Promote The Internationalization Process Of Chinese Shoe Brands With Cultural Elements

Chinese manufacturing enterprises are often told that one of the ways to improve profit margins is to develop their own brands and strengthen the product design Input. However, such suggestions often fail to mention how to achieve this significant leap in effective concrete practices.

At a recent design conference held in Hong Kong, some experts were interested in developing Own brand And independent research and development enterprises provide a suggestion that seems to be contrary to the intuitive feeling: even if Chinese enterprises want to enter the world market, do not forget to seek inspiration from their own culture.

They said that one of the problems faced by Chinese enterprises is that China has“ World Factory ”It is famous for taking orders from multinational enterprises such as Nokia and Apple for a long time, which leads Chinese enterprises to pay less attention to the influence of their own culture.

Peter Heskett, a brand management expert who spoke at the Asia and China Design Conference held in Hong Kong on June 22, suggested that this is understandable to some extent, because in many cases, "Made in China" is still equivalent to low quality for consumers, at least in the western market.

He said, for example, the public opinion survey conducted by JWT, a multinational advertising company headquartered in New York, on American and British consumers shows that Chinese enterprises are at or near the bottom in terms of product quality, moral behavior, environmental responsibility and other consumer perceptions.

Heskett said, in addition, more than half of the consumers in the survey think that they will not buy Chinese brands when they see them in the store.

"Consumers' willingness to buy Chinese brands is not strong... This is obviously a challenge," he said

However, at this conference hosted by Hong Kong Design Center, he and other speakers proposed a solution, which is not to hide China's own cultural elements, but to actively explore the attractions. For example, the survey found that western consumers are very interested in the traditional essence of Chinese medicine or martial arts.

　　J.  Walter Thompson Singapore Pte.  Ltd. Heskett, the company's Southeast Asia planning director, believes that for mass market consumer goods, the quality problem should be handled with a positive attitude. Heskett suggested that Chinese enterprises focus their brand development on India, Southeast Asia and China.

He mentioned a promotional advertisement broadcast in the United States by Li Ning, a well-known Chinese shoe brand. In the advertisement, a Chinese young man brought Li Ning shoes into the country, but was detained by several funny and domineering American customs inspectors.

At first, the inspectors laughed at Li Ning's shoes, but then they put on their shoes and tested their bouncing performance on the basketball court. They praised Li Ning's shoes endlessly, which meant that they were qualified to enter the American market.

At the same time, he also mentioned Ospop, a footwear brand in New Jersey, which improved Jiefang brand canvas shoes once popular in China and sold them in western countries at a higher price.

Ospop uses the Chinese character "Gong" surrounded by red circles as one of its corporate logos to fully display its Chinese elements. The company prominently wrote on its website, "I am proud that my shoes are made in China", and "industrious and optimistic Chinese people have created important opportunities for themselves and their future development."

Ospop is the acronym of One Small Point of Pride. The brand has also produced a series of promotional videos showing its shoemaking factory and shoemaking methods, and introduced the brand's contribution to community education in detail.

Chen Bingpeng, an industrial designer born in Guangdong and studying in the United States, said that Chinese designers always like to follow the existing models of western countries, "lacking trust and confidence in themselves."

He said that Chinese enterprises should attach importance to their own cultural heritage and look for elements that can compete in the world market from the profound Chinese culture. He is the head of Ecco Design in New York, a well-known company in the industry.

He said: "It is necessary for Chinese enterprises to cultivate their own personality. Why should they always imitate others? Anyone can launch some products based on imitation, but the true essence cannot be imitated. Under the visible surface, in fact, more depends on culture and thinking."

In addition, he said that many Asian enterprises lack the understanding of consumers about the use of their products, so they can not make a big breakthrough in innovation. He said, "This is an important problem that most Asian enterprises need to improve."

Another expert who has studied the brand development of Chinese enterprises said that Chinese enterprises are making great strides.

Jan Stael von Holstein, a professor from the School of Design and Creativity of Tongji University in Shanghai, said, for example, Haier Group, an electrical appliance manufacturer headquartered in Qingdao, Shandong Province, has now occupied about 15% of the microwave oven market in the United States, which is a "huge progress".

According to consulting company Euromonitor International Ltd According to the company's statistics, among the large household appliance manufacturers, Haier's market share in the world market has ranked first in the past two years, accounting for 6.1% in 2010.

He said that, in addition, other Chinese enterprises, such as the automobile manufacturer Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd., acquired Sweden Volvo in 2010, which also indicates the arrival of new opportunities, as long as Geely can win the trust of global consumers.

He said that China's booming automobile industry, coupled with the Chinese government's efforts to develop new technologies such as electric vehicles to make up for the lack of domestic oil production, will inject impetus into innovation.

Von Holstein said: "There is no reason why China can't come up with the most amazing car design 10 years later. What the Chinese need is different cars based on different energy needs... This is just an example for Chinese enterprises to enter the world and influence the world."

However, he and other speakers also pointed out many problems hindering the innovation and brand development of Chinese enterprises.

Von Holstein quoted reports from local Chinese newspapers that the rampant infringement of intellectual property rights has hit the enthusiasm for innovation, especially in industrial products. Citing data released by the State Intellectual Property Office of China, he said that it was estimated that only 10% of the 16000 brands registered in China were profitable. He said that the lack of intellectual property protection was the main reason for this phenomenon.

Another speaker believed that Chinese manufacturing enterprises lacked some soft skills to attract consumers in the world market.

British designer Michael Young came to Hong Kong in 2006 to set up an industrial design studio to provide services for Chinese manufacturing enterprises. He said that these enterprises are willing to spend money to buy advanced manufacturing technology.

However, he said, these enterprises do not know how to deal with customers in developed markets such as Europe, and they have no idea how to use the media to promote their products. So Young's job is to provide these enterprises with such services.

Von Holstein said that the lack of some soft skills can be seen from the ranking of global brands. Although China has become the second largest economy in the world, no Chinese enterprise has ranked among the top ten in terms of brand value.

He said that even big domestic brands like Li Ning seem to lack trust in their own culture. At the meeting, he showed a picture of two adjacent Li Ning stores and Nike stores in Beijing, from which we can see that Li Ning's brand logo is very similar to Nike's.

He said: "Li Ning has not really created a Chinese brand with local characteristics. It still looks like it is copying Nike, although it has slightly changed the brand logo. Li Ning has not added Chinese characters to its logo."