Controversies and Challenges in Global Marketing Article Paper Controversies and Challenges in Global Marketing You are going to write a TWO page paper in

Controversies and Challenges in Global Marketing Article Paper Controversies and Challenges in Global Marketing

You are going to write a TWO page paper in single space with the topic, Controversies and Challenges in Global Marketing.

Your paper should include:

1: Introduction of this topic.

2: Talk about the controversies and challenges in global marketing, and give examples.

3: Simply summarize of the article: “Introduction and the Development of Advertising in China.” In book Advertising and Consumer Culture in China.

4: Simply summarize of the article: “Marketing Japanese Products in the Context of Nationalism in China”

5: Conclusion

6: Provide two questions about this topic, and answer them. Introduction
Since China opened its doors to domestic and international capital in 1978, the “low salary,
low consumption” system prevalent during the first three decades of Communist rule (since
1949) has gradually been replaced by a political economy that promotes higher salaries and
higher-level consumption. Before 1978, almost all daily necessities were rationed, with prices
determined by the central authorities. Producing and saving were two core values of China’s
economy. Ideal socialist Chinese cities were “Spartan and productive places with full
employment, secure jobs with a range of fringe benefits, minimal income and lifestyle
differences, an end to conspicuous consumption and lavish spending, and with decent
consumption standards for all” (Whyte & Parish, 1984, p. 16).
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Despite a thriving advertising industry in Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s (Jian Wang, 2000;
Jing Wang, 2008), China gradually eliminated commercial advertising after the founding of the
People’s Republic of China in 1949. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), there were
almost no commercial ads except for limited information about foreign exports (Chen, 2010).
People were predominantly dressed in blue, gray, brown, or military green, prompting French
journalist Robert Guillain (1957) to call the Chinese “the blue ants…under the red flag.” The
streets were devoid of outdoor advertising, except for political slogans or publicity columns
filled with printed or handwritten political announcements and propaganda.
Since 1978, China has undergone tremendous changes. Consumerism, attacked as decadent
capitalism during the Mao era, has now become a key driving force to economic development.
In the last two decades, the Chinese government has actively promoted domestic consumption
as a way to restructure the economy. Current Chinese cities resemble the urban centers in any
capitalist society, and attract pleasure-seeking consumers, with towering buildings, ubiquitous
outdoor TV commercials, alluring neon-lit billboards, bulletins, posters, outdoor TV screens,
mural ads, massage bars, beauty salons, department stores, and many brands of automobile.
Chinese consumers have access to a wide range of local and foreign products, wear clothes in
any color or style that one can imagine, and are exposed to domestic and foreign
advertisements that sell customized luxury products as well as mass-produced daily
necessities.
The “three big items”—the staple consumer goods (a bike, a watch, and a radio set) that
symbolized a well-to-do family in urban China in the Mao era—have been replaced by the
new three big items: an apartment in a good location, an automobile of a good brand, and the
opportunity for foreign education. With increasing disposable income, a rapidly growing
middle class, and an increasing number of millionaires and billionaires, China is now flooded
with luxury foreign products, making the country the third largest luxury market in the world. A
McKinsey report estimates that China will account for 20 percent (180 billion yuan or
approximately $27 billion USD) of global luxury sales in 2015 (Atsmon, Dixit, & Wu, 2011).
China has become the world’s largest market for automobiles, personal computers, smart
phones, and a long list of other consumer products and production materials.
Advertising, arguably the most important institution driving consumer desires, has developed
rapidly in China. From a previously negligible sector, advertising has grown into a gigantic
industry at double-digit and sometimes triple-digit rates, with an average annual rate of growth
of 35 percent in the last three decades (Cheng & Chan, 2009). Advertising revenue continues to
grow, often at a rate much higher than the general economy growth.
The development of advertising goes hand in hand with China’s economic globalization,
political liberalization, cultural transformations, and technological development, especially
since 1992. As will be discussed in chapter one, four major factors—policy, market,
technology, and culture—have shaped Chinese advertising. The dynamics of these
interdependent forces are embodied in three key relations: state–media, producer–consumer,
and China–West relations. These sets of relationships constitute and determine crucial features
