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In today's highly competitive and globalized environment the creation and maintenance of brands is becoming increasingly important. There exists a severe alteration of brand portfolios in favor of global brands by several multinational corporations (Seetharaman et al., 2001, Steenkamp et al., 2002 and Wulf et al., 2005). One such example is the telecom giant, Vodafone, replacing the local brand names in many countries by the global Vodafone name (Business Week, 2001). One of the major reasons that is causing a shift from the local to global brand adoption is globalization (Steenkamp et al., 2002). Apart from yielding economies of scale, globalization pragmatically increases consumers around the world to develop similar preferences and speeds up a brand's time to market globally instead of local modifications (Hassan and Katsanis, 1994 and Yip, 1995). The shift towards global brands is also attributed to the consumers' preference for brands with global image over local competitors even when quality and value are not objectively superior (Shocker et al., 1994; Kapferer, 1997 and Steenkamp et al., 2002).
Global brands may be preferred by consumers as they convey high quality, expertise, authority and credibility (Batra et al., 2000). Moreover, global brands enjoy high prestige and status in the minds of many consumers (Batra et al., 2000 and Steenkamp et al., 2002). Although there is a wide assertion of the above mentioned notion regarding the global brand perception, the belief that the adoption of global brands creates a superiority over the local brands among consumers can be challenged. Research indicates that consumers have no intrinsic preference for global brands and many consumers often prefer brands with local connections (de Mooij, 1998, p. 39 and Zambuni, 1993). Moreover, there is an evidence of consumer ethnocentrism concept which focuses on the consumers' preference to products or brands of local origin (Shimp and Sharma, 1987).
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