They're just lucky they haven't yet had to deal with the bombs and the sabotage which can certainly be expected some time soon.
The NYTimes Business day" section on friday included an article in its "Advertising" column about U.S. companies re-arranging their marketing abroad in the wake of the enormous increase in anti-American sentiment which has accompanied the disaster of the Bush administration's foreign policy.
With the recent surge in petition drives, demonstrations, even physical attacks that equate brands born in the United States with imperialism or militarism, advertisers are confronting perhaps the most sustained anti-American feelings abroad since the Vietnam War.The article presents the problem as just another challenge for American advertising ["marketers are scrutinizing everything that represents them internationally, from ads to package designs to promotions"], but there is at least a hint of the real disasters which may follow.
Until now, American brands have reaped the benefits of being associated with America," [said professor Christie Nordheim of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University]. "Now, they're suffering the consequences."Well. yeah, corporate America has paid for and finally gotten exactly the government it always wanted. It now has a regime totally accomodating to the wants and needs of Big Business and totally indifferent to the wants and needs of Americans and people throughout the world, but it was bought on the cheap, and the shoddy political product of small minds is about to explode in their faces. Stuart Elliott, the author of the article, doesn't seem to have a much of a clue about the horrors ahead for American corporations which have a presence overseas, but the professor he quotes may be more savvy.
Clearly, those most closely associated with the American way of life "are going to suffer the greatest harm," Ms. Nordheim said.We may have to swallow their damn junk here, and Americans don't fight corporations very well, but people outside the U.S. still have market choices and they're not always afraid of attacking Big Business, even physically.