In the wake of continuing events in Xinjiang, the decision by the Chinese government to move forward with a planned global advertising campaign designed to boost confidence in Chinese products might might seem a bit ill-advised. Trying to convince people around the world to trust Chinese products while disturbing images and stories are coming out of the west risks (at the very least) undermining the effectiveness of what will likely be an expensive campaign, and casting the government as insensitive to - and out of touch with - their global audiences.

All of which is fair. But for reasons China’s leaders may not be considering, I think they need to get on with it.

First, this ad campaign is a piece of a much larger global program designed to improve China’s credibility. If the world’s reaction to what has happened in Xinjiang and to China’s explanation of those events prove anything, it is that China’s credibility among most outside audience is in desperate need of enhancement. China cannot hesitate: the process needs to move forward, even if the early steps are shaky ones.

Second, even if the campaign falls flat, that will be a good thing, if for no other reason than the nation’s leaders will use the feedback from early efforts like this campaign to understand what resonates with their target audiences and what doesn’t work. The realities of China’s political culture mean that the leadership will have to learn all of this the hard way, and the sooner they can work their way up that learning curve, the better.

Is the timing wrong? There will certainly be vocal reaction along those lines from audiences who think so. Is an advertising campaign, however well executed, the right way to boost confidence in Chinese products? The only way to know is to give it a shot.

China should be applauded for starting at last its public dialogue with the world, and we should give that encouragement not least because it is going to be a harsh and occasionally brutal process for the nation’s leaders, just as it has been with the companies and clients many of us have served. But as with our commercial clients, China will grow and benefit from this effort, and as it learns to express itself in ways we all can appreciate, so will the world.

This week saw the launch of a new English language publication in the PRC, the international edition of The Global Times. I will call it The Global Times International, just so I can abbreviate it as “GT-I.”

The Global Times' English web page

If you are not familiar with the “GT” in its original Chinese, the paper has garnered a reputation for a somewhat fiery brand of Chinese nationalism in its editorial bent. As one comment on Danwei.org described it, GT is basically the Washington Times with Chinese Characteristics: not unbiased, but never boring.

So it was a disappointment to many to read the paper in its first several days of publication, only to find that the editorial fires of the GT had apparently been doused in an effort to avoid offending international readers. As the China Economic Review’s John Guise noted, GT-I is about as scintillating a read as the China Daily.

Others note that the GT-I appears confused about its own audience. Even as it pursues an editorial line tuned carefully so as not to offend foreign sensibilities, the paper is selling itself as a way for Chinese - students especially - to learn English.

Finally, I couldn’t help but note that the Tamils departing Sri Lanka were described as undertaking an “Exudos.”

Granted, it is easy and fun to lambaste the new publication for what seems to be a lame effort, and the editors have given us all a lot to pick on - or just ignore. But let’s keep in mind that launching a new publication in China is quite different than doing so elsewhere, and that it is still early days yet.

First, any publication launching in China is going to take some time to find its voice - not because the editorial team doesn’t know what to say, but because it needs to make sure that it is staying within the unspoken and often fuzzy boundaries of what the Party will allow it to say. A quiet trial period has to be passed during which the editorial staff earn a little trust from regulators, and is thus able to start taking some liberties.

A publication that is so readily accessible to foreign readers (and possibly aimed at that audience) faces even greater regulatory scrutiny because the tone the paper takes affects not only domestic political concerns, but the image China projects around the world. Given that most of us see Chinese newspapers as the direct mouthpieces of the Party and Government, this is a well-founded concern.

Even as the regulatory concerns dog the editors of a new English-language publication, there are market concerns as well. Rather than run a bunch of focus groups to find out what people want to read, the editors will “cross the river by feeling the stones,” figuring out by trial and error the right tone and the right mix of coverage.

And finally, the editors and the business development team are going to want to get feedback from advertisers and agencies to get their ideas on what kind of readership they want to reach, and what they think it will take to reach those readers.

Of course this process is going to take time.

Frankly, I’m not interested in another paper that looks, sounds, and smells like China Daily. I reckon one is enough. I would love to see GT-I build a bit of character and start adopting the attitude - if not the exact editorial line - of its sister Chinese publication. I may not agree with everything I read, but at least it will be entertainment.

So if the nice folks from GT-I come to you and ask you what you think their publication should be, do them and the rest of us a favor: don’t just catalog their problems, help them see what kind of a paper your clients (or your company) would be ready to advertise in - and what it would take for you to read.

I had an interesting conversation recently where an executive from a regional media company said that advertising agencies are doomed. Knowing my biases he apparently felt like he had a receptive audience, so he explained his thinking.

Advertising agencies, he said, basically offer two services. First, they buy media. But that function had been shifted into large specialist media buying companies who were competing on price, so that revenue was gone.

What was left, he said, was the creative function. However, as his own media organisation was in the midst of forging a creative unit that would do the creative work for free as a part of an ad buy, he felt he had seen the future. How could advertising agencies survive, he said, charging clients for creative that the media companies were ready to give away for free?

Leave aside for a moment his simplistic view of the advertising business, and the fact that he was biased in favor of his own vision as it served his own purposes. (And leave aside my own self-interested bias against advertising as a marketing tool.)

The guy does make a point worth considering. Some forward thinking media are already starting to think more like advertising agencies, and as they do that they exploit a misperception among many of the less-sophisticated clients that ad agencies offer little value beyond media placement and creative ideas.

