As you walk into your local Kroger this afternoon to buy Coca Cola, you may find the infamous Duke logo on the side of the can congratulating some of Duke’s finest commodities.  The basketball program.  Who, if you have been under a rock for the past month, and didn’t know, just won a National Championship.  Not only a great accomplishment, but also a huge moneymaker for Duke.  This is not the first time Coca Cola has promoted and advertised Duke University on their bottles.  Just three months ago they also promoted Coach K and congratulated him for his 1000^th win.  “As the local Coca-Cola bottler that supports Duke University on and off the court, Durham Coca-Cola congratulates Coach K on this historic moment – personally and professionally,” said Hager Rand, chairman and president, Durham Coca-Cola Bottling Company” (GoDuke.com).  This act of localizing Coca Cola is a form of glocalization, which creates new kinds of alliances between corporations as they attempt to be extremely sensitive to local tastemakers and to re-present the brand.  

Glocalizing products can be seen in some ways as a type of code switching.  Or, in other words, a way to change languages to make it more appealing the local demand.  It makes things global and local in the same moment (Hall, 27).  Beyond that, it creates a new form of global mass culture with modern means.  It is usually centered in the West because of western technology, concentration of capital, concentration of techniques and advanced labor and their stories.  An example of the West being in the forefront can simply be seen by the fact that English is the staple language across the global cultural economy.  Glocalization in this form is a peculiar form of homogenization and homogenization of cultural form of representation.  

Glocalizing goes much further than your local Durham grocery store, however.  Western corporations that have been transplanted in the East have also been glocalized. One example is McDonalds, a food chain in the United States that is seen as quick, easy, cheap, and low quality.  However, in China, McDonalds is viewed as a higher-class restaurant and often times even have waitresses.  The menu is significantly different from the list of options in America and they offer specials quite often.  One example of a special offered in a McDonalds in the PRC is the Black and White Burgers that were paired and served together.  “They were a play on the Chinese phrase, heibai liangdao tongchi (黑白两道通吃), which describes people who are so well-connected with both the government (that's the white side) and organized crime ("black society," as it's called in Chinese) that they can "eat from both sides." In other words, someone who has a foot in both camps” (Tepper-Huffington).