The Re-branding of China

What are the first words that come in to your mind when someone says China? Nuclear, communism, arts, gymnastics, emperors, spring rolls? Like any other brand, a nation carries an identity. The brand “CHINA” is encoded with different meanings followed by its history, politics and culture.
On 1 October 1949 Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China. It was a time of revolution, upheaval and bloodshed. The events of that period, and the first decades of communist rule which followed, forged the identity of modern China. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/special_report/1999/09/99/china_50/default.htm

Since Mao, China has been greatly encoded with political meanings. However, with the fast pace of globalization china seems reluctant to wash off the communist stamp. There is a need to encode new meanings into CHINA . It’s no longer favorable to represent communism to attract foreign investment and to appeal to a global market. But much better to show its fast growing economy and trading success overseas. So,in order to finally become number 1 on the global playfield, CHINA has to conform to the rest of the players, in particular to those forming the G8.
One step to conform was its decision to paint over the red flag with the five respectful rings.
The Olympics has been a great opportunity for china to encode new meanings to its brand. Will people buy its new self? With the help of the massive media pressence during the olympics, China gets an oppurtunity to open its borders for the International publics, and therefore also show its new identity. Undoubtly this may change the global view of CHINA to a certain extent,but will the pr- tricks be enough to change it entirely?
Because of people often hold on to old, familiar patterns of thought, creating a new, unified identity that will resonate with publics can be problematic if the old identity is not deconstructed […]”Patricia A. Curtin ,International Public Relations p.173.
Consequently, the only way that China could reallly change its brand, she has to let go of its strings to the past, embrace its new meaning with an open heart and make its people to accept the new identity.

Say it with a picture

Eurostar has taken a daring approach in its divere way of reaching out to its multinational clientele. The rail way company between London-Brussels and Paris, acknowledged soon the need to segment its diverse target groups. To promote its destinations, the Eurostar marketing department, has played greatly on already existing perceptions of the cultures present in these destinations. Simultanously, Eurostar meanings, such as fast travel and convenience,were encoded into the ads.

For the overseas costumers, a more general ad was used to present the destinations. Instead of focusing on only one event or product, the ad presented a panaroma of selected touristic experiences. This way, a target group that were less familiar with, (or sometimes not at all familiar with), the european culture got a wider picture what Euro destinations had to offer. The rail track in the middle encoded the meaning of being able to comfortably bringing costumers between paris and london.

The belgian ads, hoping to promote the Eurostar to london, focused on specific events.


Ads displayed in France used stereotyped messages to get attention.

The circuit of culture (below)

When moving onto a more global perspective on Public Relations, culture sensitivity becomes a major trigger for any campaign to succeed. The notion of PR differs accross borders and so do cultural norms, traditions and regulations.With the rapid move of globalisation PR rarly stays in contact with only one geographical target group. Therefore, PR practise (needs) to be flexible, and can no longer take a systemized western approach to reach out to different publics on a global level.

PR practise around the globe is shaped to fit in into thousands of different cultural settings, struggling to match identities and needs of an uncomptable number of different target groups. Additionally, its practise is significantly shaped (limited) by regulation on both a legal and moral level.

The circuit of culture is a brave attempt to explain the interaction between these variables. In its turn, the ability of interpreting these variables will give the difference between a successful pr-campaign and a total waste of money and effort.