  | | Professor Michael Houston is one of several Carlson School marketing department professors who have been exploring cross-cultural issues in marketing. Houston's research has been at the forefront of helping marketers understand cultural differences in reactions to brand extensions.
"My former doctoral student, Sharon Ng, and I have been trying to understand whether people in different cultures process and organize brand information differently," explains Houston. This research has revealed a strong contrast between trends in consumer perceptions of brands in Asia versus consumers in North America and Europe. Generall, the Asian customer is more likely to think of brands in prototypical terms (Sony is a maker of TVs) while Americans and Europeans think about brands in terms of beliefs (Sony is an innovator in consumer electronics).
The fact that Asian consumers organize and categorize brand information differently than European and U.S. consumers has big implications. "This means companies will have to do a lot more work to make a convincing brand extension in Asia," says Houston. "But it also means that, once that work is done, the extension is more durable and can include products that consumers in the West would think are outside the company's core competencies."
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