A story about Tom Doctoroff, author of Billions: Selling to the New Chinese Consumer, is fascinating for its revelations about the exploding consumer market in China--particularly his
assertion that the ancient culture, although changing, will forever resist mirroring our own U.S.-style consumer habits. "Basically, the underlying motivations of Chinese people do not change with
the first gust of capitalist wind," says Doctoroff, chief executive of JWT in China. "We often confuse their desire to modernize with a desire to become Western. They fundamentally don't want to.
It's a very different worldview." However, the very good news for media and marketers who look to the huge China market is that, in the words of the International HT, "while individualism is
taboo, the expression of personal ambition through wealth and the accumulation of material possessions is actually encouraged." Doctoroff says advertisers who understand the Chinese mindset can
succeed there. He cites a number of examples. One, involving Buick, is interesting because the carmaker has a rather old-folks image in the U.S. But marketers in China have succeeded in infusing the
brand with a different message: People who drive Buicks are solid and ambitious. Result: a car franchise that thrives.
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Read the whole story at International Herald Tribune »