Some movies have become a series of commercials with a story line. Thanks to the lucrative business of product placements. Transformers (变形金刚) 3 which opened in cinemas in China on July 21, 2011 shows an abundance of Chinese brands:
Yili: Shuhua Milk
Meters/bonwe: M-Tee
Lenovo: Ideacentre A series
TCL (The Creative Life): HDTV range
Yili milk is trying to transform its image with the product placement after the melamine induced total recall in 2008, see here.
Read Daniel Gilroy's Advertising China Smack article about it here.
However, companies that really want to build a great reputation globally and domestically should focus even more on quality programmes, in order to make the quality of their products consistent, and they should be able to guarantee the safety of the complete supply chain, coupled to superior service that informs their customers about quality, the supply chain and the points of sale.
Sky Canaves and Juliet Ye of the Wall Street Journal's China Journal Blog dealt with the top ten lists of Google.cn 2008. Although most Chinese use Baidu, and Google is used by some of the higher educated Chinese, the most searched terms can give an indication of what is hot and what is not in China. Read the China Journal article here.
In the category "Most asked questions": Number 1. , unsurprisingly, given the enormous impact on China's society, was: What is melamine?Interestingly also on number 8 another question had also to do with substandard, counterfeit products: What is Shan Zhai Ji?
Ok, everything that shows up in a Google top ten is a trend. But what does this trend mean? So what means Shan Zhai Ji 山寨机? This is literally: Mountain Bandit Machine, and is a a knickname for cell/mobile phones with copied design and functions of branded cell/mobile phones offered for a much lower price, without permission of the brand owners.
According to Candy Yang and Lisa Li of China Youthology, which is "catching the pulse of Chinese youth", Shan Zhai Ji has developed into a subculture which can be defined as:
Enjoying technology for a low price;
Satisfaction with the level of technology and innovation of small bandit factories, which meets Chinese youth need to experience new technology and new functions and some humour;
Pride for unpretentious, low quality low price products.
Shan Zhai Ji might look vulgar and ‘out-dated’, but are considered cool and interesting by some youth.
Ms Yang and Ms Li did an informal survey about who is buying these Shan Zhai Ji products. The outcome is: creative youth, technology geeks and guys. In marketing terms the important group of early adopters. In other words: the opposite of brand chasing as the title of the article rightly put is, read the China Youthology article here. Conclusion: counterfeit trademarks and pirated copyright in China is not only caused by supply but also by demand. Brand holders need to work on both sides.
An example of a Shan Zhai Ji, you can see below a video of the iOrange, oops iOrgane. It has some extra functions compared to those of the iPhone.
Mr Bate notices that China's food scandals follow a lethal pattern:
"Someone cuts a corner substituting an unsafe illegal product for a safe legal one; the legal entities trading in the product, which are often unaware of the illegal substitution, at first ignore the problem and then become embarrassed into a recall, often after pressure from foreign governments on Beijing. While Beijing threatens sanctions against the liable companies, including occasionally executing the guiltiest actors, it does little to change the likelihood of another scandal occurring."
In the book 'Making a killing', Mr Bate puts the possibility of a complete victory over counterfeiters into perspective: "Because counterfeiting represents such an easy and potentially lucrative opportunity for commercial profit, and because it spans industries as diverse as wine, electronics, and medicine, it likely will be never be eradicated. Still, if its characteristics are identified and its real effects understood, its impact may be mitigated substantially. Nowhere is this more evident-and important- than in the battle against the counterfeiting of lifesaving pharmaceuticals, a trade with dangerous implications for public health."
