Spotlight on PR in China
Part 1: The Media in China
Once known as Paris of the East and the Pearl of the Orient, Shanghai is now returning to its heyday with phenomenal annual growth rates and futuristic new structures going up every day. As the gateway to China's vast market, one would expect the world's largest companies to have beachheads there, but mid-size and even small companies have started to follow. In Beijing, the 2008 Olympics, just around the corner, has stimulated a feverish building spree as well, and more foreign companies than ever are setting up shop there.
How can a foreign company in China establish a good reputation? How is the Chinese media different to work with than the Western media or media in other Asian countries? Does one have to consider China's communist social and political structure when conducting a marketing PR program?
Bridge Global Strategies asked Katsunobu Katada to talk about PR practices and standards we must be aware of to use PR effectively in the Chinese market. Mr. Katada, a native of Japan, is Director and Vice President, Kyodo Public Relations of China, Inc. in Shanghai. Kyodo PR, headquartered in Tokyo, also has an office in Beijing. This is Part One of a two-part article on PR in China.
Bridge: China is a huge country. Can you tell us about the media in China: is any of the media seen, read or heard nationally or is it mostly regional or local? We understand that Shanghai is the big business media center. Beijing, on the other hand, is crucial for reaching government decision-makers. What other media capitals are there besides these two cities? If you launch a new product or have a CEO visiting from overseas, do you need to visit the other cities or is it enough to travel to Shanghai and Beijing?
Katsunobu Katada: Recently, the Chinese media landscape is said to have become more liberal, due to ongoing industrialization and the growing strength of the market. However, in general all media is still under government control, although there may be differences in the ways and the strength with which influence is exerted. Except for some specialized nationwide newspapers, almost all newspapers are local. For example, Shanghai Morning Post and Oriental Morning Post are popular in Shanghai, but they are not on the map either in Beijing, Guangzhou or the Urumqi regions. And Beijing Evening News and Beijing News are very widely read by citizens in the Beijing area, however they aren't read in Shanghai. Shanghai is the country's principal business city. But Beijing is the hub of politics and mass media.
If the targets for a company's message are located specifically in these two areas, announcements and the CEO visits should be made there specifically. However, if a company wants to send a nationwide message throughout China, locations important to the client's interests will have to be singled out for specific, separate PR activities. I remember one example of a consumer product manufacturer who held 12 product announcement events in as many cities nationwide, starting in Shanghai.
Bridge: How competitive is it to get the media's attention for the launch of a new product?
KK: Some journalists in China have unreasonable doubts about foreign manufacturers (especially Japanese companies) whom they suspect of trying to sell products in China that have long been outmoded and outperformed in their country of origin. First we have to set aside those misconceptions. Then we must demonstrate those products' cutting-edge technology and features and their adherence to global standards. If products are not attractive, media interest for the brand will immediately decrease by half. Media have a tendency to prefer negative news topics such as product defects to new product launch and similar positively-oriented news items.
Bridge: How difficult is it to get media attention if you want to set up media interviews for a visiting company CEO/president from the home office overseas?
KK: Foreign markets are important in China. However, the most vital factors affecting the Chinese media's interest in visiting executives is whether they have any news to deliver about the company's relationship to the Chinese market. This is similar to media and readership interest in any country. But Chinese media are especially strict in judging relevancy to their own country. When preparing for media interactions in China, it is key to highlight and clarify all China-related elements ("how much to invest in China, how many people will be hired in China, how much tax would be paid in China, how big will the contribution to Chinese society and public-interest activities in China be, etc.") If journalists are already aware of how strong the client's position is regarding the Chinese market and how important the market is to the company, then their response to interview requests and invitations to press events will be much higher.
Bridge: Most American companies are not allowed to pay journalists for media coverage. However, we hear that this is standard in China. Is it true there is a practice of providing "travel money" for attending a press conference, much more money than is actually required to cover the cost of travel to and from the press conference? We've heard that without this travel money, journalists will not come to a press conference. Since most news is released in China at press conferences, they are an important part of obtaining media coverage. Can you comment on this?
