China: Music & Brands – Day 1

Day 1 of the British Council music mission to China kicks off with a presentation to invited guests from the cultural industries in Beijing. The FRUKT philosophy is quite visionary in some ways – multi-channel brand story-telling through entertainment… tripping of my tongue like it’s skipped off the pages of the latest ‘post advertising’ book, written by some trendy counter cultural marketing guy. However, these kind of marketing bullshit statements are simply too abstract for the developing markets. The sophistication in communications practice may not be there yet, but the will certainly is. I heard the word ‘open’ used often by the enthused audience who stayed around to ask questions after the presentations – this enthusiasm counts for much.

I believe what is needed are a couple of strong modern brand communications case studies – there’s still a lot of unconnected single channel activity and traditional sponsorship in China – and some examples of brands doing things differently.

That said, the local marketing people I spoke to described a very fickle materialistic urban population in China right now – but theorised that at some point this obsession with the Western mega brands and lifestyle will calm down, and after the feeding frenzy people will desire more cultural stimulation, that’s the hope anyway – let’s see what clues I can find in the next few days as to whether this could happen anytime soon.