To brand or not to brand?

Abstract The topic of cultural globalisation is dominant in academic research circle and has influences in different dimensions. There is much evidence to indicate the globalisation is characterised by the fading of national cultural identities as well as proliferating culture heterogeneity. In the process of globalisation, people want to differentiate themselves from the globalised culture and want to deliver a unique cultural identity. A local museum, for example, needs a great degree of interaction with local inhabitants, and it needs to absorb local cultures and resources to transform them in a presentable way to the audiences. Brands and logos originally are used by manufacturers to distinguish their products from competitors’. Brands are specifically used as a means to identify products and to recognise and specify products if consumers should wish to repurchase or recommend a manufacturer’s products to others. Nevertheless, the basic function of a brand i.e. to discriminate from others still remains. The globalisation trend and branding spirit also have impacted industries in Taiwan. Economic development in Taiwan has been growing rapidly in the past decades. As the global economic structure changes, the manufacturing lines have been gradually moved to the neighborhood countries which offer lower labour costs. Taiwan thus entered a new “knowledge-economy” era. “Cultural creative industries”, an exclusive created term by Taiwan, is one of the typical “new economy” industries which are highly advocated by the government. Museum, is one of the typical cultural goods categorised in cultural and creative industry. Under this circumstance, how does globalisation influence the branding concepts on the cultural creative industry in Taiwan, especially on a local museum? In order to uncover the interaction between globalisation and museum’s’ branding strategy, in this research, a new local museum, the Gold Ecological Park is selected. An interpretative model with a qualitative research method involving e-mail surveys, is employed. The attitude of museum employees on different aspects of globalization and branding will be examined. Some research limitations will be outlined and several recommendations will be made for future research.