Smile - You're on Camera

One of the first bust ups I had with the Red Bull pitch that we won was the use of this visual. I rejected it on the basis that it used women who aren't the main customer group, but more importantly because it is everything about branding in China that is wrong wrong wrong. It's easy for marketing people in China to look at the smiley happy people in Western FMCG advertising and think that's the way to do it, but what invariably comes out in China is a thick smear of unvarnished schmaltz. The notion of portraying anything approaching real life is anathema to the marketing heads in China including Li Ning who hasn't got a clue that the branding part is the dramatization of the blood pumping through an organisation, not some laquered image projection.

 

These girls are the Olympic hostesses. They are trained to smile and it's this training that is the problem. Not the solution. The Chinese bless them, have had a tragic modern history, that like the Russians is bloody and dripping in carnage juice not to mention infused with suspicion and fear. Nobody could really deny it, even the Chinese, but they choose to ignore it collectively white wash over what makes them who they are today. That's where it goes wrong.

So you can see that the smile is part of the Olympic orchestrated image. The idea put in front of me (yes this is the level of creative in China we often see) was that after a hard days working at their smile, a gal just needs to take a swig on her Red Bull to make it through the day. Of course the idea is risible and explains why I often want to just write the fucking scripts myself but just to be professional I pointed out that the reasons for rejection were, it wasn't female, it wasn't blue collar enough (lorry drivers are often paid a subsidy to drink Red Bull and not fall asleep at the wheel) and most important of all, that the smile did not come from the HEART. A synthetic smile is exactly what I expect Li Ning to insist upon and make no mistake he doesn't undertand that it's all about saying 'fucking hell, I failed' that makes a brand.

It's not just Li Ning. It's the entire country. 1.3 Billion population and despite loving them hugely for so many things, I've yet to come across one Chinese entrepreneur, or brand visionary who has the balls to embrace their flaws and their run with it.

There are reasons for this and I'll explain some of those in some later posts.

But in the mean time I'd also like to see a Western agency that can see past their noses and their short term immediate profits (show me one ad, just one ad) that knows it's all about saying no to clients who are often under immense pressure to deliver the synthetic goods, on time and on budget. What most Western agencies don't realise is that this is an economic bubble we're living in and that doesn't justify running with what I think is so often some of the weakest creativity I've ever come across and I think I've worked in more countries than most. 

One of my predictions however is that just like punk emerging from the ashes of a charred British society I anticipate an unleashing of the creative Chinese spirit once this amazing country hits harder times. When it's not all about the money because there will be less of it about. 

For the time being though most are on the oxyacetylane rampant consumerism which the smarter people in the West know has a logic that predicts and defines it's own end with a simplicity that will leaving most people gasping......or choking if you wish.

How To Pronounce Beijing

Let's start as we mean to go on shall we. No need for French emulation.

Special Olympics Update

Jon Stewart punctures the hypocrisy of the U.S. and makes us laugh at the same time.

Sell the sizzle

 

I think it's the Swedish who have an expression for food that isn't  rude and translates as "the food was adequate". Anyway this is the closest Pizza restaurant to me in Beijing.

Olympic Cycling

Making my way back home earlier I was caught in a road block and managed to catch some Olympic cycling on the N95 camera. I've encountered some of the teams training around Tiananmen square early in the morning and like this ride-by they are a fearsome experience of pedal power and swooshing noise as they rush by. Nothing like my sedate ambling even on my electric bike.

In this clip they are approaching me and have just emerged from the West heading East out of the fog/pollution on Changan Avenue, with the famous Chairman Mao portrait to their left on the north side of Tiananmen Sqaure which must be quite an inspiring sight for those at the peak of their careers in Beijing this Olympics.

Widgets

I know some of my bloggy friends don't like widgets and it's possible that we all went a bit crazy on them this year diminishing their value a little, but I'm convinced of their utility and more importantly I like the conceptual blurring between either this space and that space (or your space and my place) when using them. Here's a great example of why Widgets are good.

The Masses Are Debating With The Intellectuals Online

This lecturer is a rock star. Amazing.

 

Internet star and Beijing history teacher Yuan Tengfei talks about freedom of speech, with a clarity and frankness rarely seen in China. Just Brilliant. English subtitles by Chris Wip.

From Danwei.org

Creativity

Listening to the world service recently I've been blown away by some of the creative audio they've prepared for the Beijing Olympics. It's awesome because for those that know me, I've become a little sceptical about the whole 'safety first' Olympics and even delayed my return to Beijing because the preparations for the Olympics are too intensive; foreigners with non Z class visas have been sent home, migrant workers have been cleared off the streets to project an image of modernity, factories closed and cars banned from the roads on alternate days depending on the number plate to project an image of cleanliness, bloggers and activists rounded up and thrown in jail to project an image of harmony and even tourist visas refused as well as a whole host of stuff that strips the spontaneity and fun from the event such as the official Olympic Cheer that I blogged about over here.

