Decoding Korean and Japanese famous brands

Looking at the top 100 global brands, the ones that stand out from Asia are all Japanese and Korean brands, but no one is from China, the world's second largest economy. Therefore, in this era of striving for brand value, Japanese and Korean brands are worthy of reference by Chinese companies with the same culture.

According to the annual report of "Top 100 Global Brands" by Interbrand, an authoritative brand research organization, from 2001 to 2011, Japan's Toyota, Sony, Honda, Nintendo, Canon ), Panasonic and South Korea’s Samsung have been on the list for 11 consecutive years, South Korea’s Hyundai has also been on the list every year since 2005, while Chinese brands have fallen behind every year (see “Korean brands” on page 34). Chart of the value of major global brands in Japan”).

In a recent online survey conducted by "CEConline", 631 Chinese managers believed that the most worthwhile learning from Korean and Japanese global brands are: to be a company and a brand with a lasting spirit; quality first; global brand operation; design to win (See sidebar “What to learn from Japanese and Korean global brands?” on page 36).

Famous experts at home and abroad hold similar views as managers. According to Al Ries, an American marketing management guru and co-creator of positioning theory, this shows that Chinese companies realize that in order to succeed in the global market, they will have to rely on both quality products and brand building for a long time.

Martin Roll, an expert in Asian brand strategy and the author of the global business bestseller "Asian Brand Strategy", said that in Asia, Japanese and Korean companies are the pioneers of global brand strategy. No matter in the face of opportunities or crises, They always strive to deliver the brand value proposition of quality and innovative design to consumers.

Liu Chengyuan, who has been a long-term executive in Japanese companies and is now chairman of United Resources 3A Consultants, said that brand building is a process of continuous accumulation and natural progression. Chinese companies need to adhere to the dream of famous brands for a long time like Japanese and Korean companies. .

The spirit of famous brand: chasing dreams

The global brand dream of Japanese and Korean companies sprouts from the birth of the company, formed from the export of products, landed on the globalization of R&D and production, and realized when the brand value entered the world The ranks of sex name brands. This process takes nearly half a century at the shortest, such as modern cars; at the longest, hundreds of years, such as Nintendo.

79 years ago, Kiichiro Toyoda founded Toyota Motor Corporation to fulfill his father's dream: to produce "Made in Japan" cars and break the American car monopoly. He knew that in order to realize this dream, he must first become a leader in the Japanese domestic market.

Kiichiro Toyoda thought that if every 10 people in Japan owned 1 car (at that time, the average American owned 1 car for every 4 people), 100 million Japanese would need 10 million; according to the average use of cars Calculated with a life span of 10 years, 1 million new vehicles need to be added every year; this is a very fascinating and huge market. Dominant in such a market, there will be the cost of competing with American cars.

In 1957, Toyota, which has become Japan's largest car manufacturer, exported its first sedan to the American market with the idea of "going to the United States to sell and see", and began to embark on the road of globalization. In 2008, 75 years after its establishment, Toyota surpassed General Motors to become the number one car sales in the world, and Toyota also became the car brand with the highest brand value in the world.

The dreams of Kiichiro Toyoda and his father were continued and carried forward from generation to generation of Toyota people, allowing Toyota to survive crisis after crisis: the company's financial crisis in 1950, the two oil crises in 1973 and 1979, 1997 The Asian financial crisis in 2008 and the global economic crisis caused by the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States in 2008.

Dreams are to brands what air is to people. As long as there is a breath, no matter how difficult it is, the brand will stand tall.

Similar to Toyota, Canon was born 75 years ago because its founders Goro Yoshida, Takeshi Mitarai and others had the dream of "making Japan's own cameras and overthrowing the world dominance of Germany's Leica".

“Once, when friends got together to drink beer and talked about the future, everyone agreed that the German precision industry made Lycra and achieved success, and the Japanese precision industry also has many excellent things, and we can’t be inferior. ." Canon's first president Takeshi Mitarai later wrote in his memoirs. As a result, "beating Leica" became the slogan of the start-up Canon.

In this sense, Canon can be called the originator of Japanese cameras. Driven by the dream, Canon began to set its sights on the international market after taking a dominant position in the Japanese market. In 1947, the first year Japan resumed international trade, Canon cameras were designated by the government as the best export commodity.

In 1961, the people who fought for the Canon brand took the lead in grafting the booming emerging electronic technology to Canon cameras in the world, developed the world's first electronic camera Canonet, and finally took Leica from the throne of the global camera overlord Get off the horse.

