East Meets West: Navigating Differences in Values and Positioning in the Asian Market

Before entering any market, a company must conduct research on consumers, competitors, and sales channels. Otherwise, the risk of draining investments becomes more than real. European entrepreneurs find it quite difficult to understand how Eastern consumers think. The difference in mentality, values, and perception of reality makes them invest resources in adapting to the expectations of the audience.

I have highlighted 3 things that entrepreneurs need to pay attention to when entering the Asia market, particularly China, Japan, and South Korea.

Translate the brand name

The writing in Asia is different from what we are used to. Words do not consist of letters but of characters, so simply adapting the name to a different alphabet will not work. Pepsi is easy to write in Cyrillic - "Пепсі" - the sound and meaning of the word will not change. In Asian languages, the spelling of the characters, their meaning, and pronunciation can cause the entrepreneur a lot of problems.

For a European customer, the name of a company may not matter. How Audi or Intel is translated does not matter: messages and values conveyed by the company give meaning to these words. But the Chinese mass consumer, for example, needs to understand the meaning of a name. In addition, government policy forces businessmen to translate company names into Chinese. Otherwise, they will not be able to register it.

Here are 3 ways to translate a company name into languages whose spelling is different from the Indo-European alphabet, including Chinese.

Сalque or loan translation

Calligraphic names translate the "meaning" of a word or its symbol into a foreign language. For example, European Mr. Juicy juices are translated into Chinese as 果汁先生 [Guǒzhī xiānshēng] - literally "fruit juice" + "master", and Apple is translated as 苹果 [Píngguǒ] - apple.

Transliteration

This trick allows you to translate a company name not by the meaning of the word but by how it sounds to the consumer. For example, Adidas is spelled 阿迪达斯 [Ādídásī] in Chinese, and Nokia is 诺基亚" [Nuòjīyà].

Adaptation

Adapting a name allows you to retain both the phonetic identity of the original and the meaning that the brand conveys. At the same time, the literal translation of the name can be quite different. For example, Reebok in China became 锐步 [Ruì bù] - "quick steps".

The spelling of the name may differ from the original, but the unity of the brand in all regions can be shown through design. For example, the graphics of the Chinese Coca-Cola logo is based on the European logo - the characters are stylized and resemble the Latin spelling as much as possible.

In Japan and South Korea, there are no such strict rules as in China. The company name can be written in the original language. The connection with the local culture is emphasized through advertising or packaging design details.

In the 1960s, Pepsi attempted to adopt its slogan "Pepsi - For Those Who Think Young," resulting in the highly dubious "New Pepsi - for people with a childlike mind" slogan in Chinese. As a result, sales of the drink dropped substantially.

https://youtu.be/zEXASw6_Ck0?embedable=true

Later the company suggested another version of the slogan "Come Alive With the Pepsi". However, this attempt failed as well. The literal translation in Chinese was something like, "Pepsi will take your ancestors out of their graves”.

https://youtu.be/Bu0OT3IAD7M?embedable=true

The third attempt also failed: instead of "Come alive! You`re in the Pepsi generation", Chinese consumers were surprised to read something like, "Wake up! Your body will be made up of Pepsi!"

Coca-Cola, by the way, also had a lot of trouble entering the Chinese market. The Chinese pronounce the company name as "Kekukela", which means "bite the wax tadpole". The company had to go through about 40,000 name choices, settling on "Koka Kole," which means "happiness on the lips."

Adjust positioning and values

The values that are important to European and American consumers may conflict with the views of Asian consumers. Each individual country is different, but there are some fundamental traits Asians have in common that entrepreneurs who are taking their business to the East need to be aware of.

One important trigger for Western consumers is individualism. They want to stand out from the crowd, to buy things that people around them won't buy. Asian consumers, on the other hand, are attracted to collectivism. They value relationships with others and a sense of unity.

Brand values and positioning must be translated into communication: the storyline, colors, and mood of an advertisement build associative chains with consumers. Marlboro - freedom, Mercedes - status and power. But what is important for European consumers may not be important for Asian consumers, so the values and positioning of a brand, and therefore its advertising, need to be adapted.

For example, Levi's advertising for Western users focuses on individualism and freedom, while Asian users focus on unity with loved ones and restraint.

Adapt brand colors

Color helps a brand become more recognizable: a Xerox study confirms this. Therefore, the importance of the brand color in the culture of the region where the company enters the market will partly determine its success.

The perception of some colors in Asia does not differ from Europe or America, but it is better to know about the differences in advance. Instead of long descriptions, I leave an image below in which you can compare the values of colors for Asian, European, African, and American consumers.

The same color, for example, black, can mean the exact opposite in two countries, even in the same region. The solution for a company can be to adapt the design for a specific audience, for example, by changing the brand colors used on the site.

Amazon, a large international marketplace, uses gray as the background color on its U.S. site, with highlighted black and blue sections and white product panels.

And, for example, in Japan, the Amazon site has a blue background. This color means ideal and is associated with purity. The use of gray and white colors is limited.

To summarize

When a company enters a new market, details matter: what you don't pay attention to will be decisive for local consumers.

Asian markets are not always the same as the Western way of doing business. Issues related to marketing or human resources are influenced by cultural aspects. They will also influence brand perception - name, positioning, or corporate identity. Research before entering a market in an Asian country will help to take a confident position in the market and not turn the company into a meme on the local Reddit.

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