Globalization is funny. Just when you think you've created a global brand, people start yearning for its "localness." Take Coca-Cola. According to this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, expat Mexicans are paying a premium for imported Coke.
Here's an excerpt:
"It has a different taste," owner Adela M. Trinidad, 30, explained in Spanish.
It's common for immigrants to seek out and buy products shipped from their homelands. For them, brand names such as Chandrika or Jarritos re-create Bombay in a bar of soap or Oaxaca in a fizzy tamarind drink.
But the attachment to Coke, Mexican-style, is another story.
The company is, after all, based in Atlanta. It is so symbolic of Uncle Sam that writer Salman Rushdie famously coaxed its consonants into a word for America's global dominance in economics and culture: Coca-Colonization.
What's more, cans and plastic bottles of the soda are a dime a dozen in the United States - or, actually, $7 a dozen. The Mexican Coca-Cola sold by Philadelphia-area distributors costs $10 to $12 a dozen.
I guess you just "can't beat the real thing."
PS: Ironically, Coke, with more than 50 country Web sites, does not offer a site for Mexico.
John Yunker is founder of 
