China's Advertising Industry Goes Global
THIS WINTER, McDonald's will bombard television viewers worldwide with a new ad in its youth-targeted "I'm Lovin' It" campaign. But in a first, an advertising team in China created the spot in a host of languages. Big Mac lovers in a range of Asian countries will soon also learn the "I'm Loving It" hand gesture courtesy of Leo Burnett China.
"In McDonald's history, all of our creative direction was led by America. But we now said: 'Let the best ideas win'," says Larry Light , the global chief marketing officer of McDonald's. And in a competition for pitches from ad firms from around the world, China came top with half a dozen ideas. The competitors even voted the China team the most imaginative of McDonald's global network.
"China just blew our minds. We didn't expect that kind of expression and joy," adds Light. "Our expectation was for much more conservatism, much less individuality and more caution."
China is gearing up for a new industry: creativity. As international advertising firms have moved into the country over the past decade, hiring and training local creative staff, they have reinvented Chinese advertising. Now they're winning international respect, and most importantly, they say, their ads are starting to be more effective in China. These Chinese creatives, as they're known in the industry, are finding new ways to push the old limits -- such as inexperience, state censors, a wildly diverse consumer landscape and timid clients.
"Shanghai is going to be the next epicentre of creative happening," enthuses Adrian Holmes, chairman of Interpublic Group's Lowe & Partners Worldwide and a former copywriter, on a China visit in September. "The Chinese advertising identity will form out of a Western sensibility and a Chinese one to produce a new alloy."
Advertisers spent an estimated $10 billion in China last year, making it the world's fifth-largest advertising market. And it is widely expected to grow by billions of dollars more this year. At that rate, China should overtake Japan as the second-largest market in 10 years, according to Nielsen Media Research, the media arm of ACNielsen. And making ads in China isn't any cheaper than elsewhere.
But until recently, advertisers didn't get much bang for their megabucks. Chinese ads followed a highly literal style dominated by slogans, a result of the Cultural Revolution's emphasis on propaganda. Soft-drink-maker Hangzhou Wahaha Group pushes its cola as "the Chinese people's own Cola!" Many ads still feature stiff suits in factories thanking their loyal customers. Even Chinese have tired of them, saying the worst present brands "in an ordinary or boring way," according to a Leo Burnett study in 2001.
Now China's creativity is breaking out in ads ranging from burgers to rice cookers to sports shoes. In an unprecedented move, Shanghai-based advertising agency Nitro was hired in August to develop ads for a foreign company -- Australian telecoms giant Telstra -- to show back in Australia, not China. Nitro was founded by Australian Chris Clarke, who opened the agency with mostly Chinese talent two years ago.
"Eight or nine years ago, I couldn't get any open-minded local thinking here," says Clarke. "But now there's a huge opportunity to make a difference. China's film industry has exceptional creative talent -- and people aren't tapping into that yet." The official Xinhua news agency hailed the Telstra coup as a first for the nation.
Even the government is helping to push creativity. State-run China Central Television, which boasts the world's largest viewership, is gearing up for a televised second annual international advertising awards show this month. The first, last year, attracted 5,000 entries.
This new generation of Chinese creatives looks to international ads for inspiration, with a Chinese twist. In September, hundreds of young Chinese ad-makers crammed into auditoriums in Shanghai for lessons in world-class creativity.
The Clio AdChina Show featured winners of the influential U.S.-based Clio international industry awards, and workshops explaining how the Chinese can break old habits. One session: "Flicking Your Creative Switch." Hungry copywriters and art directors scribbled down ideas and snapped photos of the award-winning ads from around the world. China's Clio entries have multiplied 10-fold since 1999 and Chinese ads won their first Clio awards, a silver and a bronze, last year.
International advertising firms are teaching their mostly local staff an approach to ideas that might have put their parents in jail. "In order to have creativity, you have to have independence of thought and a freedom to challenge," says Tom Doctoroff, Greater China CEO for WPP Group's J. Walter Thompson. So JWT brainstorming sessions in Shanghai take place in a room without tables or ordered seating, a sharp contrast to the hierarchy emphasized by most Chinese businesses. In a programme about the firm in September, Shanghai television noted local staff are encouraged to play -- and beat -- Doctoroff at ping-pong on the office table.
