Introduction to Global Marketing

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

As the preceding examples illustrate, the global marketplace finds expression in many ways.

Some are quite subtle; others are not. While shopping, you may have noticed more multilanguage labeling on your favorite products and brands. Your local filling station may have

changed its name from Getty to Lukoil, reflecting the Russian energy giant's expanding global

reach. On the highway, you may have seen a semitrailer truck from FedEx's Global Supply

Chain Services fleet. Or perhaps you took advantage of Radiohead's offer to set your own price

when you downloaded In Rainbows from the Internet. When you pick up a pound of whole-bean

Central American coffee at your favorite coffee café, you will find that some beans are labeled

Fair Trade Certified. Your toll-free telephone call to a software technical support service or an

airline customer service center may be answered in Bangalore or Mumbai. Slumdog Millionaire,

which received an Oscar in 2009 for Best Picture, was filmed on location in and around Mumbai.

Possibly you heard or read recent news accounts of antiglobalization protesters disrupting

meetings of the World Trade Organization in Cancún, London, or some other major city.

The growing importance of global marketing is one aspect of a sweeping transformation that

has profoundly affected the people and industries of many nations during the past 160 years.

International trade has existed for centuries; beginning in 200 B.C., for example, the legendary

Silk Road connected the East with the West. Even so, prior to 1840, students sitting at their deskswould not have had any item in their possession that was manufactured more than a few miles

from where they lived—with the possible exception of the books they were reading. From the

mid-1800s to the early 1920s, with Great Britain the dominant economic power in the world,

international trade flourished. A series of global upheavals, including World War I, the Bolshevik

Revolution, and the Great Depression, brought that era to an end. Then, following World War II,

a new era began. Unparalleled expansion into global markets by companies that previously

served only customers located in their home country is