About a month ago, I presented my general thoughts and impression on advertising in China at NextStep @ The Factory. This post is a recreation of that 20 minute presentation; I’ll cover the point of branding, how it applies to China advertising, and case studies that show these ideas in action.
Connecting on an emotional level. Beyond appearance, the true value of a brand is the emotions it elicits when viewed by its market.Therefore the truth of a brand is not what it looks like, but how you feel when you think of it. Brands achieve this by creating advertising that makes an emotional impact; by understanding their customers, and connecting on a deeper level. A Brand is a group of emotions.Branding is the process of strategically creating emotions.
Branding in China. To connect with the Chinese we need to understand the Chinese. We need to know their dreams, their hopes, their fears. We need to show them that our products will help them achieve the real goals buried deeply in their heart.
A brief overview of the Chinese soul. Today I’ll briefly cover the motivations of the Chinese from a national, youth, female and male standpoint; and show how top Brands have used these insights to create strong relationships with the Chinese.
Chinese history is history. The Chinese are proud of their 5000 year history; they reigned as world leaders in culture and technology for much of this time. But that’s all gone now; China is regulated to playing “catch up”, it’s become the butt of jokes (ie: made in China); and it’s constantly under the scrutiny of the world; and often cast in an unfavorable light.
The dream. The Chinese remember their past heights; and this makes them all too aware of their current situation. The dream then is to reclaim what was lost; to take what they feel is their rightful place as world leaders; and to bring back the honor that was aggressively stripped away over the last few centuries.
This was the real theme of the 2008 Olympics.
Despair, Rebirth.
Pride, Hope, Reclaiming what was lost.
A recurring theme. This general insecurity is a recurring theme in human nature; but it is especially sharp in the minds of the Chinese. We’ll see this basic desire manifest, transform and express itself throughout each of facet of Chinese society, all of which is represented through its advertising.
[See LRB's past post: Adidas; Perfectly Capturing the Chinese Spirit.]
That's not nice.
Youth Marketing. If the Chinese are going to reclaim the top position, it will depend largely on their children. Confucian society also dictates that parents support children first, then children support parents after. Combining this with “one child policy”, means one child will be responsible for this support (the financial burden will not be shared by siblings). Add to this the “future lies with you” theme, and the end result is a lot of stressed out Chinese kids.
Stress. The psychology of your average Chinese youth is one filled to the brim with social and family pressures. Pressures begin early with an extreme emphasis on schooling, this culminates in the Gaokao, the university entrance exams.
Escape. Release. Successful China youth advertising then, takes on a sort of “release” or “escape” angle. Another popular element is having supernatural powers or abilities. These elements are ways of combating the excessive pressure of their daily lives.
Therefore, most imagery tends toward the imaginative and fantastic, where the main character has special powers or exceptional skills that elevate him above the stresses and intense competition of daily life.
China cool = Exceptional skill, previously hidden.
Turning the common, uncommon.
Also common, uncommon (do you know the tune?)
Supernatural power.
Related LRB links:
- Ford; Radio Controlled Viral Video.
- LiNing; Traditional Chinese Shadow Puppet Basketball Theatre.
- Nokia & Intel; Chinese Viral Videos.
- Metersbonwe; Bringing a broadsword to the apocalypse.
- LiNing; Traditional Chinese Shadow Puppet Basketball Theatre.
- Snickers encourages Chinese kids to fight in public; Parents not impressed.
Women. Women have traditionally been considered in a “support role” in most cultures. They are the nurturers, the ones who raise children, protect the family, and take care of the home. However, a benefit of the communist movement was to move women to the front lines; and to an equal position with men.
Decisions, decisions.
Conflict. What exists today is a conflict of sorts; on the one hand conformity with traditional roles fights with a need to be independent; ie: house wife vs. white collar worker.
GM Viral: Independence from Man/Authority.
GM Viral: Direct insubordination to Man/Authority.
Where are the men/authorities?
Related LRB Links:
- Citizen; Watches, not for telling time, but for marking great events.
- GM; When their viral videos dominate Chinese internet, GM decides to make a few more.
- Mousa; Crossing the line between “Independent Woman” and “Lesbian”.
Men. In Chinese society, men have a great burden. They must succeed, but not stand out from the crowd. They must provide for their families and their parents, and are locked into a strict societal hierarchy.
The picture of the perfect Chinese man is successful, with a happy family, adoring wife, and supporting his parents. When competing against one billion nationals, this dream, though seemingly humble – is in fact very difficult to achieve.
Success. What Chinese men respond to then is products that will help them achieve this ideal; or provide proof that they’ve already succeeded.
Successful business man, head of family, respects parents, part of team.
Release. Beyond this, years of pent up repression under strict societal rules needs release (or escape); successful ads targeted to Chinese men representing this release of aggression have also been successful.
Kungfu. The obligatory nod toward kungfu; the perfect metaphor for success as a Chinese man. It requires strict and diligent discipline under harsh training conditions. Once mastered, it allows controlled outbursts of supreme aggression, both beautiful and free-formed; but all under the guidance of a set rule system.
Related LRB links:
- Nokia; Bruce Lee and The Passion for Perfection.
- LiNing; Visualizing the Chinese competitive spirit… just like Nike.
- General Motors; Buick Excelle TV Campaign.
