Cultural impact on international branding : a case of marketing Finnish mobile phones in China

2001

Hundreds of Finnish brands have been launched in China. How do the Chinese perceive these brands and think about the brand names in Chinese? Will the Chinese associate the images with Finland? And what is Finland in Chinese eyes? … In short, how to manage a brand in China? Finnish corporations usually practice three types of branding approaches. The first one is to keep every elements of the brand exactly the same as it in European market and only to substitute the original text with Chinese characters. Only a few companies apply this approach because people are more aware of the impact of cultural differences. Slogans, for example, may not have the same persuasive power and effectiveness i…