From Chinese BrandCulture to Global Brands

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From ChineseBrand Culture

to Global Brands

Insights from aesthetics, fashion, and history

Wu Zhiyan, Janet Borgerson, Jonathan Schroeder

© Wu Zhiyan, Janet Borgerson & Jonathan Schroeder 2013

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of thispublication may be made without written permission.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmittedsave with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publicationmay be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The authors have asserted their rights to be identifi ed as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 2013 byPALGRAVE MACMILLAN

Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.

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Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.

Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fullymanaged and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

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ISBN 978-1-349-44663-6 ISBN 978-1-137-27635-3 (eBook)DOI 10.1057/9781137276353

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 ISBN 978-1-137-27634-6

This book is dedicatedto our parents.

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Contents

List of Figures and Tables xAbout the Authors xiAcknowledgments xii

Introduction 1

Chinese branding in the global marketplace 1 From managerial insights to Chinese brand case studies 1 Getting started: The emergence of three case studies 5 Branding and fashion: Some initial insights 7 Emerging global brands 13 How this book is organized 15

1 Global Branding, Fashion Systems, and Historical Culture 18

Exploring brands in their cultural context 18 Managerial perspectives on global branding 22 Global brand standardization/adaptation 24 The managerial perspective of global branding in the

Chinese context 25 Brand culture and the cultural approach to global branding 26 The use of historical culture and mythmaking in global brand development 28 The sacred space of brand myth 30 Myths in global brand development 31 Brand identity and consumer identity 35 Brand image and the imagined community 38 Brand culture in the Chinese context 39 Global vs. local 43 Fashion and fashion systems in the development of global consumer culture 46

viii CONTENTS

Fashion discourse, symbolic production, and consumption of fashion goods 48 Fashion and myth-making 49 Global consumer culture and fashion systems 52 Global consumer culture in the Chinese context 54

2 Jay Chou, Pop Star: Chinese Aesthetics and Contemporary Trends 57

Branding and aesthetics 59 Jay Chou, Chinese music, and marketing 62 The Imagined China as modern-cultured Chinese features 63 The Imagined China via the representation of historical Chinese culture and sacred meaning 64 A hybrid image: The Imagined China via the representation of historical Chinese culture and fashion discourses 66 The sacred feature of Jay Chou’s hybrid image 67 The fashionable features of Jay Chou’s hybrid brand image 69 The Imagined China and the representation of historical Chinese culture 72 The Imagined China, brand actors, and Jay Chou’s global hybrid image 75 Jay Chou: Strategic use of Chinese culture 76

3 The 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony: Branding China for the World 78

Global brand mythologies: Developing a new identity 81 Authenticity, nostalgia, and hyperreality 83 A fashionable identity 87 Chinese identity anxiety 88 Identity anxiety and brand development 91 Imaging the new Apsaras of a modern China 94 Zhang Yimou: Extending the global Chinese myth market 96 Public discourses of the Opening Ceremony 103 Fashion and the global myth 105 Global myths and Chinese culture 108

� CONTENTS ix

4 Shanghai Tang: A Chinese Luxury Brand with Global Ambitions 110

The significance of design 113 The myth of the modern Chinese lifestyle 117 Distinctive cosmopolitan identity projection through Chinese cultural codes and global fashion resources 119 A ladder for success 125 Follow the monkey: Anti-fashion and anti-brand attitudes 127 A reflective, authentic reservoir of historical Chinese references 129 The dialectical ambivalence of the erotic and the chaste 131 A lexicon of Chinese symbols 133 Strategically satisfying global consumers: Identity and social dependency 137 Employees as consumers 139 Global store locations and environments 140 Expressing dynamic and stylish Chinese lifestyles 144 The co-creation and circulation of brands and cultures 147 Brand culture at Shanghai Tang 150

