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There is currently much discussion in China about “soft power,” and I follow this discussion with great interest as a marketing professional and a lay observer. Here I would like to express my opinion in a professional sense. I was in charge of marketing and branding London for eight years, from 2000 to 2008. During that period the success of our work was recognized by international surveys that frequently ranked London as the world’s number one city. A practical demonstration came in 2005 when London won the right to stage the 2012 Olympics Games in one of the toughest bidding wars in games history. London’s competitors were New York, Madrid, Moscow and Paris.
In marketing it is never possible to separate the“product” from its promotion and branding. Naturally a city or a country is a very complex “product” – not a “product” at all in the normal sense. But the same principle applies. If the intimate relationship among the “product,” branding and marketing is not understood, “soft power” can be misunderstood by advertisers and used as a gimmick. This, however, won’t work for any significant period of time. An example of that misunderstanding is an interview I gave on Shanghai TV about promoting cities. The presenter wanted to know if I thought a city promotional video should be produced by a Chinese pop star and whether London had done this (it hadn’t). Such trivial questions are the wrong place to start.
In good promotion and marketing that uses “soft power,” the best starting point is the nature of the product itself. A very good product can fail because it is inadequately promoted. China, for example, has probably underestimated the importance of promotion and marketing in a way that India has not. India’s “Incredible India” campaign is one of the world’s most successful in promoting a country. China now devotes increased resources to promotion – the rapid overseas expansion of CCTV is one example. But resources will not be effective unless they are integrated with the product.
To make an analogy, sometimes on a course I teach at Shanghai Jiao Tong University I am asked the misguided question: “How can we establish a luxury brand?” My answer is: “First have a luxury product.” No marketing will firmly establish a brand if the product doesn’t fundamentally correspond to what is projected. China, evidently, is not projecting itself as “luxury.” Creating a “luxury”country is possible – just look at Italy! But still, the first discussion has to be about the character of the product being projected. A superb example of how to do this came when I was lucky enough to be in the Bird’s Nest stadium for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. I received constant emails and texts from people abroad watching it on TV. “Incredible,” “wow,” “amazing,”were typical comments. Zhang Yimou, the ceremony’s director, judged the international audience perfectly. He presented a clear image of China to the world – showcasing China’s tremendous historical depth while simultaneously stressing the country’s relations with the world. Zhang Yimou’s technical achievements were outstanding, but what stood out was his ability as a filmmaker to project a single, overarching idea. He brilliantly illustrated that technique has to follow content, and that technique without the right content won’t work. Some people may not want to discuss countries in these terms, but the principle is the same in any good promotion. The“brand” has to be totally integrated with, and flow from, the “product.”
Examining the “product” from an international point of view in this case means accurately identifying where China is globally – that is, where the “hard”base from which its “soft” power can be built is.
A key aspect of China’s key “positions” can be seen in the chart. This shows the percentage of the world’s population living in countries with GDPs per capita higher or lower than China. GDP per capita is one of the most convenient proxies for living standards. The chart shows changes in China’s living standards compared to the world.
China has become a “middle income” country in real terms. In 1978, countries containing only 0.5 percent of the world’s population had a GDP per capita below China’s, while 73.5 percent had significantly higher GDP. And that’s without mentioning that China held 25.9 percent of the world’s population at that time. By 2010, the percentage of the world’s population living in countries with higher GDPs per capita than China was 31.3 percent, while the figure for those living where GDPs per capita were lower than China was 48.1 percent. Given the rate of increase, 2011 data will most likely show that less than 30 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where GDP per capita is higher than in China.
In just over 30 years China has moved from be- ing one of the world’s least economically developed countries to a position where less than one third of the world’s population is better off. This drastically affects how China is perceived and, therefore, what forms its “soft power” can take. It’s fair to say that for most people in the world, living standards are important, and that they learn about living standards in other countries, such as in China, through their media institutions. Advanced economies’ living standards are still considerably above China’s, and this negatively affects media perceptions. But half of the world’s population now lives in countries with GDP per capita below China. These countries’ media present a rosier picture of China.
A vivid illustration of this effect came through my job. I often teach “doing business in China”courses for foreign students. Recently, my students on two successive days were from France and Nigeria. Apart from those working in the telecom industry, almost none of the French students had heard of Huawei, an extremely large and important Chinese company. Every Nigerian student had heard of Huawei, Haier, ZTE and other leading Chinese companies, however, and regarded their products as high quality. My trips to Latin America also showed rapidly expanding awareness of China’s brands.
