A couple of English-language blogs (here, here and here) recently reported on the Chinese government’s new ad campaign to promote the brand image of “Made in China” with the slogan “Made in China, made with the world”. The ad begins with a zoomed-in shot of a sneaker that has the label “Made in China with American sports technology”, and continues in the same vein with other products.
A Chinese-language forum then translated some of this coverage, which led to comments, and ChinaSMACK in turn translated some of these comments back into English. It seems the bloggers have become the bloggees.
You can see the 33 second commercial on ChinaSMACK. It’s a well-made ad, but seems like a very expensive way to have a very small impact on a not-very-targeted group of consumers. Improving quality control (so that we don’t drink poisoned milk or buy lead-painted toys for example) would probably do a lot more both to win over consumers and to prevent the kinds of things that damage the reputation of Chinese manufacturing in the first place. But maybe there’s a master plan that includes that too.
Comments on these kinds of forums tend to be all over the place, but I thought this one from Mop (translated by ChinaSMACK) was particularly reasonable:
Actually, foreigners are just like Chinese people, some people think “Made in China” is not bad, cheap, practical. There are also people who think “Made in China” is synonymous with fake goods, low-grade goods. Different people with different life backgrounds, economic ability, front different places, will necessarily have different perspectives.
But while Mop netizens enthusiastically talk, it is necessary to let everyone know, “Made in China” is the same as “Made in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Mexico.” Most are all low-value-added products, and indeed the grade of those products are not high quality products.
That the go-vern-ment now puts out this large-scale advertisement is indeed a remedial effort, trying to rescue the “Made in China” reputation. However, this too could be a good thing, China raising its own image, preparing to invest even more Chinese-made products.
Economics is not a game, and a country’s image is also not formed overnight. What was previously owed, definitely now must be repaid. I just hope that in the future, in these advertisements, what comes after “Designed by” is not some other country.