Happily the British Isles are blessed with people who have a creative response to the celebrations and just seeing this today over at Neil's blog has cheered me up no end. I'm sure it's going to be a good Olympics once we get into the swing of things and it's content like this this by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett that is going to help far more than any condescending cultural fingerpointing. I first realised that when I saw how wildly popular Kung Foo Panda is in China and how even the intellectual elite are questioning why it could never be made in China under the current conditions. Great Creativity always opens up great questions and the answer to that one is not safety first. It's fun first. Risk a little and gain a lot I say.

Binding Feet

A mother or grandmother typically began binding her daughter's or granddaughter's feet when the child was between the ages of four and seven. The process was started before the arch of the foot had a chance to properly develop. Binding usually started during the winter months so that the feet were numb, meaning the pain would not be as extreme - Wikipedia

Via Danwei

Asian Olympic Enthusiasm

It does look like Japan is struggling to be excited with the Beijing Olympics. I think the diminished enthusiasm is for historical reasons although the Hong Kong figures have surprised me a little too. I'm guessing that Australia will be on a par with other occidental countries. Via Thomas Crampton

888

Ed's gone and made the unofficial Olympic T Shirt which brings to life the international flavour of the event in a positive way that will definitely not be seen in China. I know because I've scoured the entire Olympic merchandise/official sponsor merchandise/advertising and I have one complaint; it's all about China and nothing to do with the international multi cultural dimensions of the event (as I hinted at in this post over here and continued the discussion in the comments over here). Anyway, Ed has single handedly cracked the problem with this brilliant design that has all the names of the competing countries. Neat 'n sweet eh?

 

There are only 888 of them which as you may know represents the 8th day of the 8th month of the 8th year - which is when the Olympics start next month. 8 is also considered a lucky number in Chinese culture. These are a hip buy and you can buy one over here.

Wall Street Journal

Chicks with Nunchucks Via Shanghaiist

It's a Brand Jim But Not As We Know It

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One of the dilemmas of working around the world, particularly in developing economies is that while its fun and constructive to join in the online debate of brands and how they work (yawn?) there is little chance of reciprocity when sparking off any dialogue about how Asia often subverts the brand model. Here they do, and the rules frequently get broken because the hierarchy of needs are different.

All too often the pressure is on to get some interruptive wallpaper out swiftly. In low media literacy societies, the relationship between the customer and the product or service is only cemented by interruptive marketing communications within a media aperture that is recognizably not inexpensive (the trust dimensions of this, is a factor the FMCG boys know all to well in developed economies). It also touches on low involvement processing which is a fave topic of mine too.

I'll give you an example, earlier this year we won the Red Bull pitch and one of the nuggets of 'cor blimey' data is that they sold 1/2 billion cans last year in China, and will sell 3/4 Billion cans this year. The marketing people for that particular enterprise have far more pressing matters than brand dimensions, tautological backflips and transactional analysis or even displacement theory. 50% growth a year suggests the advertising fulfils a different role than say just defending market share.

No, clients like this need something 'pretty'; up and out very sharpish. Getting it done is more important than getting it done well for many of these people and even sophisticated and experienced brand stewards know the score on that one in Asia. You snooze, you lose.

Now the clients of booming businesses might enjoy the pseudo intellectual game of brand discussions and even pretend they get it. But the reality is they all too often don't and are seduced by the intoxicating sales uplift of trading-off short term efficacy against long term brand building. If growth is anticipated to be 50% or more the key issues are distribution and their commensurate B2B sales through CTN's, Supermarkets and Gas Stations.

If you're struggling with all this I'll make it plain. You're not making an ad for the guy or gal who is going to use your product. You're making an ad for the all to often creative Philistines who give the nod on distribution through a new channel. They don't want to see anything unusual. They want to see that expensive media aperture (TV & Print) used sensibly, as in 'the sensible shoes' they buy for their kids to go to school.

Put another way, they want to see an ad that looks like an ad. The bubblegum bullshit they have been raised to believe should flood the commercial break and by its very definition is a cauterized version of brand speak and the worst excesses of the Western marketing communications model. Hey, we sold them that shit don't get uppity now.

Trying to get some creative through is like interrupting a commercial break for a quick breakdown on the meaning of Christo and when he wrapped the Reichstag. (Thanks Eaon)

Now that doesn't mean it applies in all instances, but it is a general concession to the rough and tumble of commercial life when dealing with clients who don't really know how hard a brand has to fight for during tough times as it's the good times that delude us. Which is a universal condition.