For ad firms, a decade's worth of recruitment is starting to pay off. Tao Lei, 29, is part of the team that developed the "I'm Lovin' It" campaign, and is among the first generation in China to develop careers under the industry's Chinese-foreign hybrid model. "I prefer working with people with different cultural backgrounds, because the diversity sometimes gives rise to creativity and inspirations," says Tao.
Born of experience, there are also new approaches to the old problem of getting past state censors, who have the power to pull ads that offend their sometimes-finicky sensibilities. No-nos include images of police, sexuality, Mao Zedong, and gatherings or protests, as well as challenges to authority and claims of being the "best." In China, the new creativity has to operate within conservative constraints.
For example, Coca-Cola's Fanta, the fourth-most-popular soft drink in China, asked WPP's Ogilvy & Mather for something that shows it as an antidote to everyday pressures on young people. An ad in the United States could be built around a teen's fantasy, or images of revenge on a mean teacher, says Jeff Delkin, Ogilvy's regional business director in Shanghai.
But that would flop in China. "We can't undermine the position of authority figures, primarily teachers and parents, in Chinese society," says Delkin.
Instead, Ogilvy created a national spot that shows drinking Fanta can be a fun group experience. In the ad, a student in a classroom opens a bottle of Fanta, causing oranges to rain from the sky. The teacher catches the oranges, and juggles them with his hands and feet -- to the delight of the students yelling: "Ahh!"
But a deeper creative obstacle, many ad executives agree, is finding a way to grab attention while still communicating new brand ideas to consumers across a very diverse country. Companies usually budget for just one ad throughout China. Test audiences in cosmopolitan Shanghai, however, may chuckle at an ad that just elicits blank stares in small Western towns unused to brand choice. For years, a lowest-common-denominator approach -- just pushing product features -- has won out.
So to develop a new national TV spot for a rice cooker from Chinese brand Midea, staff of Grey Global Group hung out with lonely mothers to learn what aspirations united them. "Housewives in China want their own space to follow their own interests and desires," says Kenny Wong, Grey's general manager in the southern city of Guangzhou. So the firm developed an ad featuring ordinary-looking Chinese housewives emerging from high-rise apartment blocks to play a great game of soccer -- liberated from their kitchens by the auto-timer on their Midea rice cooker. "Chinese consumers can accept something that is very creative, but communicates a simple message," says Wong.
Disheartened ad executives say even a creative idea that survives censors and communicates across markets won't necessarily make it past companies with timid and immature attitudes toward branding. In the traditional noncompetitive state-business model, sales drives marketing -- not the marketing-driving approach that is preferred by ad firms. "Somebody in that traditional structure usually doesn't have the background to understand the communication. Most of the good creative is killed in that process," says Grey's Wong.
So winning awards and international respect is as much about pride as it is a matter of opportunity for ad firms to prove their effectiveness to local companies, which are often conservative and more interested in immediate sales than brand-building for the long term. "We have to convince our clients that unique creative content, not just copying somebody else, can help them build their brands," says Spencer Wong, the South China creative director of Ogilvy.
Among the first to adopt a more aggressive attitude toward original creative branding are Chinese companies expanding internationally, such as appliance-maker Haier Group, a client of Grey, and sportswear-maker Beijing Li-Ning Sports Goods, a client of Leo Burnett.
As originality becomes more common, even old Chinese graphic-design traditions are finding new expression. Historically, verbal puns based on the double meanings hidden in the character-based language's written form are more common than the visual puns that dominate the West. So one ad for Epilady women's razors plays off the word for "woman" -- with a Chinese character shaped like a woman -- by adding hair under its imaginary armpits. The ad won a fistful of international awards, including two Silver Lions at the Cannes International Advertising Festival.