of advertising culture in China.
China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, further liberalizing the media and
advertising markets. In the post-WTO era, the authorities have tightened control over media’s
ideological functions while simultaneously liberalizing their economic potentials. New
advertising and marketing trends and practices have emerged in conjunction with new
communication technologies and social media.
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In this interdisciplinary project, I analyze advertising in China since 1978 as an industry, a
profession, and a discourse in the broader context of China’s search for modernity and
economic integration with global capitalism. This book emphasizes the ways in which
advertising practitioners negotiate between the local and the global, the state and the market,
China and the West, and tradition and modernity. Thus it can be read as a cultural history of
advertising as well as an analysis of China’s broader societal and cultural transformations.
My investigation centers on Chinese ad agencies and brands, with limited discussion of foreign
advertising, for three reasons. First, in the Chinese market, the majority of advertising agencies
and marketers are local. Second, scholars such as Jing Wang (2008) and Jian Wang (2000)
have discussed foreign advertising in China. Gerth (2003) analyzes advertising in the early
twentieth century in great detail. However, research on Chinese ad agencies and brands
published in English is limited. And third, the tactics and strategies used by Chinese ad
agencies and brands reflect challenges and opportunities facing less-developed countries
entering the global market.
This project is the outcome of my cumulative fieldwork and observation over the last ten years.
I draw upon materials from advertising campaigns, trade journals, news reports,
documentaries, and interviews. In summer 2005, I conducted participant observations in a
Chinese advertising agency, a Japanese firm, and a Western media firm. Additionally, I
conducted thirty-four interviews with advertising professionals, including ten working in
Japanese firms, ten in Western firms, twelve in Chinese firms, and two in Taiwanese firms. I
also interviewed several leading scholars. Further, between 2008 and 2012 I conducted repeat
interviews as well as new interviews with ad professionals.
This book is among the first scholarly works in English that systematically analyzes Chinese
advertising from the perspective of Chinese ad professionals, ad agencies, and advertisers. It
contributes to an emerging body of literature that examines the tension between nationalism and
cosmopolitanism in China’s engagement with globalization. This book provides insight into
China’s evolving media industries as they are affected by communication technologies. It also
allows readers to understand the changing relationship between the media and the ad agency,
the advertiser and the consumer, and the regulators and regulated in post-WTO China.
Chapter one introduces the conceptual and analytic framework for understanding Chinese
advertising. It discusses key theories and historical contexts that allow readers to look at
Chinese advertising as an industry, a profession, and a discourse. I focus on China’s search for
modernity and cultural globalization, as well as the dialectical relationship between
nationalism and cosmopolitanism, and Orientalism and Occidentalism. The chapter stresses
how key advertising influencers, including factors such as policy, market, technology, and
culture, mutually shape the key sets of relations: state–media, producer–consumer, and China–
West.
Chapter two discusses advertising and consumer culture since 1978 in the broader context of
China’s modernization, economic liberalization, and media commercialization. It provides an
overview of advertising development and analyzes three phases in conjunction with China’s
political and economic liberalization. The government’s support for domestic consumption as
well as the rise of the middle class play roles here. My analysis centers on the interplay
between the market and the state, the local and the global, and technology and ideology.
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Chapters three through five analyze the tension between nationalism and cosmopolitanism and
the convergence of the two. Specifically, chapter three focuses on how neoliberal policies and
the imagined West-China relations shaped advertising ideas and practices prior to China’s
entry into the WTO and during the subsequent grace period until 2005. Such an analysis is also
complemented by an understanding of important competition tactics and advertising strategies
proposed by leading Chinese ad professionals in post-WTO China. The chapter investigates
the transformation of Chinese advertising agencies (state-owned and private) and the discourse
of Chineseness, focusing on how advertising has become a site for negotiating Chinese identity
as a business and cultural strategy.
Chapter four studies how Chinese advertisers sell nationalism and cosmopolitanism by
