Official calls for brand strategy

Brand competition has become a major form of competition in the global market economy, and a national trademark and brand strategy is needed to help strengthen the Chinese economy, said a senior official.

At a recent brand-building conference in Jinan, capital of Shandong province, Liu Junchen, deputy director at the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, said he hopes business leaders can gain more experience of developing trademarks and brands and subsequently become role models.

Liu Pingjun, president of China Council for Brand Development, said that despite China's excessive production capacity, which has led to an overstock of many products, many Chinese consumers still prefer to buy foreign goods.

He suggested increasing the competitiveness and promotion of Chinese brands to help them develop globally, and added that the process of nurturing brands is a process of quality and service improvement, technological innovation and asset appreciation.

He Zhiqiang, senior vice-president at Lenovo Group Ltd, said the computer maker abandoned its old name "Legend", which it had used for 19 years, in 2003 due to conflicts with trademarks registered in a number of other countries.

He said the name and logo change eliminated many of the barriers that had prevented the internationalization of the brand.

Wu Handong, a law professor at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, said China's manufacturing sector accounted for 25 percent of the global share in 2015, and the country needs to promote brand building and increase both the influence and equity of Chinese brands.

He suggested innovation as a way to nurture brands, specifying that technological innovation is key to supporting brand building.

"To date, Chinese scientific and technological innovation's contribution to the country's economic development is less than 50 percent and thus we should focus on innovation in industries, science and technology and of products to increase brands' value and soft power," Wu said.

Shandong, in East China, is one of the country's leading provinces in terms of producing brands, and should play a leading role in demonstrating how China should implement a national brand strategy, according to Wu.

Guo Shuqing, governor of Shandong, said creating self-owned brands is a systematic project in which quality should be the foremost consideration. More emphasis and resources should be focused on end products when implementing the brand strategy, he said.

According to Guo, Shandong produces premium products, such as servers made by Inspur Co. Last year, eight renowned companies from Shandong, including winery Changyu, attended the Expo Milano 2015.

The province had more than 490,000 valid trademark registrations by the end of 2015, ranking it seventh in the country.

Wu Qun, an official at the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, said at a lecture on June 15 that trademarks and brands are stepping stones for companies' products or services to enter the market.

He added that small- and medium-sized enterprises must strategically value and use trademarks and brands to help turn productivity into economic benefits if they expect to thrive in both national and international markets.

songmengxing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 06/29/2016 page17)