The Role Of A Country's Brand

Tata Motors today will be announced the winner of the bidding war over Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford. The latter has been struggling to do much of anything really with the British brands and has been looking to sell them off for some much needed cash.

But, the sale has many US Jaguar dealers upset. They believe that Indian ownership will dilute their luxury brand (as if Ford was the most prestigious automaker).

Personal biases aside, the whole incident was interesting to me because, in an increasingly global world where we often like to think that country of origin has less and less impact on what a brand/product means to people (well, perhaps except China), its still a strong issue. Indian business men and women have been left feeling like they've been slapped in the face, more or less told by these US dealers that the brand of India downgrades the brand of Jaguar/Land Rover. While on one hand (if I push myself to be very understanding) I suppose I can see why these dealers have reacted this way (it's still a third world country, blah, blah), seems to me that India has done quite a bit to prove itself as a nation on the rise, and deserving of the chance.

But it also raises a broader question that I have been thinking about recently- is there another product category that has tied itself so closely to the country it is produced in? For decades American car companies have used (and continue to use) brand America (though it may not be in their favor anymore) to sell cars. It's amazing to me how strongly the brand of a nation is tied to the cars it produces, wise or not. Hell, some foreign automakers even feel like they have to defend themselves for being "foreign".

Can any of you readers think of another product or category that so heavily associates itself with the country it comes from? And is this something you see continuing (growing/declining?)- in car makers or other categories? I've been thinking that that where a product comes from will increasingly become irrelevant, but this made me pause (and, perhaps, it is yet another sign of how out of touch car makers are with what's going on in the world).