The past decade has consolidated Chinese companies as global brands instead of mere manufacturers. And yet, the western perception of Chinese products remains continuously questioned.
As a Western company based in Shenzhen, we would like to explain Content2Sell’s experience working both with Chinese companies and Western brands. Because this is a complex subject in which several factors intervene: culture, recent history, globalization, and generational replacement, among others. Mutual perceptions are sometimes driven by biased discourses and the continuous oscillation of geopolitics.
And guess what, they are all intertwined.
The big picture
The development of today’s Chinese market has been quite fast: Chinese manufacturers have shifted from being mostly worldwide sourcing companies, to irrupting as popular multinational brands with presence and competitivity around the globe.
Moreover, the skyrocketing figures of ecommerce in China had a contagious effect in the establishment of online commerce, and its rapid evolution towards Social Commerce and DTC economy.
However, the foreign perception of the quality of Chinese manufactures didn’t go along for quite a long period. It actually took a long time for the Western world to see Chinese companies like Huawei, Xiaomi or Oppo, to become reputed sellers and actual competitors to other regional brands.
On the one hand, the “Made in China” label is traditionally associated with a lower price, which indirectly leads to the belief that “you get what you pay for”. On the other hand, the international views remain worried about China‘s military power, work conditions, and Human Rights policies, as the Pew Research Center points out in a recent survey*.
But because of the democratization of access to many types of products – like consumer electronics, the market disruption led by Chinese brands has taken the debate to another dimension where geopolitics have a more substantial influence than the actual product quality does.
*We won’t dwell on Human Rights policies, environmental issues, or Covid, so as not to deviate from the main subject of this post.
Perceived value
The main challenge for brands in the online world is to prove their products solve an objective need and communicate their value effectively.
Chinese companies had a huge market in Asia but struggled to compete with Western or more established brands that either sourced or manufactured their products in China to sell them abroad under a different label.
Then, why would Chinese manufactures have poor quality if they have a powerful internal market and other popular brands buying from them?
The answer probably relies on culture and mutual perception. Specifically, in the way they communicate their value to consumers. Products are often associated with the brand selling them, leaving manufacturers out the marketing equation. That is, relegated to their position of mere suppliers who face and with the OEM / ODM dilemma (to manufacture a product or actually market it as a brand).
This is the surge we’ve seen over the past 15 years: ODM manufacturers evolving into brands with a growing consumer pool in China, which then leap to the global market.
There are several research projects about the international perception of China, each providing different insights. Few, however, zoom out from specific countries and therefore prevent us from having objective data. You’ll find scientific references at the end of this post.
Government action
All this doesn’t happen by itself. According to Shi Anbin, China’s competitive advantage has 4 main drivers: the government, consumers, market competition, and social responsibility.
and governmental policies have created the perfect ecosystem for firms to become brands with a recognizable image. That, in turn, has provided the right conditions for marketing services companies, like ourselves, to bloom and pull in the same direction.
The competition stimulated quality and shortened the gap between catching up with the West’s technological advantage and becoming the main technological power.
Culture
In his Konfuzius-Institut / Heidelberg University lecture, Anbin explains how important it is in the Chinese culture how one’s face is seen by others. And a lot of effort has been put into reinforcing the world’s image of China. A double-edged sword, given the influence of politics and mass media, when building this perception – more on this below.
Furthermore, the exotic and romanticized image of the West in China seems to be losing weight in favor of an increasing value of the national image in China. And this comes with a few implications.
The generational replacement
Chinese millennials have unknowingly contributed to this transformation. And many Western markets don’t seem to realize that China is the country with more patented products, and a very strong internal market that remains, in many cases, invisible to them.
The West has been a strong cultural influence for decades, perceived as an exotic, and desirable way of living. And China was somewhat isolated, which in turn led to a certain degree of idealization. But the feeling of not being looked back and especially being labeled as cheap and poor quality has disenchanted many Chinese consumers. Still, far from provoking rejection, It has pushed them towards the internal market, making more Chinese brands grow.
The new generation of consumers has an education and an acquisitive power it had never seen before. But it has also grown under the values of an increasingly capitalist society, like individualism and consumerism.
Globalization
Younger generations also have a different national perception than that of the previous generation. The traditional “Chinese national image” as a developing country is long gone in large cities, which translates into more economic dynamism and the proliferation of new markets.
The Chinese society has slowly broken away from the image of itself as underdeveloped, partly due to the realization of how the world sees China today. As global logistic networks were established, the Chinese economy took off: more manufactures, more marketing companies; more product imports and exports, hi-tech specialization, and specialized education.
China now needs the world a little less than the world needs China. And that has led to an endogenous demand for goods and services, from local brands who speak their language.
Politics and Social Media
Preexisting perceptions are not sui generis, and the Western image of China cannot be exclusively blamed on the quality of the products they export. Every company, in every country, uses different quality standards. And yet, many of them have no problems selling or even exporting their products. So, when it comes to quality, politics have an active role in creating biased statements
China carries heavy XXth century luggage, and that is fodder for former hegemonic powers. The current strength of China’s internal market, its technological advantage, and worldwide presence worry many Western countries. In fact, it worries them so much, that they spare no resources to maintain the image of communist, backward, and low-quality-producer-China.
The general findings of research in this matter usually agree that Social Media helps the acceptance and reputation of Chinese products as much as it can affect it. Especially in the age of fake news and post-truth.
What is real is relational
The quote belongs to the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and explains why the Western perception of the quality of Chinese products can not be excluded from this amalgam.
The West needs to assume China is overage in terms of quality standards. Its own population and consumption patterns prove so. The main lesson we have learned is that searching for the lowest price does come with a lower quality. Thus, it’s the companies looking for the lowest price who should be accountable for the low quality of their products.
Most Chinese startups do not skimp on the quality of their products. The reason is simple: it’s their own name, honor, and reputation that’s at stake. Businesses simply can’t afford the risk of being perceived as cheap and low-quality in the age of the internet. And that stigma laid on them from abroad is just insulting.
Thus, it shouldn’t surprise anybody to see them focus on eager consumers who speak their language and contribute to a growing internal market and a better image of themselves.
Optimized content makes ends meet
Perception is a cultural construction that can be carefully crafted for a specific goal. Just like headlines, infographics, Social Media profiles, product launches, or crowdfunding campaigns.
Understanding a specific need requires understanding the context where it appears and, especially, the cultural background. In fact, this is widely overlooked when brands step foot abroad without considering critical cultural aspects like chromatism or information architecture.
After 8 years in business consultancy, helping Chinese companies to go to market and design products and sales strategies, we can say quality is also perceived through the content brands use to promote their products. Showing them in relatable situations, making them easy to understand at a glance, and proving you care for your product as much as you do for its presentation.
Sources
Jessica Duong (Autor), 2014, Western European Consumer Perception of a Chinese Brand. An Examination of Huawei, Múnich, GRIN Verlag.
https://www.grin.com/document/300180
Chen Yang, 2020, How China’s image affects Chinese products in a partisan-motivated US market. Robert Morris University
https://doi.org/10.1177/2059436420922702
Marc J. Schniederjans, Qing Cao & John R. Olson (2004), Consumer Perceptions of Product Quality: Made in China, Quality Management Journal, 11:3, 8-18. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10686967.2004.11919118
Khan, Laiq, Ahmed, Rizwan, 2016. A Comparative Study of Consumer Perception of Product Quality: Chinese versus Non-Chinese Products.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327600595_A_Comparative_Study_of_Consumer_Perception_of_Product_Quality_Chinese_versus_Non-Chinese_Products
