The real price of Swatch's misstep

A new ad by Swiss watch brand Swatch, featuring an Asian male model pulling the corners of his eyes into a slant, is not just a storm in a teacup. It is a textbook case of how international brands still stumble over the most elementary rule of global business: respect consumers and the culture of the market you wish to serve. Multinationals never tire of proclaiming this principle. Yet when the camera rolls and the artwork is approved, too many forget it.

The slant-eye gesture is not ambiguous in Western society. It is a well-known racist trope directed at East Asians. For an advertorial team to not know this is ridiculous; for a corporation to let it pass suggests something worse than mere oversight. Either the designers and approvers were ignorant of a symbol they should have recognised instantly or they knew and waved it through anyway, revealing a prejudice, or at the very least a lofty indifference to those whom they are selling their product. Neither interpretation reflects a company ready for serious global engagement.

This is not simply a matter of "hurt feelings" or a demand for special treatment. It is about the universal norms of decency and the promises companies themselves make when they enter foreign markets. If a brand expects to be welcomed abroad, it must first demonstrate the most basic competence: cultural literacy. That begins with the people who design the campaign and those who sign it off. If your creative shop, marketing department, and corporate gatekeepers do not understand the culture of one of your most important markets, they are failing at their jobs.

There is also a moral clarity to be stated without euphemism. As Confucius put it, "Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself." Ask the simple, bracing question: if the ad mocked a totem of dignity in the brand's home market, would its executives defend it as harmless "edginess"? Certainly not. Empathy is not a regional preference; it is a universal obligation.

China is a vast, sophisticated market.. To succeed here, brands should invest in understanding local behaviour, aspirations and values, and reflect that understanding consistently in product, messaging and service. That is not public-relations varnish; it is the groundwork of long-term licence to operate. Companies that treat culture as a prop for campaigns rather than as the fabric of consumer life will find, sooner or later, that no apology can repair the trust squandered by careless contempt.

Some might argue that controversies come and go, and that sales charts can be forgiving. That is complacency masquerading as insight. Even when balance sheets appear resilient, reputational scars accumulate, and the next error finds a public less willing to extend grace. A brand admired for cultural respect earns patience in crisis; a brand known for tone-deafness earns none.

This lesson is equally instructive for Chinese companies going global. Internationalisation is not a one-way lecture; it is a two-way test. The core of successful expansion anywhere is consumer-centred practice anchored in respect for local culture. Get that right and you build durable affinity. Get it wrong and you invite the market to choose differently.

Swatch's ad is a classic case study in preventable failure. The meaningful response is not a perfunctory apology but a rethink of how creative work is conceived and approved, and a recommitment to the first principle every multinational claims to uphold: know the people you want to serve, and treat their culture with the respect you would demand for your own.

The author is a professor at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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