By Hongmei Li
In the past few decades, Chinese advertising experienced exponential development. Advertising has gained strategic and symbolic importance in opening up society and developing the economy in China.
History of Chinese advertising in the broad sense can be traced back to the Song dynasty when stores used signs and words to advertise services (Wang, 2008). In the 1920s and 30s, advertising in Shanghai was already a dynamic industry, with foreign advertising agencies and brands competing with the Chinese counterparts prior to World War II.
After the Chinese Communist Party took over China in 1949, the government gradually eliminated commercial advertising considering that a centralised socialist economy did not need advertising. During the Culture Revolution (1966-1976), there was almost no commercial ads except for limited commercial information about exports to foreign countries (Chen, 1991).
China officially announced to resume commercial advertising in 1978 after The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. At this meeting, China’s leader Deng Xiaoping declared that China would shift from a political orientation focusing on class struggle to a more pragmatic approach centred on economic reforms and the opening of its economy to global capital. Since then, advertising has gained strategic and symbolic importance in opening up society and developing the economy in China.
In the past few decades, Chinese advertising experienced exponential development. Foreign advertising agencies trotted after their global clients to enter China in 1979 right after the country decided to open its door to the outside world. Now foreign brands and advertisements have become an inherent part of the daily lives of Chinese consumers.
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Convergence Between Foreign and Chinese Advertising Practices
The Shanghai TV Station aired China’s first foreign commercial for Swiss Rado wristwatch in 1979. The one-minute English commercial, focussing on product information, was broadcast only twice, but produced huge impact in China, with hundreds of people going to state-run local stores to inquire about the product in the next few days. Interestingly, the product was only sold in China four years later, suggesting that the advertiser was initially more interested in image advertising than selling products since China had not yet developed a consumer market then.
Coca Cola entered China in 1979 and it was the first foreign brand that was sold in the Chinese market then. The first foreign commercial that China’s Central TV station (CCTV) – the only national TV network in China – aired was for Coca Cola, which caused criticism because the product was viewed as not aiming for ordinary Chinese consumers.
During the 1980s, Japanese brands and advertising achieved wide recognition. Brands such as National, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, and Toyota became household names among urban Chinese. Similarly, Japanese advertising agencies also achieved prominence in the Chinese market largely because Dentsu and a few other Japanese agencies collaborated closely with Chinese advertising professionals and academics. However, since the 1990s, American advertising agencies have obtained a more prominent position in China.
In the 1980s Chinese advertisers prominently used hard-sell advertising strategies, focusing on product information, the management and the production process (gate of factories, machinery, diligent workers, their awards, etc.).
With increasing influence of foreign advertising practices, Chinese advertisers later adopted soft-sell strategies that catered to a variety of values such as family bonding, individualism, romance, adventure, love, beauty, modernity, newness, masculinity, femininity and so on.
Chinese ad professionals also demonstrated a strong desire to learn from the Japanese and American counterparts. Many exchange programs were established for Chinese ad professionals to learn the newest advertising practices. Ad professionals working at foreign ad agencies were constantly invited to give talks about foreign advertising. With various efforts to professionalise advertising, including the establishment of professional associations, the opening of degree programs in prominent universities, and the publication of advertising books, advertising gradually became an attractive profession that elevated its lowly image of puffery to a career that ambitious young Chinese were interested in pursuing.
Initially, Chinese professionals were more interested in working at foreign advertising agencies since they provided better salaries, benefits and training. Chinese advertising agencies were generally viewed as having a lower status. In the last decade, there has been a convergence between foreign and Chinese advertising practices largely because of the constant exchange of advertising personnel, ideas and practices. While Chinese advertising agencies in the past offered lower pays to employees, starting in the mid-2000s Chinese ad agencies offered even higher salaries to professionals who had already had experience in foreign advertising practices. Now ads of foreign and Chinese brands in Chinese market look very similar. Both types of ads stress affective connections with consumers in order to generate demands.
Swinging Between Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism
A prominent theme in Chinese advertising is the selling of nationalism and cosmopolitanism. Both foreign brands and Chinese brands can resort to the promotion of nationalism and cosmopolitanism in their ads. However, there are some subtle differences given their different origins, perceptions and different relationships with modernity. One obvious difference is that Chinese brands are more likely to resort to patriotism/nationalism as a selling strategy. Chinese brands such as Li Ning (a Chinese sportswear brand) and Haier (a home appliance brand) have long been selling national pride in marketing their products. Li Ning, in particular, has been inherently associated with China’s Olympic glory and Chineseness. Haier in many occasions have sold their foreign expansion as a successful story in the Chinese market not only to endorse its product quality but also to claim itself as a pioneer in increasing China’s global influence. The selling of nationalism is about the reconstruction and reinforcement of traditional images, symbols, rituals, myths, and customs in the context of China’s search for national identity and modernity in an increasingly globalised world. Advertisers appropriate and reinterpret Chinese symbols, images, rituals, historical heroes, and China’s anti-imperialist history, to create a narrative of patriotism, loyalty, and national glory.
