From CNN to open source: the redesign of China
The country’s trendsetters are creating a new mainstream culture – and domestic designers and foreign brands will have to rethink their strategies, as Paul Simpson discovers
You can tell a lot about a nation from its insults. In the hipper, younger parts of China’s creative sector, the strongest rebuke you can give a colleague who is full of themselves is to tell them: “Don’t be so CNN”.
Free movie screening in Lishui (Mark Leong/Redux/Eyevine)
In most parts of the world, CNN is a respected news source. But to younger people in China’s creative industries, who took patriotic exception to the network’s coverage of the Tibet-related protests which took place as the Olympic torch was carried across the globe, “Don’t be so CNN” is code for “Don’t be so full of bullshit”.
Moa Correia, a strategy planner at British brand consultant Hunt Haggarty, and author of China’s Creative Voice, a report on the country’s youth culture, says these events marked a watershed in the way many young Chinese viewed Western media. “They know their own media are not objective, but they began to believe that Western media were subjective too. This recognition has made them more active in the way they handle news. They’re more likely to compare different sources and then decide what the truth of the matter is for themselves.”
There is a direct analogy here, Correia believes, with the Chinese attitude to design. The government identified design as key to its economic strategy back in the 1990s and, depending on which parts of the blogosphere you believe, it has between 350 and 650 design schools, graduating thousands of young designers every year.
Questions have been raised over the quality of these design graduates and what they are being taught. At many colleges, design is taught as a craft. At others, it is a poor cousin to the lucrative business of traditional Chinese painting. Yet Correia says these questions slightly miss the point: “The designers themselves know that they won’t learn everything at school. That is why they are so hungry to learn about what’s happening in Japan and the West.”
Designers know they won’t learn everything at school, so they look to the West Moa Correia, Hunt Haggarty
Online and on-message
Fashion Market and Fashion Market II, two anthologies of interviews with English fashion designers, have become bibles for China’s creative youth, who are interested in local, handmade and independent fashion. Their appetite for knowledge is reflected on social networking sites like Douban, which have targeted the creative sector. “The approach online is very Chinese, it’s less about gossip and more about education, recommendations that other people might find useful,” says Correia.Trendy Chinese brands like fashion label The Thing use the web to encourage consumers to design – through the Let’s Tee site, dedicated to open-source T-shirt designs.
To evade censors, some young Chinese internet users have created their own language which blends text symbols and Chinese characters so they can, effectively, communicate in code. This isn’t the way we expect the Chinese to use the web. Most of the coverage in the West focuses on online censorship.
Beijing's punk scene (AFP/Getty IMages)
But Douban and Let’s Tee suggests such preconceptions don’t tell the whole story. Foreign investors trying to assess the Chinese market should heed a local saying: “Fishing across the mountains”, which describes the process of trying to control things from a distance.
In China, there is no substitute for being there, as one Italian shoe brand discovered to its cost. Wondering why it had been losing sales for a year, it eventually discovered its products featured a long, flat front which was uncomfortable for the typical Chinese foot.
A good-enough, get-it-out-quick mindset still prevails, but this is changing. China’s middle class (which is growing by 1% a year, an increase equivalent to twice the population of New York) is more likely, out of curiosity and patriotic pride, to sample local wares. To meet rising expectations, Chinese companies will have to focus on quality.
In their first job, many young Chinese designers find themselves in a commercial culture which doesn’t especially value their discipline, and an organisational structure that is keener on hierarchies than teamwork. The organisational barriers may be harder to overcome than the commercial challenges.
Twenty five years ago, Zhang Ruimin, the managing director tasked with turning round a failing, state-owned refrigerator factory, invited employees to watch a very Chinese demonstration. The company used to grade its appliances by quality: 1 was good, 3 was average and off-grade meant it was faulty but useable.
Determined to destroy this system, Ruimin borrowed a large hammer and smashed 76 faulty refrigerators to bits. Ruimin rebranded the company Haier and it became the most successful Chinese white goods exporter. As melodramatic as this lesson in quality control was, too many Chinese companies have preferred to ignore it. That attitude will become harder to maintain as the government promotes domestic consumption to prime the economy. And this, in turn, gives design a real mission in Chinese industry.
Discipline and diversity
The designers who are now learning their trade were born in the 1980s. They have no traumatic memories of the catastrophic Cultural Revolution and, deprived of siblings by the ‘one child’ policy, belong to a set referred to as ‘little emperors’. Correia found, in her interviews with young trendsetters in the creative sector, that they have a sense of destiny: “Since the credit crunch, they have become more aware of China’s role in the world, and what’s expected of them. But they don’t want to let this burden them and, as the Cultural Revolution hasn’t left its mark directly on them, they are less serious, more fun, and they feel free to absorb any influences they want. You often see retro Chinese motifs – even Communist ones – turning up in designs, but it’s hard to judge whether there is anything political behind this.”
The common criticism of Chinese design – that it doesn’t have a recognisable style in the way that German, Italian and British design all do – is, Correia says, an opportunity for this generation of creative trendsetters: “It’s tremendously exciting for them because they are working with a blank sheet of paper. They can define what Chinese design is.”
