Strategic Localization of Global Brands: Choosing Brand Names to Minimize the Impact of Consumer Animosity and Leverage Positive Country-of-Origin Perceptions

Geopolitical disputes often trigger consumer animosity, turning a foreign brand’s otherwise positive country-of-origin perception into a serious impediment to its success. Building on psycholinguistic research, we propose a theoretical framework elucidating how consumers react to different types of brand naming strategies. We demonstrate that brand names localized via certain strategies not only benefit from the positive aspects of their country-of-origins but also are immune to animosity. We also show that consumer animosity is not necessarily a generalized, chronically stable construct as extant research suggests; rather, consumers disapprove of foreign brands only when the exporting nation’s misdeeds are made salient.