We know on the one hand that most societies in the West are individualistic , when on the other hand most of Asian societies are more community oriented.
To see if a country belongs to one or the other, we can make a study using the following criteria:
- valuation of autonomy (individual or collective goals, independence or interdependence)
- opportunity to choose
- capability to choose
- external reference standard or self expression
(it explains the huge success of LV and Gucci in Asia, I will come back about it on a next post)
- decisions made by consensus or personal choice
In China, you can see that the group decision-making, which is epitomized by the government and the state, will always come before people.
Currently, a large Adidas’ campaign is shown in streets and on TV.
It represents exactly what is a community-based society:
We can see that people are portrayed as a crowd in grey.
Nobody wears colorful clothes. Nodoby is taller than the person next to him.
Only the athlete has a red color and the entire anonymous crowd supports him.
The athlete represents China. He does not bear a name on his T-Shirt and it is not mentioned on the poster.
China allows you to be different only if it contributed to representing the country.
Which is a typical thinking of collectivist society.
With this campaign, Adidas had the clear idea to begin advertising on the Olympic Games before its competitors to be the OG sports brand in the mind of people.
It is interesting to see that westerners don’t like this add and the Chinese think this campaign is great.
Adidas did a very local campaign which has a huge success. Well done Adidas.
You want to work in the field of marketing but you don’t really know what is it?
You want to share your professional experiences?
This blog is meant for you.
Vous voulez travailler dans le marketing mais ce terme est flou?
Vous voulez partager vos expériences professionnelles?
Ce blog est à vous.
Li Wang
mai 9th, 2008 at 12:23
I don’t understand the purpose of that article.
Philippe Angely
mai 12th, 2008 at 3:57
The purpose of this article is to show an add we don’t use to see in western countries.
you are welcome to pick up a campaign from the US or europe and explain us why it will not work in china
Qian
mai 7th, 2009 at 2:20
Its actually more about how the hero(red) was supported by the collective(grey). Without others in the group, no one is able to success.