>What benefit are elites extracting from Bushevik
>militarism and belligerance? Other than a few firms -
>the chosen few - I cannot discern any gain for the
>broader corporate / political ruling class.
Financial Times - January 12, 2004
Dislike of regimes colours consumer attitudes By Guy de Jonquiýres in London
Disapproval of President George W. Bush's administration and Tony Blair's government is damaging goodwill among wealthier European consumers towards US and British companies and products, according to an international opinion poll.
Roughly two-thirds of French and Germans questioned said the US and UK governments made them "much less likely" to buy products from those countries, while 42 per cent of Britons said the Bush administration put them off US products.
The survey, by Edelman, a US public relations company, also found that most US-based multinational companies were trusted far less by the public in Europe than at home. Attitudes were most negative in Britain, where only 28 per cent said they trusted US companies.
In Germany, British companies were trusted even less than US businesses, while more people in France trusted German companies more than French ones.
However, European multinational companies enjoyed high levels of trust in the US. Several, including Bayer, Michelin, Shell and Unilever, were more highly regarded there than in Europe. Poor perceptions of foreign governments severely affected US consumers' attitudes only to products from France and China. In contrast, 40 per cent of US consumers said they were more likely to buy British products because of the Blair government.
Edelman said there was no firm evidence that the findings reflected consumers' actual purchasing decisions. However, it believed the views expressed in the survey influenced attitudes towards businesses based abroad.
Foreign affiliates of companies from countries with a poor image abroad were likely to face problems when hiring local staff and dealing with governments on issues such as regulation, it said. That was particularly true for US companies operating in Europe.
Many consumers in France and Germany said disapproval of their own governments also made them less likely to buy their own countries' products. Edelman could not explain the finding, saying political views in the two countries appeared to be tied unusually closely to attitudes to business.
The survey found trust in governments and companies had recently begun to recover in the US and Europe, after a steep decline. However, only a fifth of those questioned expressed confidence in the credibility of corporate chief executives.
The survey was based on telephone interviews with 1,200 university-educated people with annual family incomes of more than $75,000 (£45,000, ¤58,000). It was conducted between December and January by StrategyOne, Edelman's opinion research affiliate.