Brand New China: Advertising, Media, and Commercial Culture

by Jing Wang

Overview

One part riveting account of fieldwork and one part rigorous academic study, Brand New China offers a unique perspective on the advertising and marketing culture of China. Jing Wang’s experiences in the disparate worlds of Beijing advertising agencies and the U.S. academy allow her to share a unique perspective on China during its accelerated reintegration into the global market system.

Brand New China offers a detailed, penetrating, and up-to-date portrayal of branding and advertising in contemporary China. Wang takes us inside an advertising agency to show the influence of American branding theories and models. She also examines the impact of new media practices on Chinese advertising, deliberates on the convergence of grassroots creative culture and viral marketing strategies, samples successful advertising campaigns, provides practical insights about Chinese consumer segments, and offers methodological reflections on pop culture and advertising research.

This book unveils a “brand new” China that is under the sway of the ideology of global partnership while struggling not to become a mirror image of the United States. Wang takes on the task of showing where Western thinking works in China, where it does not, and, perhaps most important, where it creates opportunities for cross-fertilization.

Thanks to its combination of engaging vignettes from the advertising world and thorough research that contextualizes these vignettes, Brand New China will be of interest to industry participants, students of popular culture, and the general reading public interested in learning about a rapidly transforming Chinese society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674047082
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	04/10/2010
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jing Wang (1950–2021) was Professor of Chinese Media and Cultural Studies, S. C. Fang Professor of Chinese Language and Culture, and Director of the New Media Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies, the National Humanities Center, and the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation, and was a recipient of the Overseas Distinguished Professor Award given by China’s Ministry of Education. She was the Founder and Secretary General of NGO2.0, a nonprofit in China specializing in technology-driven and social media–powered activism, and was the author of Brand New China: Advertising, Media, and Commercial Culture; The Story of Stone; and High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng’s China.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Introduction: Framing Chinese Advertising

1. Local Content
2. Positioning the New Modern Girl
3. The Synergy Buzz and TV Brands
4. Storytelling and Corporate Branding
5. Bourgeois Bohemians in China
6. Hello Moto: Youth Culture and Music Marketing
7. CCTV and Advertising Media

• Notes
• References
• Acknowledgments
• Index

What People are Saying About This

Few have gone as far as Jing Wang in combining marketing research with cultural analysis, and no other author has provided as detailed, penetrating, and up-to-date a portrayal of the processes of transnational advertising and marketing in China. Brand New China is a fast-paced and fascinating book.

Michael Keane

This book will find a readership among industry participants, students of China, and academic researchers of China's rapidly emerging consumer culture. There are few persons better qualified than Jing Wang to speak about China's cultural reforms, and Brand New China fills a gap in the literature.
— Michael Keane, author of Created in China: the Great New Leap Forward

Yuezhi Zhao

Few have gone as far as Jing Wang in combining marketing research with cultural analysis, and no other author has provided as detailed, penetrating, and up-to-date a portrayal of the processes of transnational advertising and marketing in China. Brand New China is a fast-paced and fascinating book.
— Yuezhi Zhao, author of Communication in China: Political Economy, Power and Conflict

Editorial Reviews

Brand New China blurs the line between storytelling and statistical analysis, making for an interesting, complex read...Think of Freakonomics crossed with your freshman year anthropology textbook crossed with a business meeting—no-nonsense, analytical, and frequently surprising...Wang brings China forth as an individualistic consumer culture that may shock Western readers with both its idiosyncrasies and parallels to Western markets. She offers insight on what is today an immensely important piece of the international puzzle, and cleverly pulls together the psychological and traditional elements of commercial culture to create a well-rounded, illuminating read.

popmatters.com - Rachel Smucker

This book will find a readership among industry participants, students of China, and academic researchers of China's rapidly emerging consumer culture. There are few persons better qualified than Jing Wang to speak about China's cultural reforms, and Brand New China fills a gap in the literature.

Michael Keane

Brand New China uses the methodology and perspectives of cultural analysis to produce a detailed study of branding and advertising in China...The book is original, well researched and based on a wide-ranging appreciation of both popular and literary Chinese culture.

Times Higher Education Supplement - Delia Davin

This book is not only important to professionals and scholars with an interest in China—Brand New China will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in the future of advertising.

International Journal of Advertising - Christina Spurgeon

In Brand New China, Jing Wang uses Chinese advertising as an optic through which to scrutinize this tension between Eastern and Western approaches to the market...Her book is a thoroughly enjoyable and well-written tour d'horizon of branding and advertising strategy.

The Nation - John Feffer

Few have gone as far as Jing Wang in combining marketing research with cultural analysis, and no other author has provided as detailed, penetrating, and up-to-date a portrayal of the processes of transnational advertising and marketing in China. Brand New China is a fast-paced and fascinating book.

Yuezhi Zhao

This book is not only important to professionals and scholars with an interest in China—Brand New China will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in the future of advertising.
— Christina Spurgeon

International Journal of Advertising

Brand New China blurs the line between storytelling and statistical analysis, making for an interesting, complex read...Think of Freakonomics crossed with your freshman year anthropology textbook crossed with a business meeting—no-nonsense, analytical, and frequently surprising...Wang brings China forth as an individualistic consumer culture that may shock Western readers with both its idiosyncrasies and parallels to Western markets. She offers insight on what is today an immensely important piece of the international puzzle, and cleverly pulls together the psychological and traditional elements of commercial culture to create a well-rounded, illuminating read.
— Rachel Smucker

popmatters.com

Brand New China uses the methodology and perspectives of cultural analysis to produce a detailed study of branding and advertising in China...The book is original, well researched and based on a wide-ranging appreciation of both popular and literary Chinese culture.
— Delia Davin

Times Higher Education Supplement

In Brand New China, Jing Wang uses Chinese advertising as an optic through which to scrutinize this tension between Eastern and Western approaches to the market...Her book is a thoroughly enjoyable and well-written tour d'horizon of branding and advertising strategy.
— John Feffer

The Nation