Brand New Goods

European firms are learning from the U.S. that cultivating a brand can generate bigger profits

A man walks into a major department store in Paris wearing Caterpillar boots, a Jack Daniels cap, Club Med shades, a Cadillac polo shirt and Marlboro jeans. He smells ruggedly of Chevrolet aftershave. He buys a set of Le Cordon Bleu cookware for his wife and a Jeep radio-CD player for himself. To pay, he flips opens his Harrods leather wallet and whips out a Jaguar Visa card. He's branded to the hilt, and the embodiment of European consumerism for the new millennium.

U.S. corporations, from General Motors to Coca-Cola to Lockheed, have garnered huge benefits from going beyond mere export...

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