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Steering progress

By Scott Kronick (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-08 07:58

Branding China

The first ten years of living and working in China were eventful, but the past three years have been particularly meaningful.

After an introduction made by a friend to Tsinghua Professor of Journalism Li Xiguang, my connection to China grew even stronger. At the time, the Ogilvy Group was setting up an advisory board and I was tasked with putting the team together.

I met Professor Li and immediately had the impression that he would be a perfect candidate for the Board. I followed up by inviting Professor Li to an Advisory Board meeting, and during the meeting he pulled our Asia Pacific Chairman, Miles Young, aside and said, 'Miles, you should do for the Chinese government what you do for companies. China needs branding.'

What transpired from this meeting was the creation of a joint venture between the Ogilvy Group and Tsinghua University, called the Tsinghua-Ogilvy Program for Public Branding, with me serving as one of the directors.

The Tsinghua-Ogilvy Program is intended to serve as a think tank for the study and practice of location branding to share with officials throughout China. And, since the program was founded, Professor Li has invited Ogilvy and me into many interesting conversations about the way that China communicates with the outside world.

I have conducted more than ten spokesperson training programs for Chinese officials, have shared a perspective with the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) and I have coached officials from the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine in the midst of the China export crisis.

The invitations to share a perspective with government officials have been something I have welcomed.

During the food crisis of 2007, I had the opportunity to coach one of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) spokespeople. Sitting in a dimly lit conference room at Tsinghua University, I was asked a number of very genuine questions: "How do we build some understanding for the steps we are taking? How often should we communicate?" Professor Li turned to me for my views. After watching videos of the spokesperson and others who were communicating, I jumped at the chance.

"First, don't blame the foreign media. Whether they are right or wrong, nobody cares. Second, don't make guarantees. Nobody will believe you, and government spokespeople in the US would never make guarantees anyway. Third, all news does not have to be good. People do not expect everything to be rosy at all times. Fourth, communicate often, open and honestly. And fifth, be accessible." We explained. "You can't always control what will happen to you, but you can control what you do about it, and that's what matters." This was a fascinating time. The bad news kept coming in but the spokespeople became much more accessible, open and focused on solutions, not on cover-ups. Slowly the tide changed and 2007 came to a close.

The year 2008 was all Olympics, all of the time. Working with more than ten sponsors, the Ogilvy Group has clients in every category across many different industries.

With the intention of being the first agency to probe consumer opinions in 2008, we launched a survey in early January that collected 2,687 responses from Chinese citizens across 20 provinces. The findings showed that 74 per cent of Chinese were "excited or very excited" about the Beijing Games. The survey also showed a high degree of "national pride", with 72 per cent saying that they were proud of China. There is no question - China had Olympic fever.

As the self-appointed Olympics coordinator for the Ogilvy Group since Beijing won its bid to be the host, I attended the 2004 Games in Athens and the 2006 Winter Games in Torino. I went largely to serve as Ogilvy's Olympics branding scout, and returned with a team to help service the clients we would represent.

Since 2005 we coordinated Olympic marketing meetings for our clients, with a focus on totally integrated campaigns. Among the clients we worked with regularly are UPS, adidas, VW, Great Wall Wine and Sohu, the Olympics online partner.

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