Cynthia Chan — 29 March 2005
Faces in China
When you flip through magazines, zap through TV channels, or even walk around town, in China, it is not hard for you to spot lots of faces in various ads, commercials and billboards. You may not find these faces familiar but they definitely send messages out to the Chinese population in China.
Celebrity endorsements and the use of spokesperson were popular in Greater China for years, and they span across almost every categories of products and services, from skin whitening products, digital cameras and mobile phones, to refrigerators, air-conditioners and cars. There is more and more variety injected in the recent years as far as who marketers use as their spokesperson.
In the past, celebrity endorsements mostly featured in-country entertainers. But now, we can easily spot Korean actress, Choi Ji-woo, featured in the latest DiorSnow commercials, or Hong Kong singer, Sammi Cheung, in the SK-II ads. Other than entertainers, marketers are also signing on popular sports figures as their spokesperson. Two-time Olympic platform diving champion, Tian Liang, is the spokesperson for Amway and Bausch & Lomb (but whether him being expelled from the national team a month ago is going to impact his spokesperson deal is still unknown).
Marketers are getting more and more sensitive to consumers’ needs, and they are also very conscious of how effective it is to put familiar faces in their commercials. They are carving out campaigns to reach out to various segments, and further strengthening it with tying their products or services to lifestyles their target customers are striving for. It will definitely be interesting to see where marketers will take celebrity endorsements to the next level as technology continually opens up the world.
Comments
(This is my first comment on the Cheskin blog. I am a 4th year student at Brown University.)
Cynthia - your post reminds me of a different example of advertising to Chinese consumers that I was shown just a few days ago, not using celebrities, so I just want to share that with you.
I recently went to a one-day conference on consumerism in China, and one of the presenters showed us two different renditions of Tide detergent commercials, targeting the urban and rural markets of China respectively.
The first one is directed towards the more affluent urban home-makers, and the other towards the less affluent rural home-makers. In the first commercial, one confident, well-dressed urban woman does all the talking; while in the other, it shows that free samples are given out in a less affluent area, and "a week later" rural women happily chat about their experiences using Tide (exercising communal consensus to support the quality of the product). In the first commercial, Tide is seen as a superior product; and in the second, Tide is a reliable and economic product that just does what it is supposed to do - clean clothes.
The result is that Tide's market share went from 1.8% market share in 2000 prior to the commercial to 15.5% market share today. What does this mean? It seems to indicate that although celebrities are widely used in Chinese commercials, there are ways to appeal to the Chinese consumers without the use of celebrities. Commercials like Tide's which really understand consumer needs and wants, and even relate better with the consumers, could be more effective (cost and otherwise) in reaching the large, non-Tier1 consumers in China.
Thoughts?
Posted by Vanessia W on May 2, 2005 05:50 PM | Permalink to Comment
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Yes - On trips to China, I have also witnessed the popularity of "celebrety faces" to connect with Chinese consumers. My take on why is that China is a relationship based culture, still very rooted in who you know and friend-of-a-friend introductions. The familiarity of a celebrety associated with a product breaks through the "protective layer" or what ever it is that ennables Chinese to keep their public and private selves discrete - It grabs them with the draw of a friend.
Any thoughts? Thanks
Posted by Doug on March 30, 2005 09:13 AM | Permalink to Comment