Seminar on Branding for the World

Addressed by Tan Sri Lim at the "Branding For The World" Seminar Organised By MATRADE And APEC
1 April 2003

Making a dent in the world market, succeeding in exporting to many parts of the world, is a stimulating idea. Being able to compete against more established brands is an inspiring thought. Many say it is not easy. But it is not, I can tell you, very hard either. I think it is absolutely doable.

Sure, at the moment, the world is still dominated by brands and trends from the world′s most advanced countries, and most of these countries are in the West. Of course we are handicapped, as countries which are a lot less developed.

From Asia, Japan has beaten many Western countries. The Japanese started to build their export markets soon after the war, in the fifties. Korea is today a bigger exporter than several Western countries. So is Taiwan. Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia are also doing quite well. You must remember we are operating from rather small domestic markets.

Sure the world′s brands are now from the West, especially the US. The US being such a large market, if you are the largest selling brand in the US, you are almost certain to be the largest selling in the world. But Asia and developing countries will catch up. Because we have no choice if we were to prosper.

I am confident we, in Asia, and other developing countries, will succeed in creating world brands, in the not too distant future. But we must move now and move fast. Very fast. We must get serious in getting the job done.

In Malaysia, a good number of Malaysian consumer products and services are sold around the world. We might not have noticed it ourselves.

We do have quite a few brands which are enjoying good levels of popularity and market share in several countries spread around the world.

Take education, something I am familiar with, having been operating "my own" university for more than 10 years now. Malaysia has already joined the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada as an international education centre. There are now 17,000 foreign students studying in Malaysia, and they have come from about a hundred countries. Imagine that they have started coming just 3 or 4 years ago. Often, it is our own media who make us look second best. It is a problem we, living in developing countries, have to struggle with.

My own college has students from 45 countries, including countries whose names I could hardly pronounce. We have more than a thousand foreign students on campus - and it is 3 years ago that they started arriving.

So an education tourism has started to develop healthily in Malaysia. And this will add t the worldwide appeal of the Malaysian brand.

This is a fast changing world. By 2020, it is envisaged that China will have overtaken the US as the world′s leading economy. By then, a number of the world′s best selling brands will be from China, with many of them bearing Chinese names. China′s population is 4 times that of the US.

In the year 2020 and beyond, the world′s most powerful brands will be from Asia. There are 6 billion people in the world. Four billion of them live in Asia. If you look at the world at large as your market, your worry should really be "how to cope" and not "how to do it".

In Asia, and in other parts of the developing world, we will have the price advantage. If a substantial amount of hard work is required in the production, this advantage will even be more pronounced.

A lot of the world′s best known, most desired and best made products are already made in Asia and South America.

We just need to work on our design, our brand appeal, our promotional and distribution strategies.