What Foreign Brands Don't Get about Using China's Cultural Icons

Many Western brands have been tripping over themselves in recent years to try to snag a piece of the huge Chinese market. But it's not as simple as simply shelling out the cash.

The most recent example comes from America's famous coffee giant. Starbuck's thought they were honoring a famous judge on their coffee mugs. They were wrong.

It's one of the numerous examples of what happens when brands don't do their homework beforehand.

Andrea Hunt has more:

Recently, American Coffee brand Starbucks thought they could use a cultural icon to tap into the affections of the Chinese consumer in Hefei, Anhui Province. Customers bought up 100 of expensive coffee mugs donning the face of Northern Song Dynasty Judge, Bao Zheng in less than two hours.

However, the family was less than impressed with the foreign- looking face on the mug. Starbucks was accused of 'cashing in on China's most upright official.'

Other brands such as Toyota, Adidas, Yoshinoya or Nike have made similar errors. Chinese consumers like twenty-one year old Beijinger Xiong Yusi explain where brands may go wrong.

"It's kind of different to Western society I think. Maybe because young people are quite oversensitive now as well. Everything now is newly built, newly developed and with Western influence, people want to find the old culture back. When foreign brands use icons, we think it's inappropriate."

And when that happens, the Chinese cyberspace is ablaze with criticism. Roobin Golestan from Germany is the Head of Planning at DMG Beijing, a company specializing in branding, media, and advertising. He explains why it's important to do a bit of homework.

"I think one of the mistakes that they made and many of the other brands as well is not paying attention to cultural things and especially foreign brands coming in and using cultural icons, it's always sensitive. I think it might be OK if other brands do it, like if they're local. But it's not OK if a foreign brand does it. And I think they should have contact the right parties, make sure with the local government that everything is fine, and that was their biggest mistake."

Sports brands trying to mix cultural icons with Western athletes have also come under fire. In a 2004 commercial, Nike tried to use dragons and kungfu masters as opponents for famous NBA basketball player Lebron James. However, this sort of representation was deemed highly offensive and the commercial was banned.

So, what makes China such a complicated place to advertise and what do the consumers themselves think? Yi Zhang is from Shenzhen but now lives most of the time in the UK. She says some brands from abroad misunderstand the complexity within the Chinese market.

"China's obviously a big country and there are different cultures in different cities. It's actually very difficult I think to understand the market properly. So, I think those companies, the reason they're successful is because they understand the cultures, and they understand the traditions."

Nike was able to redeem itself over the years and capture the affections of Chinese youth. Golestan explains how one of Nike's later sporting events successfully combined traditional icons and contemporary culture.

"One thing that we actually did in 2007 was the "Battle of the Nine Gates" and it was using cultural insights of Beijing, the different gates that used to be surrounding the Forbidden City, the nine gates to create a hip hop basketball street tournament. And one of the success stories was relevant to Beijing and Beijing only, and it still felt cool."

Beijinger Xiong Yusi says some foreign brands stand out when she recalls the advertising she's seen over the years. Brands like McDonalds' and Coca Cola come to mind.

"There's another ad for McDonald's when the baby saw the McDonalds's sign and it smiled. It's like this purity, this family warmth. And it didn't really touch anything sensitive."

Coca-Cola also uses the idea of family during Chinese New Year in order to generate positive images during this important holiday. Certain themes work in vastly different cultures. And yet, from a consumer perspective, Zhang Yi says Chinese and Western advertising have very different characteristics.

"One of the significant things about Chinese advertisement is they tend to use a lot of famous faces like pop stars and people integrate the brands into the normal lifestyle and also in China, I think advertisement tends to focus on the tradition. Whereas in the European- in the Western markets, they like innovation, they like new ideas."

So what can brands learn from Starbucks? Golestan suggests brands stay humble in their approach and learn from others' mistakes. Also, Zhang Yi points out another important lesson.

It's true that sometimes, Chinese people can be quite sensitive, especially about history. We have a long history, and people tend to be very proud of our country and the history. But I wouldn't say it's the consumers' fault because I did a bit of marketing before and I learned a phrase from Theodore Levitt, marketing is about thinking global and act local. So, it's really up to the company to try to understand and study the culture and differences in different countries."

For a lot of brands, China is a big and confusing market not to be taken lightly. But clearly, the difference between impressing this vast market and offending it can be as simple as doing a bit of research beforehand.

For CRI, I'm Andrea Hunt.