中国广告，世界品位
今年冬季，麦当劳(McDonald's)针对青少年的广告攻势"我就喜欢"(I'm Lovin' It)将对全球电视观众进行狂轰滥炸。这将是有史以来中国的广告设计团队首次在众多不同语言的设计方案中脱颖而出，拔得头筹。许多亚洲国家的麦当劳拥趸很快就将学会由李奥贝纳中国广告公司(Leo Burnett China)设计的"我就喜欢"的特殊手势。
麦当劳全球首席营销长拉里?莱特(Larry Light)说，"在麦当劳的历史上，全部的创意工作都由美国公司担纲。但现在我们改变了策略，不拘一格，选用最好的创意。"在全球多家广告公司提交的竞标方案中，来自中国的方案最受好评，其中的创意多达六个；而中国的广告设计团队甚至被其竞争者评为麦当劳全球网络中最富创意的团队。
莱特说，"中国让我们刮目相看。我们根本没想到他们会提出如此充满表现力和感染力的创意。我们原本以为，中国的广告方案会更保守、更谨慎，个人化的色彩更淡薄。"
创意产业在中国方兴未艾。过去10年，外国广告公司先后进入中国，培养出一批当地的创意人才，为中国的广告业注入了新的生机。现在，这些广告公司逐渐赢得了国际声誉，而且更重要的是，他们的广告在中国市场的影响力也日益增强。这些中国创意精英正寻找新的途径，打破种种旧的束缚－－经验不足、政府审查、消费者构成复杂和客户观念保守等等。
罗威国际广告集团(Lowe & Partners Worldwide)的董事长阿德里安?霍姆斯(Adrian Holmes)预言："上海将成为下一个创意中心。"他说，中国的广告创意将汇集东西方灵感，博采众长，形成自身独特的风格。罗威国际隶属美国广告集团Interpublic Group，而霍姆斯本人曾是一名广告文案。
据估计，去年中国市场的广告支出约为100亿美元，在全球排名第五。业界人士普遍预计，今年的广告支出将增长数十亿美元。ACNielsen的媒体研究部门Nielsen Media Research称，按照这一增长速度，中国将会在10年之内超过日本，成为全球第二大广告市场。而在中国制作广告的成本并不比其他地区低廉。
但中国广告商的巨额投入直到最近几年才初见成效。也许是受文化大革命时期宣传标语的影响，中国的广告往往喜欢采用口号的形式，具有很强的文字性。软饮料生产商杭州娃哈哈集团(Hangzhou Wahaha Group)为其生产的可乐推出的广告语是："中国人自己的可乐！"在不少服装品牌的广告中，加工厂内硬梆梆的西服向老顾客鞠躬致意。李奥贝纳2001年的一项研究显示，连中国人自己也对这些低劣的广告感到厌烦，称目前最差的品牌"正在做著平庸乏味的广告"。
如今，从汉堡包、电饭煲到运动鞋，中国的广告创意遍地开花。今年8月份，澳大利亚电信(Telstra)选中上海广告代理商Nitro为该公司设计在澳大利亚本土播放的广告。这是中国广告公司首次赢得类似的订单。澳大利亚人克里斯?克拉克(Chris Clarke)两年前创办了Nitro，该公司大多数的设计人员都是中国人。
克拉克说，"八九年前，我在这里找不到任何思路开放的本地人。但现在我看到了巨大的发展机会。中国电影业的创意人才更是才华横溢，但他们的潜力还没有充分发挥出来。"中国官方媒体新华社(Xinhua News Agency)在报导上述事件时称，外国公司聘请中国广告商制作广告，在中国尚属首例。
中国政府也在积极鼓励国民发挥创造力。中国国有电视台中央电视台(China Central Television)本月将播出第二届国际电视广告大赛颁奖典礼。去年的首届大赛吸引了5,000个参赛作品。
中国新一代的广告创意人在国际广告中寻找灵感，但又不失中国的本土特色。9月份，数百名年轻的中国广告人云集上海，参加克里奥奖中国广告大会(Clio AdChina Show)，倾听世界级的广告创意讲座。
该盛会展出了在全球广告界颇负盛名的克里奥广告奖的获奖作品，并就中国广告业如何突破常规举办了专题讲座。其中一项讲座的主题是："打开创意的阀门"。广告文案和美术总监们如饥似渴地欣赏著来自全球各地的获奖作品，随手记下心得，并不时按动相机的快门。1999年以来，中国的参赛作品增加了10倍，并在去年赢得了第一个克里奥银奖和铜奖。
