Book Alert / Brand New China

Brand New China -- Advertising, Media and Commercial Culture by Jing Wang, Harvard UP '08, $28.95, 411 pages, ISBN #0674026802. Index, references, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

One staggering statistic in Wang's new book speaks, at once, to the hugeness of the world's largest nation and the rapidity with which its economic system is changing. As of 2005, she writes, there were 84,272 advertising agencies in China.

Wang's book is a thorough-going study of branding and advertising in contemporary China, as seen from the inside of typical ad agencies. In it, she "examines the impact of new media practices on Chinese advertising, deliberates on the convergence of grassroots creative culture and viral marketing strategies, samples successful advertising campaigns, provides practical insights about Chinese consumer segments, and offers methodological reflections on pop culture  and advertising research."

Advertising as we know it had just begun when Mao Zedong arrived to quash it. But lest one think that the current advertising boom is simply an effort to emulate America and the West, Wang argues that one must understand "the intangible link between China's socialist persona and its capitalist face that lies behind many success stories in corporate China." Corporate branding, for example, "relies heavily on the disciplining power of corporatized Mao-speak and the Chairman's famed ideology of the 'permanent revolution.'"

Wang's chapter headings foreshadow content: "Positioning the New Modern Girl," "The Synergy Buzz and JV Brands," "Storytelling and Corporate Branding," "Bourgeois Bohemians in China?", "Hello Moto: Youth Culture and  Music Marketing,", and "CCTV and the Advertising Media." The book's conclusion is entitled, "Countdown to the Olympics."