Question: I hear so much about China as being a much-desired market for American brands, but I am not aware of any Chinese brands making their impact on the world. What is
the level of global brand power among Chinese companies?
ANSWER: According to the BRANDZ Top 100 Most Power Brands survey issued recently by the marketing research firm Millward Brown, China Mobile Communications
Corp. is the world's fourth most powerful brand - behind Microsoft, GE and Coca-Cola. Boasting brand equity of more than $39 billion and traded on the New
York Stock Exchange, the state-owned China Mobile has 284 million subscribers. It is also the first Chinese entity to receive a world brand ranking.
In an interview with CRIEnglish.com, the English-language Net version of China Radio, Zhang Yixin, director of Millward Brown's Asia Pacific division, believes
the changing definitions of global reach will reflect in the rise of Chinese brands in future brand power rankings.
"There are no Chinese brands included in other similar global rankings of top 100 most powerful brands because those rankings exclude Chinese firms when choosing candidates in
the first place," says Zhang, who states these rankings traditionally did not consider Chinese firms to be truly global in their reach. "That's actually a misunderstanding. But
we still don't take this into account when picking our candidate brands because we firmly believe the Chinese market makes up a very big proportion of the world market. If China
is excluded, the ranking cannot be dubbed as global."
Question: If I had to hire from outside of the PR profession, which job field would be a happy hunting ground for potential employees?
ANSWER: Over at
Davies Murphy Group in Burlington, MA, the answer would be business consultants. The agency recently went through a significant expansion, even changing its name from
SparkSource Inc., and it nearly doubled its staff. But in the hiring process, the agency kept an eye out for people with business consulting backgrounds, especially in regard to
starting up and running companies.
Eric Davies, founder and principal, feels this group has a better handle on business development issues. "There are certain things you can only appreciate having done that,"
he explains.
"We like to have people who've done it before on the client side," adds Andy Murphy, principal. "We want someone who can deliver the goods, not just come in with a PowerPoint
presentation and then disappear."
Davies, though, notes such candidates are exactly in overabundance. "It is hard to find people who build their own companies and then go off to join consulting groups or PR
agencies," he confides. So where has he found these candidates? "From people we know or from people we know who know."
Contact: Zhang Yixin, [email protected]; Eric Davies and Andy Murphy, 781.418.2410.