The Economist reported in its December 17 issue on some findings by Peter Katzenstein and Bob Keohane about the relatively limited impact of anti-American attitudes on the sales of prominent American brands (subscription only):
EVER since the outbreak of the Iraq war, American companies have been braced for a consumer backlash in the rest of the world. Opinion surveys showed a surge in anti-American feelings in Europe and the Middle East after the outbreak of war in 2003. Anecdotal evidence also suggested that American companies were feeling the consequences of increased hostility to the United States. But one of the first detailed empirical studies, by Peter Katzenstein of Cornell University and Robert Keohane of Princeton University, debunks the idea of a backlash against American companies. Brand America may be suffering in the eyes of the world, but American brands are still prospering.
That sales of firms closely identified with the United States have not fallen overseas is, in some ways, surprising. Messrs Katzenstein and Keohane cite a December 2004 poll, conducted by Global Market Insite, in which thousands of consumers in eight countries (Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Britain and the United States) were asked two questions about 53 American companies: would they avoid American products because of recent American foreign policy and military action? And to what extent did they see particular companies as "extremely American"? Overall, 20% of European and Canadian consumers said they were consciously setting out to avoid American products.
The firms most vulnerable to consumer boycotts included American Airlines, United Airlines, General Motors, Wal-Mart, CNN, American Express, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Marlboro. Nike was not far behind. Immediately after the invasion of Iraq, several press reports trumpeted boycotts of American goods in Europe. Will Hutton, a British economic journalist, asserted that the centre of the boycott movement was in Germany and that "the boycotts and the surrounding avalanche of negative publicity are a storm warning of what may lie ahead." News organisations from Reuters to the Financial Times reported that American firms such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's were seeing their sales fall in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
Professors Katzenstein and Keohane have taken a more systematic look at the data. They studied the revenues of three big American-based consumer-products companies—and three of their European competitors—in Europe and the Middle East between 2000 and 2004. The American firms were Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Nike. The three European firms—Adidas-Salomon, Cadbury Schweppes and Nestlé—were chosen because they compete in the same industries. As Messrs Katzenstein and Keohane note: "If anti-Americanism had a significant impact on sales, one should find US-based firms' sales falling in 2003-04, when anti-American views rose sharply in Europe, compared to 2000-01...This fall in the sales of American firms should occur both in absolute terms and relative to the performance of European firms."
In fact, the opposite happened (see table). Between 2000-01 and 2003-04 all six firms increased their European sales. American companies also grew at least as fast as their European rivals. Why should this be? It could be that American firms have adopted clever marketing strategies that counteract any surge in anti-Americanism. Or perhaps it is simply that European consumers are still capable of drawing a clear distinction between President Bush and a Big Mac.
All I'll say about this is that this is only one of many, many clever little empirical tests of various propositions about anti-Americanism which you will find in Katzenstein and Keohane's forthcoming volume, Anti-Americanisms in World Politics. It should be out later this year. Full disclosure: it includes a chapter by yours truly, but it's an exceptionally interesting volume nonetheless!
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