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Qingdao - A city of brand

By Coldness Kwan (Chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-06-23 17:06

Qingdao, a beautiful coastal city in Shandong province is famous nationwide for its brands development and the city's outstanding brands development is considered as "phenomenon of Qingdao".

Qingdao, with a long history of opening to outside world, is one of the first cities whose economy is driven by famous brands. Qingdao's entrepreneurs are famous for their enterprising spirit. The whole city is in a good atmosphere of building and developing famous brands with support from the city government and efforts made by enterprises.

Haier and Tsingtao Beer, representatives of Qingdao's famous brands and official sponsors of 2008 Beijing Olympic Games are symbols of the city and pride of China.

Haier, the only brand on China's mainland with worldwide influence is the symbol of Qingdao's famous brands and a successful example of China's world famous brands. Zhou Yunjie, deputy board chairman of Haier told the press their view to establishing a brand: "An enterprise relies on its brand to develop, but not the other way round".

The finished products show of Haier. [Chinadaily.com.cn]

"A famous brand must be able to bear the test of world market," Haier believes. Haier extent its eyesight to the world market in order to meet each individual demand from different parts of the world. The awareness of demand diversity injects great impetus to innovation. Statistics show that Haier develops 1.8 new products per day on average to provide individualized service to international customers.

Innovation and good service build the brand of Haier and enable the brand to rise from China's household appliance industry and earn great reputation worldwide. Now Haier's technology of electricity-proof wall has become the accepted international standard and the technology of washing machine is course to be the top one of the world.

An aerial view of the industrial park of Haier. [Chinadaily.com.cn]

Experts and intellectuals have been doing research on the phenomenon of Qingdao: why does the city produce so many famous brands. Some experts explained that the coastal city owes its brands development to its history of opening. Due to this reason, the Qingdao people develop a spirit of learning from other places and as a result city produces quite a number of excellent entrepreneurs, whose sensitive antennae to the market leads to the continuous growth of the Qingdao's brands and even the city's economic development.

Tsingtao Beer is a representative of this. "My father's beer is not mine". Board chairman of Tsingtao Beer went on to explain that an enterprise must establish a business again rather than defending the already-gained achievements to build a brand. The beer giant warns itself all the time against the problem of the aging products to drive the beer meet customers' ever-changing taste. "If we remain where we are, customers will dismiss us," the chairman said.

A view of the beer bottle and cup shaped fountain before Tsingtao Beer. [Chinadaily.com.cn] An undated photo of the status of production of the 100-year-old beer giant hung on the wall of the exhibition hall of Tsingtao Beer. [Chinadaily.com.cn]

Other experts said a fine enterprise culture molds a good brand. Hair is an example to be cited. Zhou Yunjie, deputy board chairman of Haier told the press that Haier's staffs believe that it is customers who have the final say to a brand but the staff themselves who build a brand. Haier adopts a management mode of individual-goal combination policy, which means each individual staff of Haier plays an important role in achieving Haier's goal.

Huo Jianguo, director of Foreign Trade Department under Ministry of Commerce extended his appreciation to Qingdao's brand development. He also pledged that efforts would be strengthened to protect private brands and to create a fair market. Moreover, measures will be taken to further popularize private brands and standardize the brand assessement rules.

To the question of whether China will be the next destination of global brand strategic shift, Qingdao's enterpreneurs held a cautious view. "It is not necessarily our turn. It is a question of the recognizing from international customers and we must do something to make it happen rather than expecting it to happen," they believed.

Qingdao enterpreneur's answer to the question above may be the most concise but clearest explanation to the "phenomenon of Qingdao".