“To do business in China, you have to do local, that is, local innovation with a global perspective.”
(James Xia, 2006)
1 Introduction
I recently visited Shanghai to attend the Cass Business School China Symposium. There were a number of very interesting presentations by excellent leaders and experts from across the industry spectrum. For me, the most compelling of these was the ‘Branding in China’ presentation given by Ruth Ang, and this paper focuses on that topic.
The main area that I will be analysing is how Chinese and foreign companies are building brands in China, and what the future holds in terms of branding in China. Here I will look at the activities that firms are pursuing in order to build a lasting competitive advantage, not only in the tier one cities like Shanghai and Beijing, but also in the tier two and three cities where hundreds of millions of consumers live, work and purchase. I will also briefly examine the impact of fake brands in the Chinese market.
I then briefly analyse exactly how Chinese companies are positioning their brands outside China, and conclude by looking at what branding and marketing core competencies are required in order to build a lasting competitive advantage both inside and outside China, and how Chinese firms can position themselves to succeed strategically in these fluid markets. 2 Branding in China “If it can be Chinese, it should be Chinese.” (Professor Chris Brady, 2006)
One only has to look at some of the big established brands in the West like Coca Cola, Virgin and Easy Group to see that branding is a core competency that can deliver sustainable competitive advantage over the long-term, and thus lead to superior profits and growth over rivals. Branding allows consumers to distinguish the products and services of one company from competing companies. Initially, branding was only used to illustrate the