Luxury Branding in China

Cult of Desire

My authentic, coveted bag, I will not forsake you. Let no one person cast aside the miracle of your Armani presence in exchange for a brown pleather bag with squiggly insignia resembling Y S L. Let the powers of branding sweep across middle earth, and ignite the hearts of the uninformed and rogue Chinese spenders who rapaciously banter down prices, intently attracted by the handbag that can be gotten inexpensively or thrown-in to offset a price, rather than desire with the fire of a thousand hells you, the flawless replica, that so eloquently speaks to my Occidental albeit discount-shopper self like a command issued from the heavens. You must create your identity! Create! Create!'

Need Creation

Creating a need for luxury brands in China is not a simple matter of transferring the global demand for luxury items into a new market - it requires an overhaul of cultural perception. Haier is a global Chinese brand, but is it sexy? Not exactly, and it is branding that can spin the profit of product recognition into surefooted market advantage. But if sex sells, branding in the Chinese market brings in to play an interesting question and even a prophesy about this private and closed-off world "opening" to the world. The world is coming to China through the open door but is China ready for Paris Hilton and Carl's Junior?

So Many Choices

What choices should be presented to Chinese consumers and in what context? Given the unbridled buying power teeming within middle earth, it is no surprise that branding wants to happen there. Branding is sex-y. But, one has to wonder how many Chinese consumers are as intently aware of Prada as their Western cousins, given the unparalleled number of designer replicas worried on busy shoulders in Beijing, all bearing nonsensical insignia like banners on the shoulders of the uninitiated.

Come One, Come All

There is no doubt that East and West alike are afloat in a sea of complexities that shape purchasing decisions. The answer is complex but one that marketers and CEO's are ready to untangle. Y S L is an accepted codename among brand-savvy consumers signaling "high-caliber lifestyle" or "reckless spender". How mesmerizing to marketers it must be when the North American consumer enter a market, and on the spot purchases their must-have fall bag, for then the true power of branding is as familiar as smog at Beijing dawn. Westerners will not leave without The Bag regardless of price tag. Conversely, the Chinese denizen cum consumer will leave easily with several insignificant bags, replica or not, and still enough cash-in-hand to stretch their purchasing power-experience into several tomorrows.

Bargain, or Brand - You Choose

The nub of it lies therein, nestled cantankerously between impulse, vanity purchases and the power and glory of buying Western merch for a song. At the psychological root of the Western versus Eastern consumer experience there is a difference of identity. Marketers have a challenge at hand in the creation of "The Must Have" purchases that have been skillfully striking at the core of western identity since Ford first swept Americans away in a modern, conspicuous consumption roar.

China Will Demonstrate Its Success

Catch phrases like "life-style purchases" come to mind, and Chinese CEO's and marketing executives need to delve deep into the beating hearts of their consumers to find therein a clue to successful branding in China. Western identity is cloaked in consumer choice, each individual a potential canvas whose identity need be dressed-up or down in label choices that speak volumes about personal values, success, and sex. What the world stage has past proven time and again is the bizarre changeability of people's perceived needs in the global, cult of manufactured desire. This sounds like a stretch for first and second, generation party members whose identity was wrapped in the identity of a socialist dream, or does it?