国际广告公司正向其中国员工灌输新的思想，而这些思想在他们父辈的年代甚至会招来牢狱之灾。WPP Group旗下的J. Walter Thompson(JWT)大中华区首席执行长汤姆?多克特罗夫(Tom Doctoroff)说，"为了获取灵感，必须具有独立的思想和挑战的自由。"JWT在上海举行的头脑风暴讲座现场没有一张桌子，椅子的摆放也非常随意，同大多数中国企业历来强调的等级观念形成鲜明对比。上海电视台9月份在一个节目中专门介绍了JWT，其中提到，多克特罗夫鼓励当地员工在办公室的桌子上和他一起打乒乓球。
对广告公司来说，长达十年的招募和培训终于产生了回报。29岁的陶磊(Tao Lei,音译)是"I'm Lovin' It"广告方案的设计成员之一，也是在中外融合模式下成长起来的第一代广告创意人。"我喜欢同不同文化背景的人一起工作，这种多样性时常会激发灵感和创造力。"
凭借以往的经验，这些新一代广告人在应对政府审查方面也摸索出一些新方法。在中国发布广告有很多禁忌，若处理不当就会在政府审查时遭到"红牌"。这一敏感区域范围很大，包括带有警察、性、毛泽东、集会或抗议等的画面，以及挑衅权威或自诩第一的广告语。在中国，新兴的创意产业必须在保守观念能够接受的前提下运作。
在中国最畅销的饮料中，可口可乐(Coca-Cola)的芬达(Fanta)名列第四。该公司聘请WPP旗下的奥美公司(Ogilvy & Mather)为芬达设计广告，希望广告能够突出芬达缓和年轻人日常压力的特点。奥美驻上海的地区商业主管杰夫?戴尔金(Jeff Delkin)说，面向美国市场的广告素材可以取自青少年的幻想，或针对坏老师的恶作剧，但在中国可不能如法炮制。
戴尔金说，"在中国，我们万万不能在广告中破坏权威形象，尤其是老师和父母的形象。"
奥美最终为芬达设计了一个这样的全国性广告：一名学生在教室里打开了一瓶芬达，结果天上突然下起了橙子雨。老师接住橙子，将它们在手脚之间抛来抛去，而学生们则为老师精彩的戏法大声叫好。奥美希望藉此宣传，喝芬达是一种愉快的群体体验。
但许多广告业的管理人士认为，中国广告创意更大的障碍，是在一个受众千差万别的国家，吸引消费者的注意力，推广新的品牌理念。通常企业在制定预算时，只会包含一项全国性广告。然而，同一个广告在上海等大都市可能会引人发笑，到了西部小城则可能无人领会。因此，多年来，中国的广告一直奉行"让最多人看懂"的法则，结果单纯介绍产品性能的广告比比皆是。
巧妙的广告，大胆的客户
为了给美的(Midea)牌电饭煲设计全国电视广告，Grey Global Group的设计人员深入体验家庭主妇的日常生活，寻找她们内心共同的渴望。Grey广州总经理Kenny Wong说，"中国的家庭主妇们希望拥有自己的空间，满足个人的兴趣和愿望。"最后，该公司设计了一个别出心裁的广告：高楼林立的社区中，冒出一个个相貌普通的家庭主妇，一场别开生面的足球赛随即展开－－具有自动计时功能的美的牌电饭煲将她们从厨房中解放了出来。Kenny Wong说，"构思巧妙、信息简单的广告通常能被中国的消费者接受。"
但一些广告业管理人士称，一个充满创意的广告即使通过了监管部门的审查，而且也能让各地观众接受，最终仍有可能因为客户的谨小慎微和不成熟的品牌观念而功亏一篑。在传统的缺乏竞争的政府商业模式下，是销售推动营销，而不是广告公司提倡的营销刺激销售。Grey的广州总经理Kenny Wong说，"传统经济结构下的企业人士往往不能领会现代广告所传达的信息。大多数的精彩创意在这个过程中就被扼杀了。"
因此，赢得比赛奖项和国际认可不仅关系到广告公司的名誉，而且有助于向企业证明自身的能力。中国的企业普遍比较保守，更注重眼前的产品销售，而忽略了长期的品牌建设。奥美华南区创意总监Spencer Wong说，"我们不得不努力让客户相信，与众不同的广告创意可以帮助他们树立品牌形象。"
在积极进行品牌推广的公司中，那些不断国际化的中国企业首当其冲，其中包括家用电器生产商海尔集团(Haier Group)和体育用品生产商北京李宁体育用品有限公司(Beijing Li-Ning Sports Goods)，他们分别是Grey和李奥贝纳的广告客户。
随著创新的观念越来越普及，甚至连古老的中国图像设计传统也被灵活演绎。作为一种象形文字，中国汉语中的双关语要远远多于西方语言。一则Epilady女用剃刀的广告就巧妙地运用了这种文字游戏。该广告使用了外形近似女性体态的"女"字，然后在这个字想像中的"腋下"部位添加了一些毛发。该广告大获成功，一举赢得多项国际广告大奖，包括戛纳国际广告节(Cannes International Advertising Festival)的两尊银狮奖。
