UK George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer since May 12, 2010, following the loss of the country’s AAA credit rating, said the country needs to address its debt problem. He pledged to pursue his plan to cut the UK’s deficit and likewise further reduce tax for businesses, as reported by the Telegraph on February 23^rd, Saturday.

Moody’s, the credit rating agency, which downgraded the UK one notch to Aa1 on February 22^nd, Friday, pointed to “subdued” growth prospects and a “high and rising debt burden”, and expects the “period of sluggish growth to extend into the second half of the decade”, as reported on February 25^th, Monday.

Credit ratings assess a government’s capability to repay its loans and instrumental to determine the interest rate to be applied on borrowings.

Osborne, facing calls from Labour to resign from his post, was forced to issue a statement saying “We will continue on the economic plan that has brought the deficit down by a quarter and the government will now re-double its efforts to overcome its debt”.

He accused Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, of being the “architect of the mistakes that gave Britain its debt problem”.

Ed Balls, describing the Moody’s downgrade as a humiliation for the government, retaliated by saying “Osborne made maintaining the AAA rating a key benchmark for his stewardship of the economy, but failed in the first economic test he set himself”.

Osborne is expected to utilize next month’s budget to assist hard-pressed businesses and further government cuts to be implemented, report said.

The main rate of corporation tax will be further reduced from 21p, the special rate for smaller enterprises would be decreased from its present level of 20p, and Osborne aims to achieve at least L.10 billion extra savings from welfare spending in 2015 – 16, the Telegraph reported.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron, despite the downgrade, has insisted that “The government’s economy plan is working that is why we believe the economy is healing”.

For all the economic gloom around the world, the UK had the excellent news that the country has exited the recession after a 1.0% growth in the economy according to GDP over the last quarter. The news is should reflect positively for the coalition but it is a difficult good news story to judge. The Olympic effect was certainly partly responsible for the boost. The Office for National Statistics predicted that ticket sales added 0.2 percentage points but also said that the effect on Olympics on hotel activity and restaurant activity and employment agencies would also have contributed. So the last few months were a particularly remarkable period.

Add to this the fact that previous quarters were negatively affected by other remarkable events – the extra public holiday because of the Diamond Jubilee and particularly bad weather. This allowed a particularly low point from which the economy could grow. Improvement in Britain’s economic fortunes was therefore to a certain extent inevitable. It’s therefore easy to deride the government’s role in the improvement as being irrelevant to what was a result of particular circumstances, which is certainly the stance Ed Balls has taken.

“There’s a lot of discussion right now in fashion not about the US consumer, but about the global consumer,” remarked Sally Singer — editor-in-chief of T, the New York Times style magazine — on National Public radio today. As I wrote recently, economic growth in Asia means that US fashion companies are paying attention, and regarding it as an opportunity. Singer agrees. “The growth of Asia, [including] the growth of China,” she says, is increasingly a “pressing concern” for US fashion companies.

The primary tool in marketing to Asia, and across the globe, is the concept of the “global consumer.”

First of all, we should recognize that, to a large extent, the notion of a “global consumer” contradicts the standard approach to marketing, which revolves around “segmentation.” Segmentation requires classifying consumers/potential consumers by type, according to age, gender, income, lifestyle, likes and dislikes, and in which city or part of the country they live. Many marketing reports will go so far as to give each segment a distinct personality. For example, one segment might be: Michelle, 29-35 years old, single, career woman, plays tennis, likes movies and going to cafes. Another might be Jenny, 36-45 years old, married, yoga student, likes reading and shopping. And so on. You get the picture.

Segmentation enables companies to understand who their consumers are, and to begin to form strategies to grab their attention (e.g., if one segment is men, 25-35 years old, who are frequent internet users, they might be targeted using a promotional campaign on Facebook, using graphics, models, and images that fit that particular age group).

Marketing across continents, and in different countries, makes segmentation extremely time consuming, difficult, and expensive. But is it even necessary to design and market with specific segments in mind? Do we need apparel and marketing campaigns for the US citizen, the South Korean, residents of Tokyo, Okinawa, Shanghai, Singapore, and Hong Kong? The global consumer model says ‘no.’ In Cross-national market segmentation in the fashion industry A study of European, Korean, and US consumers [pdf], authors Eunju Ko (Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea), Eunyoung Kim, Charles R. Taylor, Kyung Hoon Kim, and Ie Jeong Kang argue that “Evidence increasingly suggests that firms using a global strategy have an advantage in building brand equity.”

While segmentation still exists, it is used differently in global marketing. We are “seeing the emergence of a new group of consumers who have similar preferences and buy similar brands,” despite being in different countries, or different continents, and speaking different languages, say the authors of Cross-national market segmentation. In other words, from a marketing perspective, a young man in Tokyo or Hong Kong, plugged into the trends, may have far more in common with a young man in New York, London, or Paris, than with his fellow nationals of only a few years older or younger.

Instantly recognizable: Coca Cola in China.

In practical terms, this means that, although minor adjustments might be required,  corporations can create a single aesthetic, and single marketing campaigns, to appeal to consumers across the globe. There is, as the authors of Cross-national market segmentation note, strong evidence to suggest that global marketing campaigns generate more sales than those tailored to individual national markets. The most successful brands have global recognition. The red ground, white font, and signature “swoosh” of Coca Cola is the same even when the name of the product uses a different script (for example Chinese characters). Even if we cannot read the label, the Coca Cola product is instantly recognizable.

Fashion brands and companies in other industries are of course aspiring to a an equally global recognition. The authors of Cross-national market segmentation refer to a marketing campaign by Parisian fashion label Chanel that was launched in the US, France, and South Korea. In each case the advert showed the same (female) model running along a street. This image was juxtaposed, in each case, against a photograph of a sign of a Chanel boutique.

Although the model is the same in each, the dress she is wearing changes. In the French ad it’s more romantic. In the Korean it’s more modern, functional, and business-like. In the US ad the clothing — black top with puffed sleeves, puffed skirt, and long black boots — is more artsy and individualistic. It looks like the kind of attire an aspiring dancer, artist, or actress might wear. It’s clothing for someone modern, cool, and going somewhere.

Uniqlo: global advertising

Moreover, the street also changes. In the US ad the model passes by a fire hydrant — an iconic, if understated feature of the NY street. In the French ad the model strolls along a more old fashioned, cobbled, street. In the Korean ad, the surroundings are more modern, angular, and clean. The Chanel name appears on a glass window that is framed by marble. In the US ad, it hangs beside a street sign and a “no parking” sign, as well as a pedestrian crossing light. For the French ad, however, the same sign is shown from a different angle, so that all the identifiably New York elements are cut off. Only the drapery with the Chanel name is seen. It could be Paris. And, of course, that’s the point. The global ad needs only minor adjustments for the specific nation, since the market segment has most things in common. Both the advertising concept and the product its selling remains the same.

Chanel’s not the only one using global marketing campaigns, of course. A few weeks ago Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo opened a store in New York. Its slogan — “clothing made for all” — seems to consciously embody the idea of the global consumer, and so does its branding (e.g., logo) and advertising campaign, which were clearly designed to appeal both to the consumer in the US and in Japan — which are, of course, both global consumers.