Made In China

Capitalism has won the war it has waged with socialism and communism. I know this now. How can I tell? It's because of what China is doing as a result of the scandals involving Chinese made products. This has consumers in China and elsewhere worried because of the bad reputation threatens to derail China's status as No. 1 exporter in the world. Sooooooooooo, what is China doing? It's hiring a New York based advertising agency to clean up that bad image with snake oil, western style, capitalist propaganda to make the consumer think China makes only good products."

Made in China, made with the world" is the theme of the ad campaign masterminded by DDB Guoan, the Chinese branch of Manhattan ad agency. Commercials for the campaign just ended a six week run on cable TV networks in the United States, Europe and Asia. One of the 30-second spots shows a couple of teen girls dancing at a bus stop using an MP3 player "Made in China with software from Silicon Valley", to make consumers associate the Chinese player with American made ones. It replaces the image of tainted Chinese goods with those of more pure ones.

Another of the ads shows a jogger tying his sneakers that say "Made in China with American sports technology." I remember seeing that one at least once and thought about the oddity of the Chinese made product trying to identify with American manufacturing. Perhaps all borders end at the manufacturing site and at cash registers of retail outlets who are interested in making a sale, not in nationalism.

For such a nationalistic nation as China to campaign this way is a change from its long held tactic of denying any of the Chinese made products are flawed. The new mentality among Chinese manufacturers is that many products made in China are designed in cooperation with other countries, so the consumer must think that they are good products. Thus, China wants to transfer the negative image of Chinese goods to that of the more quality oriented western goods in order to create a positive, objective image for made-in-China products. The Chinese seem to agree their image has suffered, so why not employ the smooth tactics of advertising campaigns instead of those stolid, government issued denials that yet another made in China product is defective? Those denials , even the Chinese consumer never believed.

China intends to follow the model Japan used in the late 50's. using that one Japan, which entered the U.S. market at the lower end with cheap products, eventually entered a move up-market that today associates Japanese goods with quality ones. If this works most consumers outside of China could wind up having a Chinese TV or washing machine and won't think twice about whether it is a defective product. Japan used the same strategy, and today Japanese made products are prized as top of the line in many categories. That's a far cry from the old mentality that, "Japan only makes those cheap am transistor radios".

In effect, his ad campaign is an act of throwing the gauntlet down to the west and to Japan that China is ready to manufacture quality at the same level as other nations, and that they will use modern advertising techniques to relay to consumers that Chinese goods not only are cheaper, but of high quality.

Capitalism is in full bloom in China. May the old socialist ways be buried forever there.