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The Power of Uncertainty the Cultural Tensions Behind Smash Hit Digital Strategies in China

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The Power of Uncertainty the Cultural Tensions Behind Smash Hit Digital Strategies in China The power of uncertainty The cultural tensions behind smash hit digital strategies in China Tom Richardson OgilvyOne, Shanghai July 2012 Introduction: In the time it takes you to read this sentence, four babies will have been born in China. Two migrants will have arrived in the city from the countryside. 30 people will have become connected to the internet. More than 6000 updates will have been posted to Sina Weibo, and 21,000 videos will have been uploaded to Tudou. It’s all change! Well, not quite. There are plenty of things that aren’t changing in China. For all that digital technology has done to change Chinese society and the way people relate to each other, the fundamentals of Chinese culture - collective memory, language, ways of thinking - are remarkably enduring. Modernity is moderated by tradition. Ambition is balanced by duty. And individuality is still subject to the obligations of community. We’ve titled this paper ‘The Power of Uncertainty’ because there’s a huge opportunity in China for brands that help people to make sense of tensions between competing aspirations and responsibilities. Much of Ogilvy’s strategy work in China is based on understanding and working with these tensions. In the age of mobile social media, a brand can benefit from starting a conversation that challenges accepted truths. It used to be that brands gave people an answer. Now they’re in the business of being seen to ask the right questions at the right time, and setting the discussion free. The four digital case studies introduced in this paper make it clear that in a country where so much is changing so quickly, the best campaigns don’t just focus on what’s new, but understand how novelty sparks off against culture and tradition. The arrogance of now As human beings, we suffer from a bias that makes it difficult for us to see our existence for what it really is: the tiniest of dots on a continuum. Homo sapiens evolved in Southern Africa, where critical thinking was infinitely less popular than not getting eaten. Although civilization has since bestowed education and the protection of society, we still tend to make decisions based on what’s immediately visible to us, rather than the sum of our experiences. As marketers, we look in one direction and see a rival brand or agency build a campaign around QR codes or 360 degree film, and we see a threat. We think we’re about to be eaten, so our instinctive reaction is to accelerate the digital arms race, stuffing our arsenal full of technologists, PHDs, and Chief Innovation Officers. These people contribute to the vital task of helping brands prepare to meet people in places where people don’t even exist yet. But they, too, must be able to see human experience on a longitudinal scale, and respect the relative insignificance of now. The urgency of China China’s success only exaggerates the impulse. The furious pace of change on the surface leads to intense speculation. While this can be tremendously exciting, the flip side is that marketers are in good company here; everyone’s afraid of being eaten. It’s difficult to look at the growth of Sina Weibo, smartphone penetration, and online retail without coming to the conclusion that this is a time of unprecedented change in China’s history, and that it must be affecting the people who have grown up with it. Of course, both of things are true. But the effect is not predictable. For now, China is seizing its moment in the sun with alacrity. You can taste the optimism and confidence in the air in Shanghai. On the other hand, there are signs that the breakneck pace of change in China is causing people to cleave to familiarity. This is the biggest tension of them all. Goodyear: The Spirit of Safety The challenge The tire industry in China had been beset by a series of problems in the years leading up to this campaign. In 2007, the US issued a controversial recall of 450,000 tires manufactured by Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber because of fears of tread separation. This was followed, in 2011, by reports that Korean brand Kumho was using excessive amounts of recycled rubber in its tires, increasing the likelihood of accidents.1 This scandal saw Kumho sales fall by between 30 to 40 per cent against a background of general concern about manufacturing standards in China. Recognizing opportunity, tire firms operating in China had been trying to get one up on each other by reinforcing their safety credentials. This led to excessive emphasis on tread, traction and camber, with functional claims triumphing over emotional appeal. We had to find a way to make the message of safety chime with the public mood. The cultural tension At times it seems that 21st century China is experiencing an agonizing process of soul-searching, as people struggle to reconcile the benefits of opportunity with the cost that it comes at. This kind of introspection is not unique to China – all developed countries wrestle with it – but in recent years it seems to have progressed from concern to despair. The current wave of introspection has been fuelled by a series of public morality and safety scandals. During the last four years, the Chinese people have been afflicted by toxic milk, contaminated pork, gutter oil and exploding watermelons. People have looked on, in horror, at the indifference of bypassers as a baby was run over by a truck, and voiced their disgust at the death of an old man who fell on crowded street in Hubei and choked on his own blood after being ignored for 90 minutes. The government has been quick to respond, recognizing the importance of balancing moral authority with economic leadership. In the aftermath of the milk crisis, the death penalty was introduced for food safety violators. A new food safety law was introduced along with a risk evaluation system capable of monitoring 500,000 companies. And a ‘Good Samaritan’ law is being trialed in Shenzhen in response to the tragic death of Yue Yue. The response has not just been legislative, however. These laws reflect a broader ‘spirit’ of moral reconstruction in Chinese society. A network of ‘civilization offices’ around the country reward individuals for ethical behavior, students are summoned from universities to hear tales of selfless steelworker Guo Mingyi, while CCTV lionizes 1 http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2011-09/13/content_13675216.htm everyday heroines like Wu Juping, who broke her arm when she ran to catch a baby that fell from a tenth floor window. These are all attempts to erode the Confucian culture of shaoguanxishi, which means ‘don’t get involved if it’s not your business’, and replace it with a more collective consciousness. Although Confucius said “helping others is joy,” his enduring legacy is ‘the five relations of humanity,’ which suggests a narrow view of a person’s responsibilities that doesn’t emphasize kindness to strangers. ‘The five relations’ made a vital contribution to orderly society when the family unit was close enough to enforce li (propriety) and support misfortune, but there’s a growing recognition that they must be adapted to remain relevant to a society in which 100 million people have migrated away from home. The popular reaction to recent initiatives designed to undermine shaoguanxishi suggests that people see the value of a more collective consciousness. 15,000 people a day visited a photo exhibition commemorating the life of altruist paragon Lei Feng at the Beijing Military Museum in early 2012. Philanthropy has grown prodigiously amongst wealthy Chinese, prompted a surge after the Sichuan Earthquake in 2008. And people have flocked to newly-built Taoist temples, which have tripled in number in the last 15 years. By early 2011, we felt that several disparate strands of public consciousness were converging. First, China seemed to be crying out to have its faith restored in the idea of virtue without reward.2 Second, we could sense a fierce admiration for China’s unsung heroes, and a desire to see them recognized. And third, we reluctantly identified a growing feeling of insecurity in Chinese society, aggravated by a series of safety scandals. The digital solution In partnership with Shanghai Documentary TV channel, we created a series of 1-minute films about the lives of people who have only ever worked in one job, devoting their entire careers to making other people safe. These people included: A man who spent 200 days a year alone on an island for 32 years, monitoring the ocean to provide early warnings of typhoons A retired public bus driver who drove a single route for 31 years, driving 600,000 kilometers without a single accident A senior airline pilot with a safe flight record of over 20,000 hours, who paced the aisle of his aircraft before every flight to remind himself that the passengers’ safety was in his hands. 2 A well-intentioned proposal in Guangzhou in early 2012 promised 10% to anyone who returned lost money, but was widely criticized on the grounds that it reduced moral conduct to the level of a business deal. Celebrity author and social opinion leader Li Chengpeng interviewed the characters from two of the films at the launch party in Shanghai, with a simulcast on Sina Weibo and Tudou.com. People viewing the content online were directed to the Sina Weibo feed which was branded in keeping with the theme of the campaign: ‘Find the Safety Guardians All Around You’. Using social media, people were encouraged to search for and promote those who had devoted themselves to the protection of others.
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