From Publishers Weekly
Narrower than the title suggests, this book covers only the branding of consumer items through print and television campaigns. There's no discussion of marketing, pricing, distribution or product design, nor media other than print and television, nor niche or wholesale sales. Doctoroff, who worked in China for 11 years with JWT, one of the region's largest advertising firms, believes that "quantitative research... is incapable of unearthing... an epiphany that elucidates buying behavior" and that "data are coldly empirical" while "insights... are alive." Most of his book, therefore, consists of "insights": qualitative impressions of mass campaigns, mostly by multinational companies selling consumer goods. Doctoroff's analysis of these ad campaigns focuses not on their immediate sales benefit but on their contribution to a valuable brand image. Along the way, he dispenses anecdotes and advice on such topics as how to choose a name that works well in China and how to deal with government censors. This unfocused approach reduces the book's value as a how-to manual, but it does make it easy to read. This is a painless way to pick up the benefit of the author's long experience, along with many stimulating facts. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Booklist
Doctoroff relates that his book covers three broad areas. The first deals with the importance of culture in shaping buying decisions. Doctoroff examines the psyches of contemporary Chinese consumers and the core "drivers" of behavior and preference across key market segments. The second offers data on forging what he calls a relevant brand vision, on creating a product portfolio that maximizes brand extensibility (the range of categories that can coexist under the same trademark), and on anticipating the peculiarities of the Chinese media scene. In the third, he analyzes the pitfalls that often cause multinational brands and their local competitors to fail, many of them a function of cultural ignorance or rigidity. Doctoroff, the Greater China CEO for JWT (an advertising agency), posits that the 1.3 billion Chinese consumers are the most striving, ambitious people on the planet and "that counts for a lot." George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
