Abstract
You can build a business without a factory, without offices and without a staff, but you can not build a business without clients. The corollary is that clients are the only reason you are in business in the first place. And marketing is about finding and keeping people to buy and consume your products and services, and to come back regularly for more. For example, AON, an insurance company recently surveyed 2000 companies, the risk to the reputation was seen as their "single biggest business hazard". Brand images have to be nurtured. They are infinitely vulnerable to consumer tastes and attitudes which can be turned off at the slightest hint of scandal, corruption, "creative" accounting, quality problems, product recalls, unscrupulous overseas suppliers. International Brand marketing is totally concerned with people and therefore with culture and diversity. The culture of the national brand rubs off on the image of a country's products, expressed usually as "Country of Origin" (COO).
