Advertising in China

2010-02-09T17:15:00.000-08:00

During our visit to Shanghai in December 2009, we visited several companies that gave us insight as to how business is conducted in China. GE Shanghai and BBDO, an international marketing/advertising firm, were two of the companies we visited that assisted me in my research of a comparative analysis between the United States and China’s advertising techniques in the automotive industry. GE Shanghai was not what I would have liked it to be. It was scheduled that we would be meeting with an employee within the marketing division to discuss GE Shanghai’s success. However, we came at an inopportune time, the marketing representative wasn’t available and we had to settle with a very basic presentation of who GE Shanghai is. So, unfortunately, this visit was a bust in terms of collecting information for my research topic. The assembly line, however, was interesting, but again, did not assist me in my research topic.

The more beneficial visit was to BBDO. Owen Smith, Group Planning Director at BBDO, gave a presentation on advertising to the Chinese consumer. My research paper identifies marketing and advertising strategies that are effective in targeting a particular consumer group. In my paper, I explain not only how automobile advertisers promote their products, but how, in general, advertising is conducted in China. One of the topics discussed during the visit to BBDO that was beneficial to me was the notion of “economic satisfaction.” This concept is based on the understanding that the Chinese youth feel more financially secure and career-focused today than they did in the past. This fact plays a big role in where consumer’s income may or may not be spent.

Consumer behavior, another topic that was covered by BBDO, has taken a shift towards going “green”, which is the direction that many automobile companies are going. The notion of brand choice is affected by the growing concern for the environment. With that said, owning energy efficient appliances is a top pick for a way in which consumers apply “going green” to their everyday lives. This can be applied to my research because by knowing how consumers’ shift their attention towards “green” products, an advertiser can “upgrade” its strategies and techniques by adapting to the consumers updated wants and needs. A large percentage, 85%, agrees that brands should become more involved with social issues, such as the environment. This information is useful to companies who are trying to break through the clutter of so many other advertisers because they can now pin-point a consumer group to communicate to. By showing that your brand is taking the “green” initiative, it may be seen as more desirable to consumers than other brands.

If you apply this information to how car advertisers try to reach their consumers, presenting Hybrid cars that pollute the environment less could have a major impact on a person’s buying behavior. Adaptability is key to being an effective advertiser. The “going green” phenomenon is something that I was having trouble locating in China while in the United States. There were articles on the Internet that were few and far between, so as I said before, this visit to BBDO really helped to fill in the gaps of information that was hard to get my hands on in the States.

Even without the presentation, Owen gave me great insight, via email after the trip, as to how companies advertise to Chinese consumers. He provided me with a lot of information on how the automobile industry capitalizes on certain aspects of a Chinese consumer’s life. He also provided information on how, generally speaking, international car companies appeal more to the Chinese rather than local car companies. This information was greatly useful and will no doubt assist me in rounding out my research paper. A “paper-changing” piece of information he gave was how Chinese consumers are very much “calculating” when it comes to the automotive choices they make. When I researched this information before going to China, there were not that many articles that touched on this subject, however, with the help of Owen and his advertising expertise in China, I was able to truly get the information that was not necessarily available to me on the Internet. This is another reason why traveling to China helped in providing facts, instead of well written newspaper/magazine articles on the Internet.

This information was just what I needed to truly enrich my research paper. As I said, this information was not easily found on the Internet, via newspaper or web articles. There are just some things that you need to experience from the inside to get a true understanding of how business is conducted. Seeing is believing and if I had not visited China, I may have just assumed I knew what was going on in the advertising industry by simply reading different articles from different sources as opposed to seeing and discussing things first hand.

You can read about the effort companies take to reach their prospective audiences, but actually being in Chinese consumers’ shoes really makes it all click. They have many more restrictions than the U.S., but are more welcoming to international products than ones from local companies. All in all, being amongst Chinese consumers, viewing their everyday lives, and seeing how advertisers connect with their consumers showed me just how similar and different our two countries really are.