“Any fool can make soap. It takes a clever man to sell it.” said Thomas J. Barratt, the world’s first brand manager. Barratt famously used John Everett Millais’s painting of a young boy blowing bubbles to sell Pears soap. The British Empire’s extraction of palm oil and coconut oil from African land made soap cheaper and more accessible to the unwashed masses.
Soap production in England was 28,536 tonnes in 1810. But by 1880, a single East London factory could produce 203,000 tonnes of soap per week. Advertising was born from rapid industrialization, European colonialism and mass production.
The legacy of 20th-century marketing practices still reverberates around the world. Culture is shaped by words, images and signs transmitted from London, Paris and New York. Marketing penetrates our collective psyche. It can create norms, change minds and generate demand. But it can also promote human rights, sustainable development and collective action. Like a pen, it can be wielded to spread love or hate. Marketing is value-neutral.
Until recently, most multinational corporations were headquartered in the USA and Western Europe. Except for Japan, the Western world dominated business. Economic advantage was underpinned by political influence and military power. Business and marketing became the pursuit of educated men—for the most part—in metropolitan cities. The audience was less homogeneous, but still, mainly wealthy or middle-class households with disposable income. In 1913, the British Empire represented a quarter of the world’s GDP and by the 1960s, the U.S. accounted for 40% of global GDP. Since consumer markets were concentrated in the West, business priorities, marketing communication and media spending were allocated accordingly. Emerging markets were an afterthought.
The global economy looks different today, but business outlooks remain unchanged. Even in the 21st century, emerging markets—except for luxury brands courting new money in China and the Middle East—are grossly overlooked and underserved. Global brands risk fading into obscurity if unable to understand and communicate with the global majority.