This is especially so in Asia because many have never experienced protracted tough times. It's all been economic growth apart from a blip in '97, and it's the seasoned marketing people from countries that have weathered a few economic cycles that grasp it's bravery that takes marketing communications a step further, that makes it work harder.

The problem is only exacerbated in the instance of say Red Bull where there is no competition whatsoever domestically. It's so easy to make money it's almost criminal but that isn't my issue here.

While the above constitutes the 'real politick' of doing business in low media literacy societies (read your Mary Goodyear if you live inside the M25 or NY) coupled with explosive economies, I also think there are some interesting brand workouts for budding planners who will by definition need to be less myopic than the couture of working on the brand catwalks of the creative centers of the world. It's all going to get a bit more complicated and a good thing too. Those days are diminishing fast and a good example of trying to figure out what the future holds in store is best brought to life by the QQ car.

QQ is an internet company. They are LARGE as in "my God you're not going to put that inside of me are you"... but joking aside they do a lot of net stuff here in China including a messenger application we are all so familiar with. Oh wait. I forgot. Asians are far more likely to use their personal messenger for work than us white folk checking their emails to get stuff done. They like the bite sized nature and gossipy way of achieving things this way instead of the linear flow that the occidental and so called scientific model has given us and will seemingly one day break us with, given the volume of email that is required to get stuff done these days.

Going off topic briefly, email is broken. Don't do it. We deluded ourselves with thinking that immediacy is the same as efficacy. It isn't, and we probably just need to Twitter our way through projects. If you miss a tweet somebody will say something that contextualizes the momentary ignorance on your part, but that's another post for another day or maybe one for Johnnie to pick up on because he's a lot more clever than I am about stuff like that.

Anyway, QQ are massive and they do all the social media stuff that we know, love and are familiar with except for one crucial point. QQ make more money than Facebook or Myspace. They do it using the virtual currency model that is closer to Second Life, as well as ringtone download stuff, and for a popular internet brand they also do something that I love to see and have blogged about before with the YouTube-to-T Shirt phenomenon which is that the QQ brand has actualized itself in real life as the yellow car above.

Trying to get your head around a manufacturing model that is launched by a communication model is quite interesting and raises important questions about the nature of monolithic and explicitly endorsed and of course discretely endorsed brands. I quite like the way that Asia fucks around with this stuff and in principle sometimes they create a new brand question through sheer mashup ingenuity or circumstances.

Many of the branding 'rules' apply with these scenarios (or identifiable contexts) but reading some planners talk about brands so confidently, and as to what constitutes good advertising by experienced practitioners in the field, often reveals little more than pontificating and parochial dare I say it, pastoral brand observations from a global perspective.

One of the annoying ticks of U.S. internet culture as you will well know is that our Stateside cousins often think the internet starts and ends in the U.S. You will know this from the forms we need to complete asking us which state you come from or what zip code we have. Equally annoying is the notion that a few planners in London or in other creative hotspots are capable of talking about what a brand is when they've little experience of anything other than the familiar. Anybody got anything to say? Usual rules apply in the comments section below.

One last point raised by Kaiser Kuo on the phone just now, because I talked about the imitation, duplication and copy ramifications for newly industrializing Asian countries in my Chungking Express post over here, but just to muddy the waters a little more, Kaiser reminds me that the QQ brand is owned by Chevy who deny they ripped the name off the QQ Internet guys or indeed that the car model is a rip-off of the Chevy Spark of the Daewoo Matiz. 

It's gloves off marketing over here and there isn't much time for air kissing with brands.

Wallpaper - Beijing

Here at Wallpaper towers, we've gotten tired of the Spa at Badem Wurttemberg and just a little weary of those lush cherry tomatoes from Riverford Organic Vegetables so we thought we'd pay a flying visit to the new seat in the house called Beijing. To be sure we were surprised at the breath taking giantness of it all in an endlessly rolling suburban setting and a square that holds a million but what really caught our eye was...

... OK you can see I think the Wallpaper talk sounds like air kisses on cocaine. They got away with it for a while and Tyler Brûlé has moved on but still manages to do big time carbon footprint for the F.T. and Monocle which is like The Economist with Miu Miu shoe straps.But I wanted to talk about a different wallpaper that has really knocked me sideways. The following pictures are some structures which were knocked up in a matter of weeks and in one memorable instance tore a road up and made a new one, just for the construction; pretty much over night. But the point I want to make is that someone has decided they can't be completed in time for the Olympics and so they've come up with the ingenious idea of just wallpapering a skin to the outside so it looks like its ready to ROCK.

I call it velocity construction and you gotta see it to believe it.Chutzpah eh!

