Cities line up in beauty contest

Video advertising of culture and landscape goes global to lure visitors

BEIJING - While images of China beam out from an advertising screen in New York's Times Square, individual Chinese cities are also busy promoting themselves.

They are using whatever media outlets they can, from television, through websites and even on airplane screens.

The publicity shots were initially created to boost tourism and so show beautiful landscapes and places of cultural or historical interest. They were originally only shown to domestic audiences on China Central Television (CCTV). Now they are going global and expanding their remit to cover invitations to invest.

Soon after authorities in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, released an overseas version of an advertising video in December on the United States Cable News Network (CNN), Hangzhou, the capital of East China's Zhejiang province, took its first step in its Europe-oriented city marketing strategy with a video of its own. The video was first broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on Feb 21, and is scheduled to finish by the end of June. It is aimed at attracting overseas tourists.

Hangzhou city government invested 10 million yuan ($1.52 million) in its Europe-oriented city marketing strategy, a significant increase from last year, said Pan Dan, an official in charge of the whole program in the marketing department of Hangzhou tourism commission.

The number of tourists from Europe reached 10,900 in January with a year-on-year growth of 14.5 percent, said Pan.

In 2010, the city's tourism industry grossed 102.57 billion yuan in revenue, up 27.7 percent year-on-year, according to the Hangzhou tourism bureau.

Pan also said that although they had broadcast several advertising video overseas in the past, this year's strategy is the largest in scale because it also includes some concrete activities with local travel agencies in Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, countries that contribute most to Hangzhou's tourism growth from the European market.

Other cities are also getting in on the game.

"We began putting our city image video on CCTV as early as 2003. In addition to our city's tourist attractions, we also showed scenes of urban construction," said Yang Jin, divison director of the information office in Ningbo, Zhejiang province.

"We did benefit from the video. Once our mayor went to South Africa to woo investors and his counterpart there told him that he had watched our video and was impressed with it."

Rising cost

The total cost for a video to be shown on CCTV was about 15 million yuan for a year in 2003. Now it costs 5 million yuan for the first term which covers just a couple of months, Yang said.

"The rising cost of broadcasting a city image advertising video on CCTV forced us to consider other broadcast channels," Yang said, adding that they have aired it on airplane screens and online video sites.

Chongqing, a fast-growing municipality in Southwest China, carried out its marketing campaign in various forms at different locations.

A week-long term of cultural exchange featuring Chongqing traditional and folk culture is launched every year in different countries. These activities include performances of Sichuan Opera, acrobatics and folk music. Between 2006 and 2010, the delegation visited Russia, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Australia.

"Our performance is highly praised by overseas audiences, and they showed great interest in our traditional culture, especially the folk handicrafts," said Huang Zhenwei, division director of Chongqing Municipal Party Committee information office.

Oddly, free performances are less popular than those that charge fees, he said, probably because foreigners believe that if they have to pay for something it must be better.

"We hope that through a series of international cultural exchange activities, Chongqing's cultural industry could find a way to go global as well as promoting the city's image overseas," said Huang.

This year, Chongqing plans to introduce its cultural products to Hong Kong and Taiwan, seeking more communication with residents there. Related activities are being conducted in the first half of the year.

Encouraged by current achievements, the municipality is also considering penetrating global markets with its films and drama productions, publications and animation products, Huang said, adding that these products will exert a sustainable influence on the promotion of the city's image.

Research and survey

The city marketing campaign contains many elements and requires research both before and after the video is made so it can be positioned and tested by the market.

"Conducting market research before shooting an advertising video is of great importance because the findings will provide much useful and practical information as reference points for the decision makers," said Yang Hongshan, associate professor of urban planning and administration at the School of Public Administration, Renmin University of China.

"The current situation in the market is that most cities neglect tracking surveys after they release the advertising videos, which costs them a great opportunity to learn from their mistakes."

Ningbo realized the importance of market research early on and commissioned the International Public Relations Research Center of Fudan University to conduct it in 2008, Yang said. The new video released in this month is the fruit of their hard work.

In order to better understand audiences' demands, Chongqing used to gather public opinion from an online platform before rolling out its publicity campaign, a detail which proved to be quite effective, Huang said.

Opportunities

In the past, local governments played a dominant role in the whole process of city advertising. But with the fierce competition in the market, governments also began to work with professional public relations agencies.

In the aftermath of the May 12 earthquake in 2008, Chengdu, one of the cities hit by the disaster, established a partnership with Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, a subsidiary to Ogilvy & Mather Group, one of the largest marketing communications companies in the world, to start its city marketing campaign.

"Some city government leaders really took to heart the values of media planning from the cooperation," said Zhou Xiaojun, vice-president of public affairs at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide.

Miles Young, chief executive officer of Ogilvy & Mather Group, said that the spending of Chinese governments of different levels on marketing campaigns is "quite small at the moment", but "government is only just starting to experiment in this area". He emphasized that he was referring to a complete strategic marketing and branding campaign rather than just an advertisement.

He added that communications agencies such as Ogilvy were benefiting substantially from governments embarking on marketing campaigns and believes the market holds great promise in the future.

Other voices

When cities are in a rush to shoot advertising videos in order to invite investors and boost tourism, they should also keep an eye on their backyard.

"These advertisements could stimulate the flow of visitors to cities, but whether there will be a good result is determined by the impressions the visitors garner, which largely depends on the city's economic growth and social public service system," said associate professor Yang Hongshan from Renmin University of China.

"There aren't funds specially earmarked for our province's advertising campaign right now. I think we should focus on economic development at the moment," said Hao Yuan, vice-governor of Gansu province.

In his opinion, if they really intend to launch a publicity campaign, the key point is to showcase the characteristics of a province. For Gansu, it lies in its unique silk culture, which developed centuries ago from its connections with the Silk Road, Hao said.

Wang Xiaotian and Chen Limin contributed to the story

China Daily

(China Daily 03/14/2011 page13)