Sometimes China’s media is too obsessed with the U.S. and Europe. This is understandable, because China’s population would like to have these countries’ standards of living. But we can’t forget the tremendous progress China has made in 30 years. For half the world’s population, China is now a relatively rich country. That is a key, hard fact on which China’s soft power should be based.
In marketing it is never possible to separate the“product” from its promotion and branding. Naturally a city or a country is a very complex “product” – not a “product” at all in the normal sense. But the same principle applies. If the intimate relationship among the “product,” branding and marketing is not understood, “soft power” can be misunderstood by advertisers and used as a gimmick. This, however, won’t work for any significant period of time. An example of that misunderstanding is an interview I gave on Shanghai TV about promoting cities. The presenter wanted to know if I thought a city promotional video should be produced by a Chinese pop star and whether London had done this (it hadn’t). Such trivial questions are the wrong place to start.
In good promotion and marketing that uses “soft power,” the best starting point is the nature of the product itself. A very good product can fail because it is inadequately promoted. China, for example, has probably underestimated the importance of promotion and marketing in a way that India has not. India’s “Incredible India” campaign is one of the world’s most successful in promoting a country. China now devotes increased resources to promotion – the rapid overseas expansion of CCTV is one example. But resources will not be effective unless they are integrated with the product.
To make an analogy, sometimes on a course I teach at Shanghai Jiao Tong University I am asked the misguided question: “How can we establish a luxury brand?” My answer is: “First have a luxury product.” No marketing will firmly establish a brand if the product doesn’t fundamentally correspond to what is projected. China, evidently, is not projecting itself as “luxury.” Creating a “luxury”country is possible – just look at Italy! But still, the first discussion has to be about the character of the product being projected. A superb example of how to do this came when I was lucky enough to be in the Bird’s Nest stadium for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. I received constant emails and texts from people abroad watching it on TV. “Incredible,” “wow,” “amazing,”were typical comments. Zhang Yimou, the ceremony’s director, judged the international audience perfectly. He presented a clear image of China to the world – showcasing China’s tremendous historical depth while simultaneously stressing the country’s relations with the world. Zhang Yimou’s technical achievements were outstanding, but what stood out was his ability as a filmmaker to project a single, overarching idea. He brilliantly illustrated that technique has to follow content, and that technique without the right content won’t work. Some people may not want to discuss countries in these terms, but the principle is the same in any good promotion. The“brand” has to be totally integrated with, and flow from, the “product.”
Examining the “product” from an international point of view in this case means accurately identifying where China is globally – that is, where the “hard”base from which its “soft” power can be built is.
A key aspect of China’s key “positions” can be seen in the chart. This shows the percentage of the world’s population living in countries with GDPs per capita higher or lower than China. GDP per capita is one of the most convenient proxies for living standards. The chart shows changes in China’s living standards compared to the world.
China has become a “middle income” country in real terms. In 1978, countries containing only 0.5 percent of the world’s population had a GDP per capita below China’s, while 73.5 percent had significantly higher GDP. And that’s without mentioning that China held 25.9 percent of the world’s population at that time. By 2010, the percentage of the world’s population living in countries with higher GDPs per capita than China was 31.3 percent, while the figure for those living where GDPs per capita were lower than China was 48.1 percent. Given the rate of increase, 2011 data will most likely show that less than 30 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where GDP per capita is higher than in China.
In just over 30 years China has moved from be- ing one of the world’s least economically developed countries to a position where less than one third of the world’s population is better off. This drastically affects how China is perceived and, therefore, what forms its “soft power” can take. It’s fair to say that for most people in the world, living standards are important, and that they learn about living standards in other countries, such as in China, through their media institutions. Advanced economies’ living standards are still considerably above China’s, and this negatively affects media perceptions. But half of the world’s population now lives in countries with GDP per capita below China. These countries’ media present a rosier picture of China.
A vivid illustration of this effect came through my job. I often teach “doing business in China”courses for foreign students. Recently, my students on two successive days were from France and Nigeria. Apart from those working in the telecom industry, almost none of the French students had heard of Huawei, an extremely large and important Chinese company. Every Nigerian student had heard of Huawei, Haier, ZTE and other leading Chinese companies, however, and regarded their products as high quality. My trips to Latin America also showed rapidly expanding awareness of China’s brands.
Sometimes China’s media is too obsessed with the U.S. and Europe. This is understandable, because China’s population would like to have these countries’ standards of living. But we can’t forget the tremendous progress China has made in 30 years. For half the world’s population, China is now a relatively rich country. That is a key, hard fact on which China’s soft power should be based.