One part riveting account of fieldwork and one part rigorous academic study, Brand New China offers a unique perspective on the advertising and marketing culture of China. Jing Wang’s experiences in the disparate worlds of Beijing advertising agencies and the U.S. academy allow her to share a unique perspective on China during its accelerated reintegration into the global market system.
Brand New China offers a detailed, penetrating, and up-to-date portrayal of branding and advertising in contemporary China. Wang takes us inside an advertising agency to show the influence of American branding theories and models. She also examines the impact of new media practices on Chinese advertising, deliberates on the convergence of grassroots creative culture and viral marketing strategies, samples successful advertising campaigns, provides practical insights about Chinese consumer segments, and offers methodological reflections on pop culture and advertising research.
This book unveils a “brand new” China that is under the sway of the ideology of global partnership while struggling not to become a mirror image of the United States. Wang takes on the task of showing where Western thinking works in China, where it does not, and, perhaps most important, where it creates opportunities for cross-fertilization.
Thanks to its combination of engaging vignettes from the advertising world and thorough research that contextualizes these vignettes, Brand New China will be of interest to industry participants, students of popular culture, and the general reading public interested in learning about a rapidly transforming Chinese society.
Jing Wang is Professor of Chinese Media and Cultural Studies, S. C. Fang Professor of Chinese Language and Culture, and Director of the New Media Action Lab at MIT. She has received fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies, the National Humanities Center, and the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation, and is a recipient of the Overseas Distinguished Professor Award given by China’s Ministry of Education. She is the Founder and Secretary General of NGO2.0, a nonprofit in China specializing in technology-driven and social media–powered activism, and is the author of Brand New China: Advertising, Media, and Commercial Culture; The Story of Stone; and High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng’s China.