Brands cannot just do English-Storytelling in Asia

The 2015 Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), with the theme “Asia’s New Future: Towards a Community of Common Destiny”, was held in Boao, Hainan province on March 26-29. Finance.huanqiu.com and the People’s Daily joined hands in launching a Chinese column entitled “Boao in the eyes of enterprise leaders” (企业领袖看博鳌), authored by Chinese firms that are leading in overseas expansion and their comments after attending Boao Forum. This article translated from “在亚洲，企业不能只用英语讲” is authored by Chen Yujie, PR Newswire’s senior vice president of the Asia-Pacific Region.

A giant dragon made up of chips and electronic products appeared on a recent cover of The Economist, with the tagline “Made in China – New, improved and stronger than ever”. The quality of China-made products has been vilified by US and European media for decades. This recent cover of The Economist is a turning point in the attitude of Western media toward “Made in China”.

This achievement can first be credited to the constant efforts in product innovation and in the substantial improvement in quality on the part of Chinese manufacturers. Yet, the positive effects of marketing and communications activities can’t be overlooked. After struggling for years, many Chinese firms have established different professional communication channels and relationships built on trust with media outlets across the US and Europe. Frequent exchanges of information and communications between companies and markets are essential skill that needs to master by firms that want to stand out from their competitors in the global business environment. 

However, when thinking about how to promote the two strategic initiatives, “Asia’s Community of Common Destiny” and “One Belt, One Road”, being rolled out by Chinese leaders, we have to admit that in the aspect of communications, there are challenges in Asia when compared to US and European markets.

Asian firms have been engaging in a growing number of collaborative efforts over the past several years. At the beginning of this year, Japanese ITOCHU Corporation partnered with Thailand Chia Tai Group to inject 1.2 trillion yen (approx. RMB64.4 billion) in CITIC Limited, a sum that is nearly the equivalent of the annual GNP of Mongolia. An increasing number of Chinese companies are choosing Asia as their key overseas expansion market. A prime example is Xiaomi which selected Singapore as its first foray outside China. Some of these manufacturers are already adept in communicating with US and European media; however they seem rather inexperienced within the Asian media environment.

Contrary to US and European markets, languages and cultures vary greatly among Asian countries. Taking media as an example, the most influential media in each Asian country is usually in local language which US and European media finding themselves having limited influence. Even in countries such as Singapore, where the official language is English, the most influential media groups have limited influence across Asia. Japan and South Korea are excellent examples of countries where the penetration of English is so low that the presence of influential English-language media is scarce. Chinese businesses going abroad are used to using English as the medium for communication. Language barrier is a key challenge for effective corporate communication. Yet, we have no shortcuts at least in the near term.

In addition to the differences in languages and cultures, each Asian country is at a different stage of development in terms of the media mix. According to the second series of PR Newswire’s Asian Media Landscape White Paper, traditional media outlets such as newspapers remain highly popular in Thailand. New media is gaining popularity and most internet users in Thailand are within the 12-35 age range. Google boasts a market share of nearly 100% and popular social media channels in the country include Facebook, LINE, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. South Korea is a media-friendly, tech-savvy country with an internet penetration that is the highest in the world. Naver is the country’s most popular search portal. Kakao, equivalent to WeChat in China, is the dominant mobile messaging app. As Southeast Asia’s largest economy, Indonesia has one of the best media environments among the ASEAN members.  It is one of the largest mobile ad markets by volume in the world. Newspapers are the third most popular medium in Indonesia and influential English media outlets are scarce.

Given the series of challenges brought about by these language and cultural differences as well as the varied stages of media development in these countries, Chinese companies are in urgent need of gaining deeper understanding of the characteristics of the target markets, so that they can comfortably and skillfully communicate with both local media and local audiences.

 In the economic arena, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a development bank strongly supported by China, is undoubtedly set to play an important and profound role in the development of the entire Asian economy. Likewise, when it comes to communications, it has become increasingly necessary for China to create a cross-region media communications platform, so that it can help governments and companies across the region reduce communication costs and build relationships based on mutual trust. The role of Chinese media and communications firms is to become a major driver of this effort by establishing more communication channels with local audiences, leverage on the enormous opportunities in the increasingly integrated Asian market, by learning from the experience of their European and American counterparts and committed by investing necessary resources. They can and should seek out appropriate partners to establish a media communication alliance, in part of the effort to facilitate communications between companies and audiences across the region. PR Newswire is ready and willing to play an active role in the overseas communication programs of Chinese companies by capitalizing on the advantages of its global media network. 

About the Author: 

Yujie Chen is the Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific of PR Newswire since June 2013. He oversees all of PR Newswire Asia Pacific category groups. Yujie joined PR Newswire in 2003 and has served in a number of senior leadership positions during his time with the company. Most recently he was Managing Director of PR Newswire China, responsible for PR Newswire’s China operations and corporate strategy. Prior to joining PR Newswire, he worked as a consultant with CNBC in Shanghai, and before that as project manager for DeLuxe Global Media Services in Los Angeles. Yujie has an M.B.A. from UCLA and a B.A. degree from the Beijing Foreign Studies University. He also summer interned at Dow Jones & Co., in New York.

Source:  Translation is based on the Chinese article – “在亚洲，企业不能只用英语讲” which first appeared in Huanqiu.com. This article is translated & edited by PR Newswire. Please indicate the source and link for reproduction.