Does Size Matter to Become a Brand Leader?

Many people have talked about the need for Canada to have a lager population to not only be relevant on the world stage but to remain a competitive one with their iconic brands.

I vehemently disagree.

A small country such as Swtizerland (around 10 million) has dozens of highly visible brand names suchs as Nestle, Swatch, Rolex, ABB, Hoffman LaRoche, Bauer etc. Over in Sweden (population: 5 million) Volvo, Saab, Electrolux, Ericsson, Sandvik among others have shown how a supposedly little country can play on the world stage.

Interestingly, large countries like Russia, India, China, and Brazil have few global brands that we can name.

In the old mass marketing model country size may have been important. Not today. The only thing preventing Canada (3 times the size of Switzerland, and 7 times bigger than Sweden) from creating more iconic brands is creativity, holistic philosophical thinking, and the risk to take chances that may end up in failure....or a huge global success.