China Internet - Podcast

The BBC World Service has been blocked on and off here in China of late, and I miss it a lot. Anyway, as ever with these things (and a bit of displacement theory) its got me sniffing around NPR which is terrific, and doing lots of interesting content that I hadn't checked out for a while. Here's one of theirs on the internet in China.

The Bird's Nest

One of the great experiences of Beijing is the sheer velocity of construction which has had me pondering for quite some time on the implications of whole neighbourhoods flattened overnight with new superstructures going up faster than I've ever seen in my life. I've already talked about the CCTV building by Rem Koolhaas which we will never see its like again (and he knows it) but the other supermodel on the catwalk is the Birds Nest, or the Olympic Stadium. It's awesome. Period.

Here it is from some photography I took the other day. Notice the traditional peasant (migrant worker) in the foreground. I chose this pic out of the 30 or so I took because like the washing below it represents something about modern China that Noam Chomsky talks about a lot in this podcast here; the human development index for China is still quite low, around 70th if I'm not mistaken. 

There's a lot of people still running around on loose chained tricycles shifting bricks from one place to another. 

Wait till all those have offspring that want to go to college, drive a car and double China's GDP with the 'Chinese Dream' (One World One Dream).........Yeah, we need to rewire our economies and the answer might be most candid in Asian economies today. 

Not tomorrow.

I live only a stones throw from the Forbidden City and a short walk from Tiananman Square. Beijing is often a sooty and polluted overcast metropolis. It's also, in its own way the most tidy I've ever come across for its size. I've never seen a broken glass, a crisp packet or an empty packet of cigarettes on the road and that's because there is no litter. But still there are quaint signs of a rapidly disappearing life, and though I live amongst the political elite (and those who did them favours) The washing is still out on the road drying in the occasional spell of glorious sunshine. For when Beijing shines. It really does shine beautifully.

 

Sorry about the lack of links and layout at the moment as I'm using the new version of blogger and playing with new features.

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra

We're very lucky to have this building barely two minutes away from my house here in Beijing . I've been making the most of it and dropping-by on my electric bike and buying random tickets for the Ballet, Pianists and Orchestras. It's called 'The Egg' locally for reasons I can't figure out.

Last Monday a colleague and I went to see the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and they were seamless. A real transportation away from the outside world, conducted by the hugely talented Yannick Nézet-Séguin from Montreal. A classical superstar in the making , along with a sublime performance by the pianist from Shanghai called Yundi Li who was definitely on another level when he played a Prokofiev piece, Piano Concerto No. 2 in g minor, OP. 16 which is hideously dark, complex and confrontational. I loved it.

They get very annoyed about filming anything in the Egg (actually China loathes anything being photographed if they think copyright is being infringed - which is ironic) and even shine a laser spot on people during a performance if anyone is caught doing so.

Anyway, you know I like to shine, so I sneaked some of the two and half minute ovation they gave to the conductor with some never before seen panoramas (I should work in advertising shouldn't I?) of the auditorium. It's world class and here it is.

Just in case you've got loads of time on your hands there's an expression I picked up in Thailand from a P.R. professional, that also applies here in China. Do it first and ask for forgiveness afterwards. This is how we roll as Sam might say.

Trashvertising

I couldn't help laughing at this bag I saw in Xidan over the weekend. I'm probably going straight to hell aren't I?

There's an anthropological/linguistic/ethnographic study in the waiting for this little number above. I'm being serious because actually it's unacceptable in many Asian cultures to wear this and yet the intended irony has gone off-skew with this example I saw in Beijing. Lauren or Angus might have a bit to say on this.

Everybody loves a bit of Exciusive design don't they? Just splendid!


Or can we safely blame Moschino for this kind of stuff.

Lifestyle Advertising

I was reminded of Rob's recent post on lifestyle advertising when I passed by these posters last week, because the people responsible for this kind of stuff evidently have no style and even more scarily, no life whatsoever. I'm hoping someone who can read Chinese might enlighten me on the copy. So bad it's good really. The first pic is worth an enlarged click in case any talent companies are on the lookout for some people in need of help; both clients and erm the talent.

Mentos

I'm very critical of using the word creative in China when its often a case of the Emperor's new clothes. So I want to plug an ad by BBH Shanghai that I saw at the AAAA awards in December. I liked it then and I like it even more now I can see some more strategic thoughts behind it.

Crucially I think it gets across some critical points about the product such as mouth feel, proximity to an open mouth and lastly (most weakly) a new product attribute of the green filling at the end. It's not brilliant but it is good and its fun. I'd expect this sort of creative to come out of Thailand usually.

Now if I could only get the commercial for children's clothes where the strategy, endline and creative was about "Children are illogical little things". It smelt like it had good planning on it. Hat tip to Madison Boom for reminding me.