conducting an in-depth analysis of selected TV commercials and print ads. Given that Chinese
advertisers and ad agencies often claim to represent more authentic Chinese feelings and
values, an analysis of these ads helps us understand how Chinese advertisers reflect and
produce Chinese identity, which further reflects a conflicting understanding of China as a
nation, a state, and a people in an increasingly globalized market. This chapter is a modified
version of a journal article published in the International Journal of Communication in 2008.
In chapter five, I extend the discussion from chapter four and investigate China’s most
prominent sportswear brand, Li Ning, in relation to global brands and other Chinese brands.
The chapter analyzes Li Ning’s marketing and advertising strategies, centering on the Beijing
Olympics and beyond. The analysis specifically explores how and why the brand balances
nationalism and cosmopolitanism to produce a cosmopatriotic image.
Chapter six looks at China’s controversial advertising in the context of the country’s changing
regulations and its sociopolitical, economic, cultural, and technological transformations.
Topics explored include the nature of advertising controversies; the differences between local
and foreign ads; the impact of technologies; and historical, political, and cultural contexts that
contribute to controversial advertising practices.
Chapter seven continues the discussion of the impact of digital technologies and analyzes how
trend-setting advertising practices have changed the relationship between the media, the
advertiser, the consumer, and the ad agency. I discuss three major advertising practices that
have exerted lasting influences, including CCTV’s annual auction, Unilever’s branded
entertainments, and Chinese smartphone Xiaomi’s participatory social media marketing. The
three different advertising practices illustrate China’s shift from mass marketing to more
responsive strategies catering to consumer needs and sentiments.
I should note three things: first, in the book I convert Chinese currency into US dollars using
the exchange rates at the time of each occurrence; second, advertising revenue figures are not
deflated because they are mainly used to illustrate general trends; last, the name of a Chinese
person is spelled out mostly following the Chinese convention—that is, one’s given name
follows the family name. However, if a scholar is based in the West or has an English first
name, the first name precedes the family name.
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An incomplete list of links of ads discussed is included as an appendix.
Critical Studies in Media Communication
Vol. 26, No. 5, December 2009, pp. 435!456
Marketing Japanese Products in the
Context of Chinese Nationalism
Hongmei Li
This paper examines the rise of consumer nationalism in China through an in-depth
analysis of two recent controversial Japanese ad campaigns. I situate the analysis in the
sociopolitical and cultural contexts of contemporary China. I argue that Japanese
producers shoulder a particular burden of history as expressed in consumer nationalism,
which is a combination of the production and reproduction of Japanese imperial history,
the construction of Chinese identity, the expression of dissatisfaction toward the Chinese
government and consumerist ethos in the context of globalization. The Internet has
become a crucial space that organizes Chinese consumer nationalism and enables
consumers to feel a sense of empowerment when they express complaints with the
controversial ads. Consumer nationalism in China can also be understood as what
Benedict Anderson (1991) calls an ‘‘imagined community’’ that attempts to unite the
Chinese in a problematic way.
Keywords: Consumer Nationalism in China; Controversial Advertising; Japanese
Marketing in China; Chinese Marketing; Internet Nationalism
In late November 2003, a state-owned Chinese magazine Auto Fan published in its
December issue two ads for Toyota Automobile. One ad features a stone lion saluting
and another lion kneeling down to a Toyota Prado with the slogan: ‘‘badao, ni bu de
bu zunjing’’ (You cannot but respect Prado). Another ad features a Toyota Land
Cruiser towing a green car in Kekexili, a sparsely populated area in Tibet. The ad
implies that while the green car has broken down, the Toyota Land Cruiser shows its
supreme quality to drive on rough surface (see Figures 1 and 2).
These two ads caused a great controversy among urban Chinese consumers in
general and Chinese Internet users in particular.1 The majority of Internet users think
it inappropriate, if not outrageous, to portray the stone lions, symbols of Chinese
Hongmei Li is an assistant professor in international communication at Georgia State University and a George
Gerbner postdoctoral fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.
Correspondence to: Annenberg School for Communication, 3620 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Email:
hli@asc.upenn.edu or hli@gsu.edu
ISSN 1529-5036 (print)/ISSN 1479-5809 (online) # 2009 National Communication Association
DOI: 10.1080/15295030903325339
436 H. Li
Figure 1. A Toyota Prado Ad (December 2003). Reprinted with permission from Auto
