Asian businesses begin to see need for brands
China someday will produce cars as well-known as Fords, an expert says.
HONG KONG (AP) -- Names like Gucci and Rolex have long been associated in Asia with expensive imports from the West or cut-rate local knockoffs. Now Asian businesses are trying to develop their own brands that people everywhere will want to buy.
China's top computer maker, Lenovo, hopes to imprint its name on the world's consciousness as an international Olympics sponsor, becoming the official computer equipment and service provider for the 2006 Winter Games in Turin and the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.
Lenovo will use the Olympics to "demonstrate its technology and products to the world," CEO Yang Yuanqing said.
Trying to catch up
Companies in China, Singapore and the Philippines are trying to catch up to what Asia's big industrialized economies, Japan and South Korea, did decades ago with brands like Toyota, Sony and Samsung, building a brand first at home and then selling it successfully overseas.
Industry experts believe China will be the emerging economy that eventually develops superbrands, cars as well-known as Fords or electronics as recognizable as Panasonic.
"One tends to think of dingy factories in China making sports shoes for Nike or whatever, and paying people very little, but the guys who run the factories are beginning to recognize the value of brands," said branding expert Terence Oliver in Tokyo.
"What you're seeing in China is what you're seeing in other developed countries, only it's happening so much faster," said Oliver, the Asia-Pacific chief executive for the Interbrand consultancy.
"They're gradually realizing that making things for other people is just a first step and it's not particularly profitable."
The way the experts see it, China can make just about anything cheaply, and if a Chinese company can go national in the world's most populous country, it may have the bulk to go international if it can maintain predictable quality.
Brands from outside
With China opening its economic doors as a member of the World Trade Organization, big brands from outside are pushing their way in, enticed by a potential market of 1.3 billion people. At the same time, a few Chinese companies are moving into overseas markets and taking their names with them.
The appliance maker Haier is a big exporter, selling small, cheap refrigerators and washing machines through retailers including U.S. giant Wal-Mart.
Chinese electronics maker TCL International Holdings Ltd. recently linked up with France's Thomson SA to form a television-production venture, TCL-Thomson Electronics, that will use the TCL brand in Asia and emerging markets, Thomson in Europe and RCA in North America.
There's also Tsingtao beer, which has been known for years to Chinese restaurant aficionados around the world. It's becoming even bigger at home through a series of acquisitions of smaller regional breweries.
Western concept
"The concept of a brand -- if we look back a decade or so -- was much more of a Western concept," said Scott Kronick, the China managing director for Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. "But now it's evening out at a quick pace."
Kronick said the 2008 Olympics will be Beijing's chance to show off "China Inc." to the world as the Chinese government pushes select companies it wants to play a bigger role in the global economy.
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