Marketing to the Chinese. How to get it right, and wrong.

披頭四 Mop head four - The Beatles in China.

China is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Millions of cash rich middle class citizens are looking for goods and services to enhance their lifestyles.

Western brand owners eye up the Chinese market with misty eyes. Getting it right at consumer level could mean enormous financial success.

On the flip side of the coin, however, getting it wrong could be catastrophic.

Getting all the basic elements right is difficult enough (import licences, general bureaucracy, language and cultural differences etc.), but some brands and companies fall disastrously on the most obvious of hurdles; getting the brand name right for China.

You can’t just deliver a container of your branded product and assume everything will be all right. Your brand name, when spoken in Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese), may translate into something horrific that will turn consumers against it.

Falling down water - Chateau Latour.

For example, when Coca Cola (employing the world’s best marketing brains) launched in China they discovered, to their horror, that Coca Cola in Chinese meant “Bite the wax tadpole” – hardly in line with their brand values, or likely to make a local want to drink a glass. So they researched over 40,000 Chinese characters and came up with “Kekkoukele”, which means “Mouthful of happiness”

Colgate (toothpaste and dental products) got it right as their name, transliterated, sounds like “Gao-lu-jie”, which means “revealing superior cleanliness”. Lovely.

Reebok means “Quick Steps” and BMW means “Precious Horse”. These are brands that got it right.

The essence of a brand name, or practically any name, in Chinese, is that it carries a lot of significance. Therefore it must be positive, and confer a level of dignity and auspiciousness on the buyer or user.

Chateau Latour got it wrong when they entered China. Intended as a high priced gift to be presented after business meetings or at banquets to business colleagues, their initial foray into the market was stunted because the name means “Falling Down” in Chinese.

Anyone for a glass of "completely f*****g nuts"?

Chilensis is a brand of Pinot Noir from Chile, and they’ve run into a few problems because the name means “completely f*****g nuts” in Chinese.

The moral of the story is to get the small but vital detail of your brand name right. If you are thinking of exporting there you need to e.mail packaging and brand execution details to your Chinese counterparts and ask them for an opinion.

And remember the great and the good have been there before you. Pepsi went with the slogan “Pepsi gives you life”, only to discover that it translated to “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave”.

The author, Eamon McLoughlin, spent 5 years travelling extensively in China and the Asia Pacific region marketing spirits and liqueurs for Diageo.