Minding The Gap
Engagement strategies for Chinese brands going global. Encouraging Chinese companies to become leaders in a global knowledge economy is a core goal of today’s Chinese government. Weber Shandwick believes that achieving that goal could potentially offer a great opportunity for emerging Chinese multinationals. Yet, according to new research conducted in 2012 by Weber Shandwick and PRIME Research, this goal faces significant challenges and unrealized opportunities.
Among their findings, Weber Shandwick/PRIME discovered that there is plenty of room left for Chinese tech brands to develop in share of voice. Chinese brands accounted for just 5% of overall share of voice among technology brands. The highest-ranking company, Alibaba, merited a mere 1.2% share of voice compared to the highest ranked companies Apple (29.8%) and Google (24.7%). Furthermore, cyber security and legal issues are Chinese technology companies’ greatest gaps – where they underperform in terms of garnering positive media coverage compared to western technology.
In response to these findings, Weber Shandwick detailed five key recommendations for China to rethink their current rules of engagement. First and foremost, Chinese companies must meet transparency demands and accept their importance in order to build better relationships with Western governments. Secondly, increasing media visibility of company executives and then engaging with policy-makers in Washington, D.C. and other Western capitals early and often is essential. Finally, there is a need to pool resources to build new industry coalitions or existing ones, as well as align communications with the creation of employment and economic development in their target markets. Weber Shandwick noted that by following these recommendations, Chinese technology companies should be able to efficiently bridge the trust gap and better expand their business globally.
You can read the rest of Weber Shandwick/PRIME’s findings here.