Fan.
culture, saluting, let alone kneeling down to a Japanese car. Some even pointed out
that the statues symbolized the lion statues at the Lugou Bridge in the suburb of
Beijing, where Japanese troops opened their first shot at the Chinese army and began
Figure 2. A Toyota Land Cruiser Ad (December 2003). Reprinted with permission from
Auto Fan.
Marketing Japanese Products in the Context of Chinese Nationalism
437
their formal invasion in North China in 1937. Regarding the Land Cruiser ad, many
Chinese Internet users remarked that the green car was a Dong Feng vehicle, a symbol
of Chinese self-reliance against Western imperialism. Some even asserted that the
green car was a Chinese military vehicle. Seeing a Chinese military vehicle towed by a
Japanese car implies the weaknesses of the Chinese automobile industry, the Chinese
military and the Chinese nation at large. Chinese Internet users demanded apologies
from Toyota, its ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi and the Chinese magazine. Toyota, Auto
Fan and the ad agency apologized. The ads were immediately withdrawn from future
issues of the magazine.
In September 2004, Nippon paint also ran into a similar trouble in the Chinese
market. An ad for Nippon paint was published in International Advertising, a Chinese
trade journal, to showcase its creativity of using Chinese cultural icons to symbolize
the product features. The ad shows a Chinese pavilion, with two dragons winding
around two pillars. While the left pillar appears grey with a dragon stuck to it, the right
pillar has a dragon falling off it because of the supposedly glossy Nippon paint. Again,
the ad led to numerous nationalistic postings over the Internet and in other Chinese
media. Chinese newspapers again covered the controversy. The ad was withdrawn and
the ad agency Leo Burnett and the magazine apologized2 (see Figure 3).
The above two controversial ad campaigns are manifestations of emergent
consumer nationalism in China. The ads, which were created by Western ad agencies,
contain perceived misrepresentations of Chinese cultural symbols by Japanese
producers. The Internet and print media played an important role in shaping both
controversies. This paper uses the two controversial ad campaigns as a starting point
Figure 3. A Controversial Nippon Paint Ad in China (September 2004, International
Advertising). Reprinted with permission from International Advertising.
438 H. Li
to examine consumer nationalism in the sociopolitical and cultural contexts of
contemporary China. I will examine how different players responded in the
controversies, how media, especially the Internet, produced and developed the
controversies, and what the implications are.
I focus on nationalism targeted at Japanese advertising because Japanese producers
and their ads have occupied prominent positions in the Chinese market since China
opened its door to international capital in 1978. From the very beginning, Japanese
advertisers have to constantly deal with anti-Japanese sentiments. Indeed, recent
nationalism in China has largely been characterized by nationalists’ reactive responses
to many Japan-related issues, such as issues over the Japanese war compensations, the
Japanese textbooks of whitewashing the Nanjing Massacre, the territorial dispute over
Diaoyu Islands, and the repeated Japanese Prime Ministers’ visits to the Yasukuni
Shrine, among other things.
Even though consumer nationalism is a general phenomenon in China (Wang,
2005), I focus on Internet consumer nationalism because the use of the Internet has
constituted an important part of daily life for middle-class urban consumers in
China. According to a recent report issued by China Internet Network Information
Centre, China had an Internet population of 221 million by February 2008,
surpassing the United Stated and becoming the country with the largest number of
Internet users. There was and still is an overlap of the demographics of Internet users
and those of urban middle-class Chinese consumer. The great majority of urbanmiddle class consumers are Internet users. Indeed, one’s level of education and one’s
income are positively related to one’s likelihood to use the Internet.3 Thus, the
sentiments expressed over the Internet, to some degree, can be an indicator of feelings
of the Chinese middle class. The Internet was also directly linked to the development
of the controversies and it mediated the government critique. Studying online
consumer nationalism thus provides insight into the mentality of young educated
urban Chinese, who will become leaders of tomorrow’s China.
Consumer Nationalism in China
Jay Wang (2005) defines consumer nationalism as ‘‘the invocation of individuals’
collective national identities in the process of consumption to favor or reject products
from other countries’’ (p. 225). Wang’s model examines the linkages between a
nationalistic consumer base and corporate susceptibility and the factors that
influence these two variables. A nationalistic consumer base can be viewed either
in consumer ethnocentrism that stresses the virtues of buying dome…
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