Today’s designers are working with a blank sheet of paper. They can define what Chinese design is Moa Correia, Hunt Haggarty
In doing so, the most creative trendsetters will have the confidence to draw on – and adapt – China’s traditions, while absorbing Western influences. And they will, Correia says, change the way Western companies think about China.
“If you’re trying to reach the mainstream market in China, you can still impress them with a foreign brand or by just copying a foreign brand. You can’t do that today with these trendsetters. And within five years, I expect their attitude to become mainstream.”
In China, it’s easy to get the nuances wrong. Cities and regions can behave culturally like completely different countries.
Elaine Ann, the founder of a strategic innovation company called Kaizon, says: “It has been said that China can be viewed as having 30 different markets. There are 55 different minority groups and the culture and value systems can differ across the regions and the generations.”
Even Chinese companies can be flummoxed by this. And the nuances are even subtler, and more dangerous, when you are trying to reach creative opinion formers.
Big brands and big mistakes
In the mass market, it is still common to plug your product with celebrities. Arnold Schwarzenegger, of all people, is promoting a Chinese electronics brand, while the Brazilian national football team advertises an air conditioner. But in May, when Pepsi launched a ‘battle of the bands’ marketing campaign called The Voice Of A New Generation, including gigs and a website, its sell was soon regarded as too blatant.
Correia says: “At first, people were positive about the show but when it launched, the mood on blogs and online discussions changed. They focused on how the event was too overtly branded. The stage background looked like a supermarket stacked with Pepsi cans, and the presenters had been briefed to talk about Pepsi between acts. Bar staff even had the brand logo drawn on their faces.”
Many young Chinese bloggers decided Pepsi was jumping on a bandwagon. In contrast, two Western sportswear brands – Converse and Umbro – won approval for campaigns sponsoring local acts because, Correia says, “they were seen as genuinely supporting young Chinese acts”.
In a way, this judgement goes back to the CNN controversy. The word a lot of Chinese used in conversation with Correia was “respect”. They are not uncritical about China, but they are very conscious of foreign companies who jump into the market with an obtrusive sell that takes no account of national culture. One of the best ways to show respect is to partner with a Chinese business. Or, as Ann puts it: “Find a blind man’s stick”. That way you might just avoid being likened to CNN.
Big in China
The brands that define a nation
Li-Ning
The athlete presides over a sporting empire which rivals adidas and Nike in his home nation. Li-Ning’s business was given a significant boost when two billion viewers saw his own-brand trainers during his run with the Olympic torch at the 2008 opening ceremony.
Haier
The white goods giant has eight design centres (five outside China) and is now the biggest seller of washing machines in the U.S. The group’s intense focus on market research helps it tailor goods to local markets – such as a washing machine for India that can handle extreme fluctuations in electricity.
Dalyan Dailang
This clothing firm’s shares have soared since chief executive Li Guilian persuaded her most famous customer, Warren Buffett, to endorse her products in a video. The world’s second richest man says Dalyan’s suits have prompted people to compliment him on his style for the first time ever.
Douban
Like a more culturally aware Facebook, social network Douban attracts students and young professionals with its discussion groups on movies, music and current affairs.
Eno
A fashion and accessory brand with an all-inclusive slogan: ‘Art by Us, Them and You’. An online community votes on uploaded designs – a third of the company’s products are the work of its consumers.
China’s creative cities
- Shanghai
Wireless semi-conductor maker Marvell Technology has a 1,000-strong design centre in the city, one of a number of multinationals encouraged by Shanghai International Creative Industry Week and the increasingly trendy Xintiandi district, where Sony has its Chinese design base.
- Beijing
Home of Lenovo, the world’s fourth largest PC manufacturer, and China’s largest concentration of design schools. Held its first Design Week in October, alongside a World Design Congress. Enjoyed an architectural explosion after hosting the Olympics, and an influx of high-end Western luxury brands, from Patek Philippe to Philippe Starck.
- Shenzhen
China’s first UNESCO City of Design has an annual Creative Design Day and is home to one of the country’s most renowned design schools, at Shenzhen Polytechnic. Most iPods and iPhones in the world are made here, as the city excels in IT manufacturing.
- Guangzhou
China’s third largest city and host of its biggest design-specific event, Guangzhou Design Week. Aims to become the country’s most sustainable city, with plans for US-style urban parks, an extended light rail system and greener housebuilding.
- Hangzhou
When the China Academy of Art and Design advertised vacancies on a new design course here, in 2007, it got 65,000 applications. A regional hub for industrial design, as well as pharmaceuticals, the city is one of China’s most prosperous.
- Wuxi
The historic city in the Jiangsu province, dubbed ‘Little Shanghai’ for its rapid urbanisation, is fast becoming a world leader in green technology. Manufacturing accounts for half the city’s GDP, and Wuxi won the Ministry of Science and Technology’s award for most progressive city six years in a row.
Article first published in Design Council Magazine, Issue 7, Winter 2009
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