaging vary. Or that different distribution channels are employed. Or, frequently, that the formula is adapted 'to meet local market conditions'. For the Briton abroad, say, the familiar version of a favourite global brand can sometimes be as difficult to track down as warm British beer.
Nevertheless some brands are incontrovertibly global. Marlboro, Coca-Cola and McDonald's are cases in point, and there are multitudes more whose marketing reaches round the world and is only marginally less standardised. Successes such as Benetton demonstrate that Europeans, too, can pull off this trick. Yet pan-European brands are scarcely more common than the global kind. With Europe a single market once more, this situation cannot possibly last for long. (The revived single market has been in place for just over two years, of course, and during the interval -- of nearly 2,000 years -- the European races developed very different tastes.) Europe's FMCG producers, large and small, know that they can no longer count on cosy national markets. All across the Continent they are busily conducting experiments, finding out for themselves what makes a Eurobrand -- and how it should be managed.
Privately-owned Lofthouse of Fleetwood, maker of Fisherman's Friends lozenges, first ventured overseas some 20 years ago. The trip proved better than a cure. Until then the company had been wholly dependent on the domestic market. By 1992, when it was featured in Management Today, it was exporting 84% of a turnover which at that time totalled L14 million. 'Revenues have more than doubled since,' says financial director Duncan Lofthouse, 'and overseas sales have climbed to 95%.'
The positioning of the product in some of its overseas markets is dramatically different from at home. 'In the UK we're selling a medicine,' says export sales director Kieran Ryan. Not so everywhere. 'In Germany or Switzerland Fisherman's...