More than half the respondents in a 10-country study of Latin America were negative towards US political values, with 15% positive and a third negative towards the culture and values of the US, with only 20% positive.
Only 13% agreed that the US respects other cultures while 80% said they care only about themselves and 82% said they eat too much.
Despite heavily marketing in Latin America since the mid 90s, the US has done little to change its neighbours' perception of it as a race of "fat, ignorant people only interested in their own culture".
The research also identified a string of high-profile brands that are associated with their US origin -- including Pepsi, Coca-Cola and McDonald's -- that are perceived negatively by Latin Americans.
However, Timberland, Polo, Boeing, Whirlpool, Motorola, Kodak and Coors were only selected by half the respondents as being associated with the US.
A quarter of the study said they would be happy to switch to local equivalents and 29% said they would not wear Levi's because they did not agree with US policies.
The study also revealed that younger consumers are far more critical of the US than older generations. Because the young represent a huge and growing proportion of markets, there is concern that the future oversees market could grow up to be very anti-America.
Given that US brands do not control government foreign policy, Research International sees a number of strategies emerging to address this issue. The most significant -- of which Kodak appears a precursor -- is to lose its US-origin identification through marketing.
Another might be to mobilise those parts of the US's global media and entertainment reach where it has influence to counter and compensate for politically driven negative perceptions.
A third could combine these approaches by developing high-profile corporate social responsibility initiatives in each operating country and ensuring excellent media coverage and representation both locally and globally.
However, Research International said that further research was needed to understand the viability of these options for specific brands, markets and market sectors.
Research International is a custom market research agency owned by WPP. It currently has more than 50 offices around the world with 3,500 employees.
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