by Greg Paull Shufen Goh ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 14, 2013
A thoughtful, serviceable guide for corporate success.
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Co-founders of a global consulting firm present authoritative, culturally aware advice for successful marketing in China’s complex and growing economy.
Paull and ShuFen’s debut targets Western corporate types with capital to invest, but the accessible, conversational style makes it a compelling read for anyone interested in marketing and culture. The authors’ team conducted face-to-face interviews with 17 top chief marketing officers in China, and the book begins with profiles (and color pictures) of each of these “visionaries behind the brands,” including Coca-Cola’s Stephen Drummond, Camilla Hammar of IKEA, and Christine Xu, the first mainland Chinese to hold McDonald’s CMO position in China. Lively chapters contain hands-on advice concerning best practices—how to build a brand around the Chinese (and not the Western) consumer—and emerging trends to watch, like China’s changing demographics or the decline of foreign brand appeal. Specific case studies are also showcased, such as how Starbucks became a hit in a noncoffee culture by emphasizing national holidays and using less sugar in treats to please the Chinese palate. The key to building brand success in this very competitive market, write the authors, is to humbly learn Chinese values and vernacular; for example, health care in China means living a healthy lifestyle, as preventive doctor visits aren’t generally part of the culture. The guide includes memorable examples of smart cultural marketing: e.g., Johnson’s Baby company’s “Spare Space, Spread Love” initiative. When Chinese moms complained about lack of space for pumping breast milk at work, Johnson’s Baby designed reusable tags—complete with its company logo—to hang on any workplace door as a signal that Mom needs privacy for pumping. Likewise, Coca-Cola capitalized on growing Chinese pride when it garnered government approval to participate in the Beijing Olympics’ torch ceremony (and pass out soft-drink samples). Chinese values are not about the individual, write the authors, so an “individual hero” would not do well in a Chinese advertisement; however, China is a diverse nation of regions and languages, and companies should not treat it as a homogenous market.
A thoughtful, serviceable guide for corporate success.Pub Date: June 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-9881554239
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Typhoon Media Ltd.
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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