KK: As of December 2006, it is a definitely a standard business custom at media-related events, such as press conferences held by private companies, to offer "gratitude money" to journalists, billed as transportation expenses.
There is not blackmail (We won't come if you don't pay), but rather a deep-rooted tradition that journalists think it is a matter of course to receive this compensation if they actually go to a press conference.
As for the relationship between incurring transportation expenses on the behalf of journalists and being able to secure coverage, I believe that actual common journalistic sense, quality of PR, and the news value of an item, are much more important in securing coverage.
I therefore think this transportation fee should be considered as a simple entry fee when organizing press conferences in China. I'm not sure how U.S. PR agencies are dealing with these issues. However, if you are doing PR in China, I think you should follow this custom, whether you like it not.
Watch for our next newsletter for the continuation of this article, "Part 2: China's PR Industry"
Mabel's Labels Joins Bridge Client Roster
searching for their children's lost possessions, four Canadian moms, all related to each other, developed a business offering colorful but tough and long-lasting labels. Thus began Mabel's Labels, Bridge Global Strategies' newest client. Bridge is working with Mabel's four "mompreneurs," Tricia Mumby, Cynthia Esp, Julie Ellis and Julie Cole, to help bring the Mabel's Labels brand to the next level and raise the company's visibility with potential customers.
The company's labels are customized with the child's name, favorite color, and one of many different icons (such as stars, flowers, boats, cars, or animals). Even toddlers soon recognize their own labels, which can help them learn to spell their names. There's a multitude of label sizes and shapes available from the company that are either dishwasher-safe and convenient for use on young children's cups, bottles and plastic toys, or washer/dryer-safe for use on clothing. The company offers allergy labels to stick on food containers and travel gear to protect children while away from their parents, kosher labels, and labels for a host of other household uses.
"Mabel's Labels is a perfect client for Bridge, since we excel in helping emerging online companies." said Lucy Siegel, Bridge Global Strategies President. "We're excited about working with these very creative people to build the reputation of their fast-growing company and market their innovative products. When Mabel's Labels came to us, we immediately saw the company's potential for growth, and we're delighted they selected us to help them."
Bridge Involved in Global Warming Book Launch
A book on global warming, "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years," was just released that contradicts conventional wisdom on this topic with evidence from scores of peer-reviewed scientific studies that all point to natural cycles, not human activity, behind global warming. Bridge has spent the past three months on behalf of the Hudson Institute helping to launch the book. The book's co-authors are Dennis T. Avery , a senior fellow and economist at Hudson Institute and a prolific writer who, earlier in his career, won the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement as a senior policy analyst for the U.S. Department of State; and S. Fred Singer, President of The Science & Environmental Policy Project, and Distinguished Research Professor at George Mason University and professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia.
Critics of the book's point of view made claims early this month that Exxon and other energy industry companies have financed a multi-million-dollar "disinformation campaign" to convince the public that the global scientific community is not in agreement about global warming and its causes. From the opposite side, Dennis Avery wrote in a recent article, "Global warming scare tactics have wrung $18 billion out of recent federal budgets for climate change research."
Bridge's staff faced surprise from family and friends that the firm took on this project. "If they're wrong, you're just encouraging people to be irresponsible about their use of energy," we heard more than once. However, the authors don't endorse wasting energy. The biggest factor in Bridge's decision to take on the project was our feeling that the authors were entitled to air their point of view: that there's a huge amount of money being invested to try and prevent climate change, which they concluded through examination of data from scores of scientific studies is not preventable and will also not be as dire to humans and animals as many predict. If they're right, then perhaps there are other ways those vast resources could be better spent — such as alleviating poverty in the third world. Whether the authors are right or wrong, Bridge felt their serious credentials entitled them a chance to be heard. However, it was an eye-opener to Bridge that there were so few mainstream journalists who would even look at the book because their minds were made up already. "We were able to find an audience with talk radio, which led to TV and finally to print coverage, and now the book is selling quite well," said Bridge President Lucy Siegel.
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