Welcome


	So here is the car ad we looked at last time very simply.
	Now we can use some more vocabulary to explain the effects…
	And also, the relationship between the signifiers makes all the difference in the message…Some formal methods of mapping out and discussing such relationship are shown in VM.


	Obviously , the “meaning” can be different depending on whether you are in the US, ignorant of Japanese-Chinese tensions, or living in China and perhaps old enough to remember why there are such tensions.

	Author’s INTENT for signified differed from audience’s perceived signified.

	Assuming that Toyota was not trying intentionally to insult the Chinese, but really was just trying to see cars… they know images are serious—effective, the used interesting things from cultural context—knew lions symbol of power, but they didn’t think how someone in China would interpret the image.


	But which parts are signs—not clear like looking at words.
	And what about non-objects—relationships between different objects, or use of color, etc.


	SOURCES
	-----------------------
	Photo: Chinapage.com
	"These ads were intended to reflect Prado's imposing presence when driving in the city," says Julie Du, account manager with Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi, which made the ads.
	"You cannot but respect the Prado," the ad says.
	But Chinese words often hold multiple meanings. Prado translates into Chinese as badao, which also means "rule by force" or "overbearing."
	Consumer critics who called Toyota and posted scathing--occasionally profane--messages in Internet discussion groups said the lions resembled those flanking the Marco Polo Bridge, the site near Beijing of the opening battle in Japan's 1937 invasion of China.
	The Toyota fiasco highlights the tricky cultural and historical pitfalls that afflict marketing for even the savviest China-based foreign companies. On one hand, the ad industry increasingly agrees that despite rampant nationalism, patriotism doesn't build brands. But Toyota and others recently have discovered that they can't ignore how strongly politics shapes Chinese consumer sentiment.
	As China's economy grows at breakneck pace and it prepares for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Chinese people may be growing more nationalistic. An October 2003 survey by WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather advertising firm found that 34% of young people in prosperous southern China found patriotism to be "extremely important"--a 10 on a scale of one to 10.
	"Young people are indoctrinated from very early on in school to be patriotic," says Joseph Wang, Ogilvy's group managing director for Hong Kong and southern China.
	Some Chinese brands such as Coca-Cola competitors Jianlibao and Fei Chang Kele try to tap that patriotism in ads. "The Chinese people's own Cola!" exhorts ads for Fei Chang Kele.
	But an increasing number of ad agencies are finding that a patriotic appeal doesn't lure Chinese shoppers to sportswear brands such as homegrown favorite Li-Ning Sports Goods over Nike just because it originates in China.
	Indeed, the Ogilvy survey found that the strongest patriots were just as likely to buy foreign brands as shoppers who claimed to be indifferent. Ninety-four percent of the "more patriotic" drank Coke, compared with 100% of the "moderately patriotic." Only 19% considered country of origin a factor in brand choice.
	"Brand-buying today is a personal activity. Patriotism is [a] collective activity," Ogilvy's Mr. Wang explains.
	As a result, agencies are dumping patriotic pitches in favor of pragmatism. "It's the same as in politics: A political party can go only so far on a patriotic platform. Ultimately, if they don't deliver the goods, voters give them the boot," says Mickey Chak, planning director of DDB Worldwide Communications Group Inc. China.
	Foreign sportswear makers who sponsor local Chinese teams often receive a lukewarm response. As a result, brands increasingly are highlighting their global significance instead. "Many sports fans in China aren't just interested in a sport because there are Chinese players in it," Mr. Chak says. "Long before Yao Ming, basketball enjoyed popularity, and Chinese consumers bought into the NBA."
	But even though they are dumping patriotism, advertisers such as Toyota have bungled by going too far and ignoring it.
	Despite longstanding wartime antagonisms, the Chinese have become major consumers of Japanese products--which carry a high-quality cachet--even as they complain about accidents involving Japanese products, or Japanese service manuals that make political gaffes by identifying Taiwan as separate from China.
	Bayerische Motoren Werke of Germany faced weeks of negative publicity in state-run newspapers during October after a woman in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin crashed into a crowd with her BMW X53.0 Diesel Sport. Marketed to China's elite upper-class, the BMW brand became a target of populist resentment from millions of laid-off former state workers left behind by China's economic boom.
	Many agencies have implemented "disaster checks" before their campaigns go live to make sure that they haven't been blinded to a political sore spot.
	Toyota will establish a "supervisory system" for its marketing, a public-relations officer in charge of its Chinese office says.
	Saatchi & Saatchi, which declined to discuss the role of patriotism in advertising, is working on new Toyota Prado ads but doesn't yet have a release date for them." (Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2004)
	http://www.loper.org/~george/trends/2004/Jan/950.html

	Also dragon
	Their ire was raised when Leo Burnett Shanghai Advertising, a Sino-United States joint venture, created a presentation for Nippon Paint showing a freshly-painted pillar whose twining dragon, unable to keep its grip because Nippon Paint is so smooth and silky, ends up in a coil at the bottom.
	http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail_frame.cfm?articleid=51061&intcatid=2

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	SOURCES
	http://english.people.com.cn/200312/05/eng20031205_129766.shtml
	http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-12/09/content_288694.htm