Is It Really Global, or Is It Just Plain American?

I found the image below and thought it related well to our in-class discussion of America as an exporting, rather than an importing, nation. Sturken and Cartwright say that “with the increased global marketing of key American brands in the postwar years, the idea of other places being ‘colonized’ by American capitalism gained a great deal of currency” (401). All of the brands in this image are American. If we weren’t sure of that, then all we would need to do is look at the fact that all of these global brands have been arranged in the shape of the United States. When thinking of global, non-American brands, it is certainly not as easy to come up with as many as the approximately 50 seen here, one for each state in America. Of course there are, for example, foreign car and electronics companies that are also global brands, and there are numerous designer brands that are not American and are globally recognized. But many of these other countries that have conceived global brands are well-developed, well-established, independent nations like France, Italy, and Japan. In other words, it seems as if only well-developed, powerful nations have a great potential for creating brands that can become globalized. But America still stands out as the very obvious leader in globalizing its brands, producing, marketing, and transplanting American establishments all over the world.

Sturken and Cartwright also cite Charles Norchi’s definition of globalization. Norchi, who was the executive director of the International League for Human Rights defines globalization as “the progression of forces that have accelerated the interdependence of peoples to the point at which we can speak of a true world community (405). What is interesting when juxtaposing this theory of globalization with the image is that if we are applying the theory to the global brands, then global brands should be “accelerating the interdependence of peoples” to create some sort of community between different cultures and countries. But it seems as though many of the countries that import American brands are dependent on America, while America could be a relatively self-sufficient nation, not needing to import any global consumer goods from other countries. These other nations are dependent on us, yet we are not dependent on them, so there is not exactly an interdependence when it comes to exporting global brands from America to other countries. Of course, if American companies are making any money off of the export of the global brand, then America is partially dependent on the importing country as a revenue source, but “global brand” still does not really seem to fit the definition of globalization. So the question is, are global brands really global, or are they simply local, American brands that have been sprinkled throughout the other countries of the world?