The promotion of Chineseness is especially true when China hosted global events such as the Beijing Olympics, the WorldExpo, and the Asian Games. During the Beijing Olympics, foreign brands also celebrated their connections to Beijing Olympics. For example, McDonald’s asserted “I’m lovin’ it when China wins”, Coca Cola had a record marketing blitz with theme music “China is red” and “China is hot”. The Olympic sponsor Adidas tried everything to establish its connection with Chinese culture and national pride. Non-official sponsors such as Pepsi and Nike also made efforts to connect their products/brands to China’s rising patriotism. Such endorsement of nationalism often met with consumer approval.
Given that foreign brands had already established their cosmopolitan identity, their appropriation of nationalism made them powerful rivals of Chinese brands, who could not claim to own nationalism in China any more. In order to compete with foreign brands in the Chinese market, Chinese brands also aimed to balance between nationalism and cosmopolitanism.
Chinese advertisers use various strategies to make global connections and sell the globalised images to Chinese consumers. Oftentimes, such kind of globality is equated as a contrived Westernness either by appropriating Western symbols, including Western languages, Western models, European-style architecture, sculpture, and famous tourist sites (such as the Seine River, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre Museum, the Château de Versailles, the Eiffel Tower, Cambridge, Paris and Rome) or by selling values associated with Western modernity (such as individualism, freedom, newness and the pursuit for pleasure). Generally speaking, Westernness is also often associated as product quality and prestige. Products with foreign sounding names are often sold at higher prices than a brand with a Chinese name. As a result, many clothing brands use foreign-sounding names. And some products also make false claims about their foreign origin.
In a way, Chinese ads often juxtapose foreign and Chinese cultural symbols, often positioned as a celebration of universal humanity through the meeting between the East and the West. Chinese advertising also sells dreams of common humanity and the desire for Chinese people to be recognised in the global market. The combination of foreign and Chinese elements means that Chinese brands aim to target the growing middle class in China, who often harbour a strong desire to have more global connections while simultaneously treasuring their roots in Chinese culture.
However, global brands often enjoy more advantages in constructing such a convergent identity. After all, their cosmopolitan identity has also been established in their origins and global success. Chinese brands instead are often viewed as having a contrived cosmopolitan identity.
In other words, when Chinese brands compete with global brands, they are somehow at a disadvantage because foreign brands are inherently viewed as having higher quality and prestige. Considering that there are product scandals of contaminated baby milk, poisonous rice and products of questionable quality, foreign brands are often chosen because they are considered safer and having a better quality. Chinese consumers now use foreign agents to buy directly from Western countries and buy products when they travel to Europe, the United States, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea
Digital Advertising
Since China joined the World Trade Organization, Chinese advertising has not only been shaped by loosening regulations, but also by accompanying digital technologies. Now companies allocate more money to digital advertising in response to rising TV advertising prices and declining readership of print media.
The rapid development of digital advertising and mobile advertising has seriously challenged traditional advertisers. For example, Baidu has already surpassed CCTV and become the largest advertiser, forcing CCTV to collaborate with new players.
Digital advertising focuses more on consumer participations, branded entertainment, and fan-centred advertising strategies. The pervasive use of digital advertising also means that it is becoming more difficult for Chinese regulators to administer advertising, thus leading to an increasing number of illegal, offensive and controversial ads in China. Controversial advertising not only includes problematic products, but also the problematic use of questionable symbols, images, and words.
While there is hope that digital advertising will flatten the advertising gaps between Chinese and foreign advertisers and between Chinese and foreign advertising agencies, foreign brands and their agencies still enjoy some advantage because of their extensive networking, knowhow, and capital. A vast number of Chinese ad agencies and brands still compete at a lower end. The global economic recession of 2008 has increased the Chinese market and this may lead to different dynamics in China’s advertising market in the future.
Conclusion
Chinese advertising is a dynamic industry and profession, which is closely related to China’s economic development in general. China’s rapid economic development amidst the global recession makes the Chinese more significant. However, Chinese economy is now slowing down and Europe and the US are recovering, which may further shape how China is perceived. Nevertheless, there has been a stronger sense of national pride among the Chinese consumer-citizens, which influences advertisers and will shape advertising strategies in the future.
For more information about advertising and consumer culture, please refer to Dr. Hongmei’s Li’s recent book Advertising and Consumer Culture in China (Polity, 2016; ISBN: 978-0745671178)
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About the Author
Hongmei Li (PhD, University of Southern California) is associate professor of strategic communication at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Her research focuses on advertising and consumer culture, Chinese culture and society, gender and sexuality, national branding and public diplomacy, global communication, and culture of new communication technologies. She is the author and editor of Advertising and Consumer Culture in China (polity, 2016), The Middle Class in Emerging Societies: Consumer, Lifestyles and Market (Routledge, 2015), and Building the BRICS: Media, Nation Branding and Global Citizenship (International Journal of Communication, 2016).
