From Chinese Brand Culture to Global Brands

From Chinese Brand Culture to Global Brands Insights from aesthetics, fashion, and history Wu Zhiyan, Janet Borgerson, Jonathan Schroeder © Wu Zhiyan, Janet Borgerson & Jonathan Schroeder 2013 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identiﬁ ed as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–1–137–27634–6 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. vii Contents List of Figures and Tables x About the Authors xi Acknowledgments xii Introduction 1 Chinese branding in the global marketplace 1 From managerial insights to Chinese brand case studies 1 Getting started: The emergence of three case studies 5 Branding and fashion: Some initial insights 7 Emerging global brands 13 How this book is organized 15 1 Global Branding, Fashion Systems, and Historical Culture 18 Exploring brands in their cultural context 18 Managerial perspectives on global branding 22 Global brand standardization/adaptation 24 The managerial perspective of global branding in the Chinese context 25 Brand culture and the cultural approach to global branding 26 The use of historical culture and mythmaking in global brand development 28 The sacred space of brand myth 30 Myths in global brand development 31 Brand identity and consumer identity 35 Brand image and the imagined community 38 Brand culture in the Chinese context 39 Global vs. local 43 Fashion and fashion systems in the development of global consumer culture 46 viii CONTENTS Fashion discourse, symbolic production, and consumption of fashion goods 48 Fashion and myth-making 49 Global consumer culture and fashion systems 52 Global consumer culture in the Chinese context 54 2 Jay Chou, Pop Star: Chinese Aesthetics and Contemporary Trends 57 Branding and aesthetics 59 Jay Chou, Chinese music, and marketing 62 The Imagined China as modern-cultured Chinese features 63 The Imagined China via the representation of historical Chinese culture and sacred meaning 64 A hybrid image: The Imagined China via the representation of historical Chinese culture and fashion discourses 66 The sacred feature of Jay Chou’s hybrid image 67 The fashionable features of Jay Chou’s hybrid brand image 69 The Imagined China and the representation of historical Chinese culture 72 The Imagined China, brand actors, and Jay Chou’s global hybrid image 75 Jay Chou: Strategic use of Chinese culture 76 3 The 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony: Branding China for the World 78 Global brand mythologies: Developing a new identity 81 Authenticity, nostalgia, and hyperreality 83 A fashionable identity 87 Chinese identity anxiety 88 Identity anxiety and brand development 91 Imaging the new Apsaras of a modern China 94 Zhang Yimou: Extending the global Chinese myth market 96 Public discourses of the Opening Ceremony 103 Fashion and the global myth 105 Global myths and Chinese culture 108 Ǡ CONTENTS ix 4 Shanghai Tang: A Chinese Luxury Brand with Global Ambitions 110 The significance of design 113 The myth of the modern Chinese lifestyle 117 Distinctive cosmopolitan identity projection through Chinese cultural codes and global fashion resources 119 A ladder for success 125 Follow the monkey: Anti-fashion and anti-brand attitudes 127 A reflective, authentic reservoir of historical Chinese references 129 The dialectical ambivalence of the erotic and the chaste 131 A lexicon of Chinese symbols 133 Strategically satisfying global consumers: Identity and social dependency 137 Employees as consumers 139 Global store locations and environments 140 Expressing dynamic and stylish Chinese lifestyles 144 The co-creation and circulation of brands and cultures 147 Brand culture at Shanghai Tang 150 5 From Chinese Brand Culture to Global Brands 151 A global ethnic diaspora market reach as a global branding approach 151 The Chinese diaspora 155 Imagined China: Reconstructing the identity of modern Chinese lifestyle 156 Fashion and irrelevance 158 The circulation and co-creation of brands and cultures revisited 161 Aesthetics in Chinese-styled global brand culture 161 Implications of the brand culture approach to Chinese-styled global branding 164 Appendix 167 References 182 Index 213 x List of Figures and Tables Figures 0.1 Jay Chou performing in Shanghai 10 0.2 The Beijing 2008 Opening Ceremony in Bird’s Nest Stadium 11 0.3 Model Lin Chi-ling in a Shanghai Tang fashion show 13 2.1 Jay Chou in Shanghai on the eve of a world tour 59 2.2 Jay Chou rehearsing for the Beijing CCTV Spring Festival Gala 64 3.1 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony 80 3.2 Drum (fou) Beaters, Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony 85 3.3 Zhang Yimou, director of the 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony 97 4.1 David Tang, founder of Shanghai Tang, in Hong Kong 112 4.2 Shanghai Tang storefront 142 Tables 1.1 Aspects of brand culture 27 18 1 Global Branding, Fashion Systems, and Historical Culture Global brand culture includes “the contention that culture and history can provide a necessary contextualizing counterpoint to managerial and information processing views of global branding’s interaction with consumer society” (Schroeder, 2007, p. 351). In other words, international marketing managers need to pay more attention to both the cultural and historical context of brands and branding practices across the globe. In light of the fact that global brand culture derives in part from the impact of society and history on consumer culture, one could argue that the understand- ing of global branding would only benefit from perspectives that integrate managerial, social, and cultural perspectives. Consumer researchers Julien Cayla and Giana Eckhardt have shown how the Asian world can be understood via brands that reanimate and repackage historical culture to reveal a more modern and multi- cultural Asia (2008). From this perspective, brands can be treated as cultural forms by researchers. This chapter explores the cultural role of brands and aspects of brand culture in the global marketplace. The following sections enumerate managerial and cultural perspectives, global branding, brand culture, historical culture, and fashion systems. Exploring brands in their cultural context Culture is often perceived as a resource upon which branding processes and practices can draw, but less acknowledged are the ways in which branding processes and practices – and brands themselves – co-create culture. Indeed, brands are ubiquitous 1 Ǡ GLOBAL BRANDING, FASHION SYSTEMS … 19 in everyday life, and they engage multiple actors in processes and practices that produce cultural meanings. Various aspects of the media, such as television programming, online content, magazines, movies, and books, as well as other stakeholders, such as labor unions, retailers, sports, brand professionals, and brand researchers participate in brand myths, brand meaning, and branding activities – from product placement and endorse- ment to social media target marketing. While companies pains- takingly employ time-tested strategic branding techniques, for example in generating brand myths, consumers of all varieties invest brands with particular meanings by consuming them in socially negotiated ways. As brand researcher Susan Fournier has argued, brands can act as companions that co-create and con- tribute to life experiences (1998). At a basic level, a brand is a mark that communicates a proprietary ownership of something that others might wish to possess and from which they are specifically excluded, but also an invitation to, or recognition of, inclusion through a sharing in the value of the mark. This tension between exclusion and inclusion, outsider and insider, fuels a movement basic to human needs, wants, and desires. Co-constructed by various brand actors, brand meanings are closely determined by relationships and context. In keeping with this paradigm, brand culture shifts and changes through repeated interactions between various actors across time and space. These conceptual connections notwithstanding, most studies on international marketing and consumer culture have paid scant attention

Load more