The Digital IQ of Prestige Brands in ChinaWith China having 384 million internet users, much of the competition for customers and brand loyalty will play out online. The investment prestige brands make in their own digital competence could be a deciding factor in their ability to survive and thrive in China, and is likely to become increasingly important as the market matures.
Car Slogans in China: What Colour is your Future?As environment-friendly cars become an increasingly important market segment, more and more companies are heavily investing in RandD to come up with tomorrow's winning technology. In China, many foreign automotive brands have begun to create innovative taglines and slogans in Mandarin.
Brand Identity Decoded: How great brands define, express, and maintain their identities'Brand identity' encompasses a brand's core idea, values and personality, as well as the way it looks, sounds and feels. In order to create an identity that is easily understood by customers, every brand must be driven by a powerful and unified core idea, and take actions that are consistent with that idea. Failure to 'walk the walk' can lead to indifference, confusion or worse, aversion.
Experiential Branding: Using 5 Senses to Build Brand EquityToday's consumers are confronted with countless choices and a multitude of information to consider when they buy products or services. Traditional promotional methods like advertising in magazines or on TV are no longer as effective as before. How can a company help their brand stand out? What will make their brand communication effective? In light of these questions and many others, brand experience has emerged as an innovative and compelling way to build a brand in the minds of consumers.
Semiotics vs. Semiology: What the Difference means to brandsIn previous articles we have discussed semiotics as a powerful tool for product innovation and analyzing advertising. Using semiotics, brands can take advantage of codes to help them succeed in the marketplace. However, there is a difference between the cultural meaning of a code and that code in relation to a specific category. For example, in Western culture black is generally associated with death, but in a specific product category such as whiskey it can mean the brand is premium, as in 'black label'.
Market Research in China's 2nd Tier CitiesIn their efforts to maintain high levels of economic growth and guarantee the continued development of western provinces and rural areas, China's economic policy makers have realized that western consumers, especially American consumers, can no longer be counted on to purchase all consumer goods coming out of the manufacturing heartlands of the eastern coastal regions of the Yangtze and Pearl River Deltas.
Sound Branding: Building a Sound IdentityAn effective brand identity is commonly perceived as a good brand name and logo, trendy package design and#8213; dimensions which mainly concern visual senses. However, this common perception of branding is incomplete. Human beings have five senses, so why would brand strategists leave four of them aside? Over the past few years, senses other than sight have been explored by brand experts and marketers. A new area of focus is now sound branding, which will be explored in this article.
Branding for Business-to-Business CompaniesWhen you think of a great brand, what comes to mind? Some of the most valuable brands in the world today include Google, Microsoft, Coca Cola, IBM, McDonalds, Apple, and China Mobile. These companies have successfully built brand equity and are well established in consumer's minds. Your target consumer determines your brand strategy, and there are key differences when branding for business-to-business (B2B) as opposed to business-to-consumer (B2C) companies.
Brand Naming in 'Different' ChinasTo tap the large Chinese markets, several foreign firms have seized opportunities to develop their Chinese presence through local investment in branding. Through rigorous branding, they were able to simultaneously gain footholds across different regions in the Chinese-speaking world.
The Poetic Dimension of Chinese Brand NamesA great brand name is one of the most important assets of a company1. It conveys the brand identity, it tells people what the company does and why it does it better than others, and it gives space for creative design and communication developments.
The nature of the Chinese language makes the art of naming brands and products even more complicated: characters have 'multilayered' connotations and the slightest change in pronunciation can greatly alter the meaning of a word.
Chinese Luxury Brands on the MoveChina's growing affluent consumer segment has been attracting worldwide luxury brands for a long time. Gucci, LV, Zegna, and many other top brands tapped into the Chinese market in the early nineties, long before it started generating revenues. It seems clear now that the Chinese luxury consumer market, which did not even exist a mere 20 years ago, is on the path to dominate top end retail. But what about domestic luxury brands?
Sensorial Branding - The Future of Brand BuildingUse senses to enrich the brand experience and build up its uniqueness and personality, while ultimately paving the way to the consumers' affection, preference and loyalty.
Co-branding, a 1+1>2 formulaTo be successful, a co-branding effort must focus of at least one of these objectives:
1. Increase brands distinctiveness by capitalizing on the values embedded in the cooperating brands
2. Deliver consumers greater value by creating highly relevant products or services
3. Increase the esteem consumers have toward participating brands
4. Increase the knowledge consumers have toward cooperating brands
This article introduces all the strategies that can be implemented to reach those objectives.
Branding Tips for Chinese Traditional CompaniesVintage brands have been on the rise in the west for the past 5 years - and the trend is still continuing: brands famous in the 80s that had been long forgotten have been rejuvenated to see new days of glory. Converse All Stars, to name one well known example, have come back into style after years of hibernation.
Brand Translation: Packaging Design Differences between China and the WestIs a product still the same without its packaging?
Packaging design represents what the brand stands for as much as other elements of the brand visual identity do, and in certain cases the packaging is almost as important as the product itself. After all, what would Coca Cola be without its famous bottle?
This article is an in-depth look at packaging design differences between China and the West related to colour choice, labels, images, shapes, etc.
