Quote Originally Posted by Don Corleone
You're right about Opel being GM, not Ford. That's my mistake. You're wrong about American companies and rebranding though. I suppose I should have clarified that, that it relates to industries where an American name brand isn't already well established, or even part of the marketing, by marketing Americana (such as Coke & McDonald's).

But Microsoft seriously considered establishing a front company for Europe & renaming Windows for this very reason.
Well, GM is our biggest customer, so I should know it
I think it depends what kind of goods you want to sell and the image you sell. Coke and McDonalds were very successful because they were American. Just sounds like American lifestyle and was very cool Same about music. American and English music dominate the market.
If you try to sell cars - the American image is not very good. Still better than Romanian though
American computer hard and software is well accepted, IBM, Dell, Microsoft ... .

By the way, McDonalds had a hard time over here. First there was this cow desease. People stopped eating beef and that hit them hard. Then came the Iraq war and McDonalds was concerned because of their American image. So they announced that they were McDonalds Germany, a pure German company with German suppliers ... . Treason! Stone them to death, I say!