Product quality and safety key to images

The Western media saw the ad campaign as a typical national marketing strategy. In other words, they think the Chinese government has begun promoting the country's image through TV channels, which complies with the rules of games of the Western world.

The reasons why the Ministry of Commerce initiated the campaign is obvious. After the global financial crisis broke out last year, there have been frequent trade frictions between China and other countries, especially the US. The US imposed additional duties on Chinese tires and other goods. It was followed by some other countries, which for example raised trade barriers, seriously holding back Chinese enterprises from "going global".

The negative coverage about Chinese products, which appear frequently in Western media, has also created a bad impression of "Made in China" products among Western consumers. All these obstacles have made Chinese authorities realize how important it is to dispel Western customers' prejudice against Chinese products.

The Ministry of Commerce made a wise choice about the date of its ad campaign. It is widely believed that the world economy will bottom out this year.

So it was a good decision to telecast the ad on TV to an international audience at the end of 2009. The campaign emphasizes world cooperation, but also makes it clear that "Made in China" products have contributed to world economic recovery, and vice versa.

The commercial can be regarded as a new national promotion strategy, but it cannot cover up the deficiencies of some Chinese products. It is well known that the Chinese manufacturing sector is at the low end of the global industrial chain.

The slogan, "Made in China with engineers from all over the world", consolidated the impression that China is the workshop of the world, but it failed to convey the true meaning of "created in China". This is not good news for China's long-term development.

The "Achilles' heel" of Chinese products is their quality and safety, not whether China cooperates with the rest of the world in rules and regulations.

A Western journalist has conducted an interesting experiment to find out whether Americans can live without "Made in China" products. He visited many shops in a medium-sized city in South Dakota and found Chinese products everywhere. Even products marked "Made in the US" or "Made in Europe" contain major components or ingredients "made in China". In general, American consumers do not feel antagonistic toward products designed in foreign countries but made in China. What bothers them most is that they cannot fully trust the quality of the products. So quality is more important.

Frequent mining disasters and fake and shoddy product scandals seriously impair the image of Chinese enterprises and their products. The baby milk food contamination case was listed by Time magazine as one of the "Global Top 10 News in 2008".

To build an international image for Chinese products, we should produce more quality goods first. If the quality of the goods cannot be guaranteed, the promotion campaign can hardly live up to expectations.

So instead of celebrating the ad campaign on CNN, we should make more effort to guarantee product quality and safety.

The author is a journalist in Southern Metropolitan News. This article first appeared on the website of 21st Century Business Herald.

(China Daily 01/05/2010 page9)