Our MABR student Austin Willhoft offers a perspective on BR in China.
I wrote a short paper while taking a “Reading” course with Kim and wanted to share the findings with you. As most of you know, I bring up China a lot. I do it because the Chinese market will expand going into the future, with various industries growing to a capacity where communications will be vital in maintaining the authentic and positive connection with both local and global consumers. We are in the communications industry, and as such, I believe understanding aspects of the culture will equip us with a better sense of tapping into the Chinese consumer. In Chinese culture, individuals live by a set of values based on “preserving face, understated in expressing opinions, and supremely hierarchical” while uprooted in a Confucian society. More importantly, though, Chinese culture involves a series of social rules and dictations, reinforcing the individual as subservient to the advancement of his or her family.
Brands pursuing the Chinese market must balance advertisements projecting one’s social status, while also cognizant of frugal and price-sensitive consumers. The Chinese consumers benefit from purchasing products boil down o externalizing one’s social, financial and governmental status. Securing a relationship with the government matters in an authoritarian country, like China, while maintaining it depends on the balance of messaging from brands. What ticks and drives curiosity for Chinese consumers boils down to communicating single-minded messages, including leveraging professional and societal advancement as tied to the advertisement. In the end, Chinese consumers struggle to accept the Confucian lifestyle and conforms they must abide by and the individualistic allure of the modern world, often tied to the West. Advertisements infusing a strong sense of individualism as a means of advancement with an underlying Confucian tone related to family and social stability will succeed in tapping into the consumer’s psyche.
Read the entire report here:
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