Brand New China: Advertising, Media, and Commercial Culture

by Jing Wang

One part riveting account of fieldwork and one part rigorous academic study, Brand New China offers a unique perspective on the advertising and marketing culture of China. Jing Wang's experiences in the disparate worlds of Beijing advertising agencies and the U.S. academy allow her to share a unique perspective on China during its accelerated reintegration into the global market system. Brand New China offers a detailed, penetrating, and up-to-date portrayal of branding and advertising in contemporary China. Wang takes us inside an advertising agency to show the influence of American branding theories and models. She also 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. This book unveils a "brand new" China that is under the sway of the ideology of global partnership while struggling not to become a mirror image of the United States. Wang takes on the task of showing where Western thinking works in China, where it does not, and, perhaps most important, where it creates opportunities for cross-fertilization. Thanks to its combination of engaging vignettes from the advertising world and thorough research that contextualizes these vignettes, Brand New China will be of interest to industry participants, students of popular culture, and the general reading public interested in learning about a rapidly transforming Chinese society.

Genres: China

432 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Jing Wang is Professor of Chinese media and Cultural Studies and S.C. Fang Professor of Chinese Language & Culture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is jointly appointed to MIT's Comparative Media Studies and Global Studies & Languages.

Jing Wang is the founder and organizer of MIT’s New Media Action Lab. In spring 2009, Professor Wang launched an NGO2.0 in collaboration with four Chinese universities including the University of Science and Technology of China, two Chinese NGOs, and corporate partners including Ogilvy & Mather China and Milward Brown. The project, funded by Ford Foundation in Beijing, is designed to enhance the digital and new media literacy of grassroots NGOs in the underdeveloped regions of China and deliver an interactive mapping platform built on Ushihidi, complete with Web 2.0 training courses and a Chinese field guide to best practices and software of social media for nonprofits.

Professor Wang started working with Creative Commons in 2006 and serves as the Chair of the International Advisory Board of Creative Commons Mainland China. She was appointed to serve on the Advisory Board for Wikimedia Foundation in 2010. She serves on the editorial and advisory boards of ten academic journals in the US, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the UK, which include journals such as Global Media and Communication; Advertising & Society Review; positions: east Asia cultures critique; Chinese Journal of Communication; Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Journal: Movements; The Chinese Journal of Communication and Society, etc.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Crysta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dry and somewhat repetitive. There are some good cases, but more than necessary to make the point.

[Thiru Damodharan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book while rsearching for my thesis on advertising strategies in China. Provides a really unique insight into advertising platforms/media and how they are changing with changes in cultural values and technology. A thoroughly fasvinating read.