Interview with iadvisor Jorg Dietzel: Branding in China

New iadvisor Jorg Dietzel shares on the importance of branding when doing business in China, as well as tips for Singaporean companies looking to expand into the Chinese market.

When Singapore companies expand their businesses to China, how important is a strong branding?

For companies expanding into China, branding is highly essential, even more so than in other markets. The Chinese, in general, are very reliant on recommendations and brand status. As an economy that hasn’t had private wealth for long, many target groups still need status symbols to make a statement about their personal success and wealth. No matter if it is a product or service, status is the determining factor in their decision process. With the market developing and maturing, this trend will change somewhat – from ‘impressing the world’, the status value of brands will move towards ‘impressing my peer group/those who know’. It will remain an important factor since branding is a promise of quality and hence, makes consumers’ choice easier.

What message should the brand communicates such that it strikes a chord with Chinese consumers?

The main message to be conveyed has to be a quality promise - how good is the brand? That quality is less dependent on the actual attributes of the product or service, but more perceived through the people using it. If famous and reputable people use a particular brand, it means that the brand is very good. This is one of the reasons why so many brands in China use celebrities to communicate their product or service. However the appeal of this might vary between the educated or less educated, the old and young, the location, etc. Also, being too closely associated with a celebrity could backfire when the spokesperson is caught up in some kind of scandal.

What tips can you provide to Singapore companies planning to venture into China?

Singapore has a good reputation in China, and due to some shared history, language and cultural barriers are fewer than for Western companies. Singapore brands in China can ride on the good image of the city state and attributes like ‘quality’, ‘reliability’, ‘honesty’. But Singaporeans need to show their understanding of the Chinese mentality, express their tolerance and refrain from making reference to how things are done outside China. The Chinese are a very proud community and making regular references to how things are done overseas and complaining about the style and system of China serve only to alienate a brand.


All answers are provided to the best knowledge of the iadvisors at the point of answering, and are solely represented by the iadvisors, not IE Singapore.

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