Managing Corporate and Brand Identities in the Asia-Pacific Region

The following information as well as the company examples in the remainder of the article are based on research by the authors; newspaper articles in 1993 and 1994 in The Asian Wall Street Journal. China Daily, The Economist, The World Executive's Digest, The Ear Eastern Economic Review, The South China Morning Post, The Straits Times; and the following major articles and special reports: “Asia/Pacific: The New Consumers.” The International Herald Tribune. February 1, 1994, I-XII; “Asia's Wealth,” Business Week, November 29, 1993, 100–112; “Brands, It's Thrive or Die,” Fortune, August 23, 1993, 32–36; “China Speeds on to Market,” The Economist, November 20. 1993, 35–36; “Go East Young Man,” Far Eastern Economic Review, November 4, 1993, 40–44; “Korea goes for quality.” Fortune. April 18, 1994, 153–159; “Marketing Brand Names in Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan,” Hong Kong Trade Development Council Research Report (January 1992).

“Asia's Wealth,” Business Week. November 29, 1993, p. 10.

“Asia, Where the Big Brands are Blooming.” Fortune (August 1993), p. 35.

For recent examples, see Aaker David , “How Will the Japanese Compete in Retail Services,” California Management Review, 33/1 (Fall 1990): 54–67: Sullivan Jeremiah J. , “Japanese Management Philosophies: From the Vacuous to the Brilliant,” California Management Review, 32/2 (Winter 1992): 66–87: Johnson Chalmers , “Comparative Capitalism: The Japanese Difference,” California Management Review, 35/4 (Summer 1993): 51–67: Kono Toyohiro (Guest Editor). “Special Issue: Competing and Cooperating with the Japanese,” Long Range Planning, 26/4 (August 1993).

For overviews of corporate identity, see Olins Wallis . Corporate Identity: Making Business Strategy Visible Through Design (Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press. 1989): Napoles Veronica . Corporate Identity Design (New York. NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold. 1988). Nakanishi Motoo . Building a New Form of Corporate Identity: Japan's CI Revolution. (Tokyo. 1993.)

Aaker David . Managing Brand Equity (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1991), p. 15. See also Aaker David A. Biel Alexander L. , Brand Equity and Advertising: Advertising's Role in Building Strong Brands (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 1993); Arnold David . The Handbook of Brand Management (Reading. MA: Addison-Wesley. 1992); de Chernatony Leslie Malcolm H. McDonald B. , Creating Powerful Brands (Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann, 1992); and the special issue of the Journal of Marketing Research (May 1994) on brand management.

Keller Kevin Lane , “Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity.” Journal of Marketing, 57, 1–22.

Robertson Kim R. , “Strategically Desirable Brand Name Characteristics,” Journal of Consumer Marketing, 6 (Fall 1989): 61–71; Collins Leslie , “A Name to Conjure With.” European Journal of Marketing, 11 (1977): 339–362.

Pan Yigang Schmitt Bernd H. , “What's in a Name? An Empirical Comparison of Chinese and Western Brand Names,” Asian Journal of Marketing (forthcoming).

Schmitt Bernd H. Pan Yigang Tavassoli Nader , “Language and Consumer Memory: The Impact of Linguistic Differences between Chinese and English.” Journal of Consumer Research (forthcoming).

The authors thank the Beijing office of Robert Bosch Corporation for providing these materials.

“Marketing Brand Names in Japan,” Hong Kong Trade Development Council Research Report, June 1992.

McDonald Gael M. Roberts C.J. , “The Brand-Naming Enigma in the Asia Pacific Context;” European Journal of Marketing, 24/8 (1990): 6–19.

Lip Evelyn , Feng Shui for Business (Singapore: Times Books International, 1989).

Much has been written on individualism/collectivism. Classic references include Bond Michael Leung K. Wan K.C. , “How Does Cultural Collectivism Operate?” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 13/2 (1982): 186–200: And Hofstede Geert . Culture's Consequences: National Differences in Thinking and Organizing (Beverley Hills. CA: Sage Press, 1980).

Tse David K. , “Chinese Consumers: Characteristics and Research Propositions,” in Bond Michael , ed., Handbook of Chinese Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

Lee Chol Green Robert T. , “Cross-Cultural Examination of the Fishbein Behavioral Intentions Model.” Journal of International Business Studies, 22/2 (1991): 289–305.