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Nation brand management
The Olympics have been seen as China’s global coming-out party. However, when asked to choose one thing representing China, foreigners most often chose: the Great Wall, Chinese Kongfu and Chinese food, not much related to the modernized China we see today.
A: And, how do you, with China, you can’t really start with a clean slate, this is some almost having a turn-the-image-around, from what I understand, that’s going to be much harder than developing a clean image.
J: Yes, It’s actually easier to develop an image for a small unknown country, than to take a really large and prominent country that may already have some image and redevelop that image. So an excellent example of a failed attempt at this was the effort in the United Kingdom during the earlier years of Tony Blair to develop a repackaged image of Britain as“Cool Britannia”. And the notion here was most people in the world had an image of the UK as a very worthy but somewhat old fashioned, staid type of country. The images of the Royal family, images of museums, images of castles, recollections of Oliver Twist, and Charles Dickens. It was very much a historic image rather than the notion that the UK was on the cutting edge of technology revolution and there was inventiveness and creativity and lots of cutting edge thinking. So“Cool Britannia”was an attempt to actually change that image. What undercut“Cool Britannia”was principally the cynicism of the British people, when they saw this image building campaign, they actually said, hey, this is ridiculous; I really don’t want to buy into this.
A: You need to almost ask the people of your country, what their opinions are too, because I think that campaign actually eliminated some of the things that people love about UK.
J: In the effort to redefine the image of the UK, what this campaign did was actually throw out the old, which people really value as British citizens, especially outside of London. You go outside of London into the countryside of the UK and you find a completely different mindset, and I’m sure the same is true in China as well. Go outside of Shanghai and Beijing, you find a completely different mindset, in many of the rural areas, so one of the problems with nation building is that there isn’t really a homogeneous point of view among the citizens of any nation.
A: What does China need to do or what audience does China need to target to start changing their image?
J: I would definitely focus on young people, because, quite frankly, because they are more open-minded, they are on the Internet, they have more cumulative travel experience for their years than most of their elderly counterparts have had in their lifetime. And so I think that is where the effort has to be principally directed. Now, of course, there are certainly stakeholder groups, the opinion leaders, in Washington and so forth, who are going to have a point of view about China that’s going to be framed by policy decisions and policy debates.
A: My perceptions of China before I got here were mostly focused at the government and the differences, I am an American, the freedoms that are allowed in the US compared to here in China. And a lot that I didn’t know or understand changed when I got here. But none of that seems to proceed back. What do you do to change that?
J: Well, there’s frequently a time lag between where a nation is in terms of progress and realities. The perception typically lags reality, except for the people who are on the ground in the country. So I think that we’ve historically had very large number of Chinese young people who of course have come to study in the US. What we haven’t had is commence a number of young people from the US come to study in China. We at Harvard University, by the way, have initiated recently a program along that line, that would be very helpful, because in the final analysis as I said before, for all of the mass medium marketing you can potentially do, in the end, it all depends on individuals having an interacting with the country either by visiting or by interacting with citizens of the country overseas in their countries and developing a positive impression as a result.
2010 Expo and China image
So far, 187 countries and 47 international organizations have confirmed participation in Expo 2010, the biggest number of participants in the Expo history. Organizers are expecting 70 million visitors over the event’s 6 months run, which would also be a record high. The Expo has become a platform for not only innovative products, but national image as well.
A: So let’s talk a little bit about Shanghai and the 2010 Expo. What does the government need to focus on to brand that?
J: 2010, obviously, is very important for Shanghai in the same way as 2008 was very important for Beijing, so there is obviously a certain competitive rivalry aspect to this. But I think that whereas Beijing represented, obviously, the world of sports, Expo represents the world of commerce and China’s commercial capital is obviously Shanghai, therefore it makes perfect sense for the Expo to be in Shanghai. So I think it’s an extremely important opportunity. I think the big challenge at the moment is, with the economic recession that we have in the world that people’s attention at the moment is on very much more important things than Expo 2010. What I think we can hope for is that towards the end of 2009 there will be the signs of, if not, the early stages of economic recovery.
A: I wonder is the Expo with the right place at the right time? Can the nation use that as a branding point?
J: We can’t forecast obviously the world economy to know exactly whether or not it’s going to be at the right time or a little bit early. But I think that there’s a way in which China can use the Expo for this purpose. And obviously, there is a need in China to further enhance commercial relations, further deepen commercial relations with many countries in the world.
A: What other countries does China need to specifically target to work on its brand?
J: I think that the relationship between China and the US is very important and its knowledge is being important. And I think Mrs. Clinton had said quite correctly,“It is the most important bilateral relationship in the 21st century and in the world.”The image of China and Europe is not quite as collaborative as I think it is the US. I think in Europe, the image of China is perhaps a little bit more associated with the human right issue and some other issues around Tibet and so forth. I think probably that would be the area of the world, where China needs to work more on developing a counterbalance to those slightly negative points of view.
A: Is there enough time before the Expo to change people’s image of China and Shanghai?
J: No, I don’t think so, I mean, these kinds of images and perceptions simply do not change overnight. But obviously the Expo 2010 does present an enormous opportunity to bring people to China. Obviously there is going to be a large number of foreign visitors as well. But I think there are going to be more of the commercial rather than tourist type of visitor, in which case, the commercial visitor is already probably thinking about China and taking a hard look at doing businesses with China, even if they are not already doing it.
A：Speaking of character and personality in terms of the Shanghai Expo, what would the people of Shanghai need to do to improve the image?
J: OK, well I actually have been in several taxies in Shanghai recently and I haven’t found any drivers spitting. So whatever the mandate was in Beijing, in respect of taxi driver behaviors, it seems to be working in Shanghai as well. So, I do think though that seriously if you have something like the Expo 2010, it does become a very helpful rationale to create and mandate change across a wide variety of activities in behaviors in the city. I mean, obviously, Shanghai wants to put its best foot forward, obviously it wants people to come and enjoy, go away with a warm positive feeling about Shanghai, maybe invest in Shanghai, maybe come back again to Shanghai as a visitor etc. So the Expo becomes a very useful action-forcing event that the political decision makers can use to create change, require the construction of new highways, new buildings, and infrastructure and so on, and make sure it’s completed on time before the Expo deadline occurs. So these types of events can be hugely effective in terms of economic and social development.
A: Yes, because you start to change it for an event, and then hope that it snowballs and continues on with more change.
J: Well, you hope that’s the start of something more important in terms of long-term momentum in the economy, you hope that the behaviors and attitudes of the citizens are changed on a permanent basis, not just a temporary basis. And 9 times out of 10, that actually occurs.
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