The Nutshell. Your Brand is the set of emotions someone feels when they see your company, your products, or you. To truly be successful as a Brand in China, you must then connect on an emotional level with the Chinese.
This requires displaying an empathetic understanding of Chinese values, beliefs, motivations, and hopes for the future; and then showing how your service conforms to their needs.
Related articles from around the web.
- What can we learn from Confucianism? (guardian.co.uk)
- Cultural Change in China (luke.gedeon.name)
- China’s tinderbox (news.bbc.co.uk)
- Generations in China (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
Related Posts:
- China Consumer Profile; “Young Digital Fashionistas” “Young Digital Fashionista” is a young Chinese girl with college education. She has an average yearly income of RMB 63,420 (USD 9,342), which is considered to be a high income in China; this allows her to “spoil” herself. She...
- My logo is bigger than your logo! The culture of Chinese consumerism. One billion material girls… for the single man, both a blessing and a curse. China consumes 25% of the world’s luxury goods; this surpasses every country, even the US. When considering its per capita income of USD 2000 (I’m...
- Mengniu; Celebrating adolescent superficiality. I picked up this from LRB’s forum. These ads for Mengniu (a major China dairy giant) launched in early 2009; the product is fruit yogurt drinks that combine fruits, vegetables, milk and nutrition targeted to Chinese teenagers. This is a...
- DHL; Awesome China Magazine Advertising. Here’s a cool magazine ad from DHL; simple, clean, and effective. The main communication here is you can “instantly” send a package from China to Japan. Unfortunately the imagery that represents China is pretty similar to the imagery that symbolizes...
- One billion invisible Chinese. This one isn’t about advertising; rather its a forwarded email I got from Andrew (my biz partner), which he got from his sister in Australia (now you know my content sources). In it is a Chinese man named Liu Bo...
Rand
Charles Frith
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Duncan Leung
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Mao Ruiqi
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Rand, I like this post. Do you have a PPT version of this presentation?
@jason -
This post was actually taken from a PPT, each bold headline was a bullet point on a different slide. It’s the exact same info from the PPT, though this post is missing a few of the samples I used during the presentation. The upside is that I can link to all my source material in this post, which makes the overall presentation more thorough.
@Rand
If you can upload the PPT to Slideshare, it will be more visual and easier to share
@jason
I can try, but there are a lot of videos in this ppt (around 30 mb); those videos not in PPT, they are attached thru another folder. I don’t think it will upload the attachment videos to slideshare too? I haven’t tried slideshare before so not sure.
@Rand
If the video is in another folder in your computer, it doesn’t work. But if it is on YouTube, it works perfectly.
see a quick intro here: http://www.slideshare.net/rashmi/youtube-videos-inside-slideshare-presentation
@jason
Cool – but can you get to youtube from China? All of LRB’s video posts were from youtube originally, but since the block, had to move everything to youku. Maybe slideshare works with youku – I’ll take a look.
Thanks Rand,
Great post, too good to give away for free like this. I feel like I owe you a beer, at least.
Ric
@ric
Thx for the compliment; I’m around in Shanghai for a drink – drop me an email if you’re in town.
Great post indeed. Up for a drink too
About GM, the viral goal was achieved, but not necessarily associated to the brand. Is that on purpose ? I saw the video on some foreign languages websites and none of them mentioned GM, none of them suspected viral either.
So, is it relevant to play viral if nobody associate your brand to your campaign? I think it depends on who you are, maybe GM can afford it but certainly not some of us.
@Rebecca
Thanks
– I think I’m meeting you later this week with Andrew? Looking forward to it –
For GM – I think there was a lot of talk on it – but the first ad was a bit of a mystery, most people weren’t sure; there was discussion on several forums. However, pretty soon later, GM followed up with virals that had some more obvious branding; check out this article: http://www.littleredbook.cn/2009/02/19/gm-when-their-viral-videos-dominate-chinese-internet-gm-decides-to-make-a-few-more/
Relevance is a tricky issue with this sort of content; it’s a narrow bridge to walk as you want people to be genuinely interested in content; but to achieve that the brand has to be downplayed. For this particular viral it created a lot of curiosity to the point where people called the dealer to find out if it was real; that means people were engaged with the idea of GM enough to take action, which is a significant metric. In later virals, the logo and branding is saved for the very end.
As for expense; the beauty of these virals is that they cost almost nothing to make; I think the guy shot this with a camera/video phone, and then simply uploaded it to youku and have then had a few people spread it around. The key is the content, and how engaging it was for the Chinese – that’s what spread the viral. When you take out traditional/digital advertising media costs, and the majority of creative costs you’re looking at a pretty great campaign – though the burden of performance rests on the fickle, fickle metric of content relevance.
Thanks for the reply and the link
Of course the brand has to be downplayed, to which extent is my question. In this case as you mention GM followed up with more obvious branding virals. However, a lot of virals are launched each year, create a buzz effect, but the brand is so downplayed that nobody can name it, even after everyone realize it was done by an agency.
As for expense, it certainly costs less than classical advertising, but it can be very expensive too depending on various criterias (where you film, who and what you film, what material you use, how you build your spreading strategy..)
For the shooting for instance, they could also have done it with professional material, then retouched to give this “phone shot look” image.
The key is the content, yes definitely. But a content without a Sun Zi style strategy that leads to increase the brand awareness proportionnally to the buzz created is not very affordable (in expense or otherwise) for an advertiser.
See you indeed x