The power of a compliment

Alex Wilson’s recent piece ‘Nation Branding China’ was an informative tour through the way that the ‘Made in China’ ad has been received around the world, and presented a powerful argument that it was, all told, a pretty good first step into nation branding for the PRC. My intention here is to provide a different line of thought to the same effect; that, strategically at least, the ad was smart.

Here is a familiar conversational trope that anyone familiar with English-language popular culture will recognize:

[Enter teenager, looking nervous]

Father: [Concerned] What is it, son?

Son: [Sheepishly] Well… there’s this girl… and, you know… I think she’s really cool, but I don’t know how to talk to her…

Father: [Knowing, fatherly smile] Girls, huh? Well, son, there’s only one thing I know about women… if you want a girl to like you, give her a compliment”.

It’s fair to say that what we could call the ‘compliment method’ has traditionally been a little bit lost on advertisers (especially here in London, where a scepticism of compliments is pervasive). It is, after all, easy to parody: ‘oh, you’re so pretty… please buy my product’.

But there is a time and a place for compliments, and when used right, they are extraordinarily powerful (as any misogynist will tell you). One such situation might be as follows: imagine you are running a manufacturing powerhouse, stripping low-skilled jobs out of richer countries, and producing goods on such a scale that you have become synonymous with cheap goods in nearly every category of capitalistic enterprise there is. How would you get those ‘rich’ countries to like you again? As the father in the Hollywood cliche says… give her a compliment.

That’s exactly what the ‘Made in China’ ad is – a compliment. It’s the branding equivalent of the man in the company who, on being told he’s done a great job, turns around and says, ‘Oh thanks, but really… I couldn’t have done it without you guys – you did the real work’.

There are three important things about compliments. First of all, they make the person being complimented feel good; less wary, more trustful, less hostile. Secondly, they make the complimenter feel good – magnanimous, humble and (just a little bit) powerful. Thirdly, it’s nearly always completely irrelevant whether they are true or not (to check that, imagine receiving a compliment about your shoes – even if you and everyone else knows that they are hideous, the compliment still has its desired effect).

In the context of  ”Made in China”, all elements are pertinent. Other countries (and their citizens) feel less cautious and threatened by China. The Chinese get to feel charitable and benevolent. Finally, it doesn’t really matter whether it reflects the emerging reality of China. This is particularly important, because nearly all criticism of ‘Made in China’ has focused on its truth or falsity.

There’s much more to be said about the ad as a compliment. For starters, notice how compliments as a social institution have a unique importance in Chinese culture – they form a central structure within the systems of exchange and respect that constitute ??(guanxi). So not only is the compliment a pretty good starting point in general, but its also intimately associated with particularly Chinese values.

If we see ‘Made in China’ as a compliment, and understand that compliments are a deeply Chinese articulation of how to build trust, it starts to look like very good branding indeed.

• 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 11:10 pm. It is filed under Asia, China, Culture and tagged with advertising, featured, nation branding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.