  Many recent studies have investigated social biases in LLMs but brand bias
has received little attention. This research examines the biases exhibited by
LLMs towards different brands, a significant concern given the widespread use
of LLMs in affected use cases such as product recommendation and market
analysis. Biased models may perpetuate societal inequalities, unfairly favoring
established global brands while marginalizing local ones. Using a curated
dataset across four brand categories, we probe the behavior of LLMs in this
space. We find a consistent pattern of bias in this space -- both in terms of
disproportionately associating global brands with positive attributes and
disproportionately recommending luxury gifts for individuals in high-income
countries. We also find LLMs are subject to country-of-origin effects which may
boost local brand preference in LLM outputs in specific contexts.
