'Made in China' Can Be Cool, Some Chinese Youths Now Say
Chinese youths identified Nike, Sony and Adidas as the world's coolest brands, but some homegrown Chinese brands are starting to catch up, according to a recent survey.
According to results of the survey of 1,200 Beijing and Shanghai youths released Friday, one-third of the respondents thought Nike is the coolest brand, with Sony and Adidas each receiving about 15% of the votes. But almost half of the youths feel their country now has cool brands of its own, showing that perceptions are changing rapidly amid increased spending on brand promotion by Chinese companies.
According to the survey, 49% of respondents now feel China has its own cool brands, with Haier, Lenovo and Li-Ning topping the list, while 51% felt China didn't. In contrast, a 1998 survey of a larger group of Chinese youths showed that virtually no respondents saw China's brands as cool. Haier is a home-electronics brand produced by Haier Group Co., Lenovo is a personal-computer brand made by Lenovo Group Ltd. and Li-Ning is a sportswear line by Beijing Li-Ning Sports Goods Co.
Sponsors of the survey, Hill & Knowlton China, the China edition of Seventeen magazine and market-research company Sinomonitor International, acknowledge that the respondents, 18- to 22-year-olds from 64 universities in two of China's most prosperous cities, aren't representative of the overall youth population. But the poll results offer insight into the effect of brand-building by multinationals in China among the country's future consumer elite.
"We found that overall corporate reputation is a vital part of building up a cool brand in China," said Jeff Smith, managing director of Hill & Knowlton China. For most respondents, the coolest brands not only represent the most desirable products to buy, but also the ideal companies to work for, he said.
Hong Huang, publisher of the Chinese version of the girls' magazine Seventeen, said those represented by the poll "will form the strongest consumer power in the future." Indeed, about 60% of those surveyed said they spend more than 500 yuan, or a little more than $60, each month. That is equivalent to half of the average monthly income of Beijing residents, according to the survey sponsors. Zhang Zhongliang, Sinomonitor's chief executive, said the way the survey group spends money "is fundamentally guided by their views about brands," with only one-fourth of respondents saying that they pay "little attention to brands" when they shop.
Fannie Yao, a 23-year-old graduate student in Beijing, says she spent about 3,000 yuan, or one-third of her total spending, last year just on Lancome and Biotherm cosmetic products, both made by French companies. "I don't think China has any cool brands compared with Nike or Microsoft," Ms. Yao said. "But now some Chinese brands are successfully expanding overseas, which I find cool."
The poll suggests that Chinese youths have a different outlook from older generations on how they should go about earning money. Under the planned economy that dominated until the late 1970s, most Chinese worked for the state sector while the private sector was virtually nonexistent. Even today, after a quarter century of market changes, private entrepreneurs often enjoy fewer legal protections and less respect among older Chinese than their counterparts in the state sector. But two-thirds of the polled youths agreed that "sooner or later it would be better to work for myself than be employed by a company."
Reflecting the rise of China cool among Chinese youth, the survey results showed Shanghai nearly neck-and-neck with New York in competition for the title of the world's coolest city, although New York led slightly. Milan, Italy's fashion center, ranked third. Wang Fei, a Hong Kong pop singer, topped the list of coolest bands and singers, which was dominated by performers from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
国际品牌惹人爱，中国招牌也很酷
中国的年轻人将耐克(Nike)、索尼(Sony)和阿迪达斯(Adidas)看作是世界上最酷的品牌，但是最近的一项调查显示，一些土生土长的中国品牌也开始受到人们的欢迎。
根据上周五发布的对1,200名北京和上海青年的调查结果，在回答问卷的人中，有大约三分之一的人认为耐克是最酷的品牌，而索尼和阿迪达斯各自获得了大约15%的投票。但是几乎有一半年轻人认为他们的国家目前也有了自己的一流品牌，这说明在中国公司加大对品牌推广支出的情况下，人们的认识在迅速改变。
根据调查，在回答问卷的人中，49%的人目前认为中国有了自己的一流品牌，其中海尔(Haier)、联想(Lenovo)和李宁(Li-Ning)位居榜首，而51%的人认为中国仍然没有一流品牌。相比之下，在1998年进行的一个对更多中国青年的调查中，几乎没有人认为中国有自己的一流品牌。海尔是海尔集团(Haier Group)的家用电器品牌，联想是联想集团有限公司(Lenovo Group Ltd., 0992.HK, 简称：联想集团)的个人电脑品牌，李宁是北京李宁体育用品有限公司(Beijing Li-Ning Sports Goods Co)的运动服装品牌。
调查的主办者伟达中国公司(Hill & Knowlton China)、Seventeen杂志中国版《青春一族》和市场研究公司Sinomonitor International承认，调查对象是中国最繁华的两个城市64所大学中的18至22岁青年，不能代表中国青年的总体情况，但是调查结果揭示了中国的跨国公司在中国未来消费精英中树立品牌形象的效果