At the same time, it is too early to write off agencies.  Too many media salespeople (especially here in China) operate under the implicit perception that their medium sells itself. This applies not only to TV, but to online outlets as well (major portals selling ads based on time rather than a more meaningful measure? Please…)

For the media to become a genuine threat to ad agencies, the ad sales and business development people working for media need to think more like account reps - knowing all that they can about the client’s business, then rethinking what they offer to help the client make really creative use of the media outlet to advance their business goals.

And I mean going beyond positioning the buy to a point where you completely rethink what you are selling. Is this opportunity really about selling banners or postage stamps, or is it about getting the client to sponsor an entire section of your site and even support specific content? Are you willing to toss your business model out the window to attract a great advertiser?

Because if you aren’t, you are not ready to replace either the ad agency or the client’s CMO. 

A lot of us are missing an important point about China Central Television (CCTV). The new CCTV building is stunning, indeed iconic. But far less noticed than the scale and architecture of their new headquarters is the location of the building and what that means for the advertising industry.

CCTV headquarters has long been on the west side of Beijing, on a massive piece of property next to West Third Ring Road. CCTV’s neighbors included a research institute, the Military Museum, the massive office block built for the Central Military Commission, and a monument to the return of Hong Kong to the Motherland.

If you were an advertiser or somebody else seeking to gain attention through the good offices of the national broadcaster, you made the long trek around north Third Ring, or you suffered the traffic on Chang’an Road, passing on your way the monuments of Tian’anmen, the portals of the Zhongnanhai leadership compound, and the compound housing the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT).

In short, the whole experience for an advertiser was something of a pilgrimage designed to remind you that the central broadcaster was part of the nation’s political structure, and that no matter how much money you brought, CCTV carried the power in your relationship with it.

The new headquarters makes a different type of statement. And that is not accidental.

The broadcaster has picked up and moved itself all the way across the capital, a physical journey of 13 kilometers but a psychic journey of a far greater distance. The long journey for advertisers is no more. CCTV has come to you.

No longer ensconced among monuments and government offices, CCTV now stands amid Beijing’s toniest office blocks and next to the eye-catching Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Being nestled in the corridors of political power sends a message inappropriate to how CCTV wants - needs - to be seen. Despite its continuing function as the voice of the party, CCTV is now a commercial entity, dependent on the patronage of enterprise for its sustained success and power.

And not a moment too soon.

As CCTV’s work force moves into the new building, they will do so as the cream of the broadcaster’s audience is looking beyond television for diversion, as advertisers shift spend to a widening mix of media, and as TV faces new pressures to prove its value as a marketing tool.

So as you drive past - or to - the new CCTV headquarters, keep in mind that as much as the edifice celebrates the organization’s pride and success, it is also the symbol of the humbling of a giant, and a harbinger of a new era that will focus the broadcaster on serving its advertisers rather than being served by them.

One of the leading diversions of advertising people in Beijing and Shanghai these days is speculating on the effects the global economic downturn is going to have on the regional ad business. Depending on who you talk to, predictions range from a “mild dip in first quarter revenues” to “it’s the apocalypse!”

Regardless of what happens to spend in China, one trend is already clear: advertisers are looking for ways to get much more for their RMB in 2009 than they got in 2008. Pacific Epoch’s Jim McGregor and About.com China’s Matt Roberts call this a “flight to value.”

Many people in the industry have begun interpreting this trend to mean a shift away from TV, outdoor, and print and toward digital. That might happen, but at best this is an oversimplification. To really understand what will happen, you first have to recognize that when it comes to how clients define value, there are essentially three kinds of advertisers in China:

The first kind thinks of “value” as being synonymous with return on investment. The better the measurable results for the company, its business, and its brand for a given level of spend, the greater the value.

This is the kind of advertiser who is going to experiment with new media, who is going to be the most skeptical about traditional media, and who we all usually think about when we talk about rational marketers. Sadly, this group forms a smaller fraction of the Chinese advertising market than should be the case.

The second kind of advertiser takes a more simplistic approach. Value means “price.” The less money I pay per unit of media, the higher the value I get. As long as real rates fall or at least remain stable, value improves.

The third kind of advertiser derives value from relationships. Either he or she trusts the media based on previous results, or they place their blind faith in that medium - or a specific company - because they know there is a little red envelope in it for them personally after their company pays the fees.

The latter two types still make up a large portion of the advertisers in China. To believe these groups are suddenly going to make a shift to digital or any other buzzworthy communications channel merely because they will offer better results is unrealistic.

What all of this means is that the flight to value will take five forms among the advertisers that neither collapse nor pull out of the market entirely:

• Some advertisers will take the downturn as an opportunity to experiment with their media mix, shifting their spend away from their core media to other media;
• As the downturn is liable to soften rates across much of the core media (including, but not limited to, regional television and print), other advertisers will take advantage by buying more of that media than they had before;
• Some advertisers will make no change at all, believing they already have the right mix and sticking with it;
• Other advertisers will stick with their current media choices because the decision-makers profit personally from the choice;
• Other advertisers - including some from the above groups - will pull budget out of advertising altogether and spend more on other forms of marketing.

When you deconstruct the audience, it is clear that there will be opportunities for nearly all media next year. The challenge will be to match what you have to offer with the clients who are interested in your particular pitch.