5 From Chinese Brand Culture to Global Brands 151

A global ethnic diaspora market reach as a global branding approach 151 The Chinese diaspora 155 Imagined China: Reconstructing the identity of modern Chinese lifestyle 156 Fashion and irrelevance 158 The circulation and co-creation of brands and cultures revisited 161 Aesthetics in Chinese-styled global brand culture 161 Implications of the brand culture approach to Chinese-styled global branding 164

Appendix 167References 182Index 213

x

List of Figures and Tables

Figures

0.1 Jay Chou performing in Shanghai 100.2 The Beijing 2008 Opening Ceremony in Bird’s Nest

Stadium 110.3 Model Lin Chi-ling in a Shanghai Tang fashion show 132.1 Jay Chou in Shanghai on the eve of a world tour 592.2 Jay Chou rehearsing for the Beijing CCTV Spring Festival Gala 643.1 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony 803.2 Drum (fou) Beaters, Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony 853.3 Zhang Yimou, director of the 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony 974.1 David Tang, founder of Shanghai Tang, in Hong Kong 1124.2 Shanghai Tang storefront 142

Tables

1.1 Aspects of brand culture 27

xi

About the Authors

Zhiyan Wu, a native of China, has worked in the Chinese garment manufacturing sector, and was a marketing supervisor at CUIPPC, an intellectual property firm in Beijing. She has a B.A. in English from Beijing Foreign Studies University, an M.Sc. in International Management and a Ph.D. in Management from University of Exeter, UK. She currently is an Assistant Professor at the School of Management, Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade.

Janet Borgerson works on issues related to culture, iden-tity, and experience at the intersections of philosophy and con-sumption. She has held tenured faculty positions at Stockholm University and the University of Exeter Business School, and is currently a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology. Borgerson received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and completed postdoctoral work at Brown University. She has served as Malmsten Visiting Professor at Gothenburg University, Sweden, Research Fellow at University of Auckland, New Zealand, and Visiting Professor at Walailak University, Thailand, and at the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade.

Jonathan Schroeder is the William A. Kern Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. He has pub-lished widely on branding, communication, consumer research, and identity. He is the author of Visual Consumption, editor of Conversations on Consumption, and co-editor of Brand Culture and the Routledge Companion to Visual Organization. He is editor in chief of the interdisciplinary journal Consumption Markets & Culture. He has held visiting appointments at Wesleyan University, Göteborg University, University of Auckland, Bocconi University, Milan, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Stockholm University, Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade, and Walailak University, Thailand.

xii

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the team at Palgrave Macmillan, including Tamsine O’Riordan, Anna Keville, Stephen Rutt, Eleanor Davey Corrigan, Hannah Fox, and Ursula Gavin. Also thanks to Dannie Kjeldgaard, Eminigül Karababa, Robin Canniford, Søren Askegaard, Ming Lim, Giana Eckhardt, Russ Belk, Sunny Tsai, Xin Zhao, Kelly Tian, and Sid Levy for helpful com-ments on this project, to Tanvi Mehta for editorial assistance, to Catherine Burch at Cambridge Publishing Management Limited for manuscript production, to Joe Laredo for proof-reading, and to Rachel Crowe and Dana Caragiulo at Corbis, for help with images and permissions.

Zhiyan Wu (Maggie) would like to express her sincere thanks to Dr. Jeannie Forbes, Mr. Jiang Wu, and Dr. Lei Guo for graciously assenting to be interviewed. Also thanks to her family for their support.

Janet Borgerson would like to thank Sir Steve Smith and the University of Exeter, UK, for providing the research environment in which much of this work developed.

Jonathan Schroeder wishes to express his thanks to Jamie Winebrake, Pat Scanlon, and Lorraine Justice for support and encouragement, to Cassandra Shellman for administrative sup-port, to Teresa Kellett for technical assistance, and to the William A. Kern Endowment at Rochester Institute of Technology for resources necessary for completion of this book.

Shanghai and Rochester, April 2013