In the first 10 years of this century, Canon further promoted its globalization work and actively organized a global center with China as the center The scale of emerging markets, and the digitalization of various products such as cameras, copiers, and printers. Canon ranks in the global famous brand list every year, and its brand value is steadily increasing.

Like Japanese famous brands, Samsung and Hyundai's road to becoming a strong brand also benefited from the founder's dream. "Three" means big, many, and strong in Korean, and "star" means clear, bright, far-reaching, and eternally shining. 74 years ago, Li Bingzhe was named after Samsung, which expressed his hopes, longings and dreams for his career. Under the guidance of the dream, Samsung has realized the leap from a low-end brand in the traditional industry to a high-end brand in the high-tech industry.

Before founding Hyundai Motor, Zheng Zhouyong worked as a farmer, a dock worker, a rice shop clerk, a small owner of an auto repair factory, and an accomplished builder. But his passion is to build cars. In his view, the prosperity of a nation is historically proportional to the development of motor means; from the ancient horse-riding nation, the marine motor power of modern Britain and the automobile of modern America can all be proved.

Because of such a dream, Jung Joo-young did not hesitate when he was forced to choose between "enriching power generation facilities" and "developing the automobile industry" against the backdrop of the Korean government's efforts to improve social inequality and curb the power of consortia. He chose to develop the automobile industry, and even rejected the 50% investment by General Motors of the United States, and entered the era of the "Korean automobile" industry that completed independent development, production and sales.

Because of this dream, Zheng Zhouyong set the goal for Hyundai Motor to enter the world's top five automobiles. Although he did not see this day in his lifetime, under the leadership of his son Zheng Mengjiu, his long-cherished wish was finally realized, and Hyundai also entered the ranks of global famous brands.

Japan and South Korea's global famous brands pursue their dreams and realize their dreams, witnessing two basic experiences. Martin Rolle summed up one of his experiences as: Brand building is a strategic process that requires long-term efforts and persistence.

Another lesson is consistent with some important principles of global branding proposed by Al Rees. In his opinion, a global brand needs a "home", which is the place where the brand starts, such as Coca-Cola in the United States, Mercedes-Benz in Germany, Toyota in Japan, and Samsung in South Korea. The first step in building a global brand is to occupy the leading position in the product category in the brand’s home country, and then start to develop the international market.

The Ultimate of Famous Brands: Globalization

The globalization of Japanese and Korean brands is not only driven by their corporate dreams, but also driven by external forces. The first is that after the Second World War, Western industrialization entered a golden period of vigorous development, which provided opportunities for Japanese and Korean brands to expand overseas markets. Major Japanese brands have been globalizing since the 1950s and 1960s, and South Korean major brands since the 1970s and 1980s.

Toyota began to globalize, starting with the export of the first Crown sedan to the United States in 1957. Sony began to go global, exporting semiconductor radios and semiconductor TVs to the United States in the 1960s. Panasonic began to go global, beginning with the opening of its New York office in 1953. Hyundai's globalization began when it exported Pony cars to Canada in the 1970s.

The brand globalization strategy in this period focuses on the brand image of high quality, low price and affordable price. Martin Rolle explained: “Japanese brands were deeply influenced by the fact that the industrialization of the Western world deepened after World War II. The Japanese started exporting their brands in the 1950s and 1960s, when the Western world was thriving, and many became The middle class, with more disposable income, moved into their own homes. Japanese brands at the time offered consumers an affordable value proposition, while Western brands were still expensive by comparison.”

The digital revolution is another force driving brand growth. The digital revolution emerged in the 1980s, and in the 1990s, digital technology was widely used. In 2000, the digital revolution swept the world. Nintendo embarked on the road of globalization at the beginning of the digital revolution, and developed a high-tech but inexpensive home computer game console, which was equipped with "Super Mario" and "Tetris" game software, and quickly opened up in the global market.

"Super Mario" and the more than 100 Nintendo TV game show cards that followed, literally turned the American entertainment industry upside down, and some people exclaimed: Nintendo brought Japan's "cultural invasion". "Tetris" swept the world in the future.

In order to establish Nintendo's trustworthy brand image, Nintendo carried out targeted brand promotion activities and launched a large-scale advertising campaign with the theme of "Who Are You". In the initial stages of the campaign, Nintendo put out a number of high-impact ads, embedding Nintendo game protagonists into well-known photos and images. For example, Nintendo glued its most famous game character "Mario" to the Berlin Wall and the face of the popular "Yoqi" to the face of "Kiss" rock band frontman and bassist Gene Simmons. The ad campaign reinforces Nintendo's brand positioning as an "innovator who builds pop culture."

In order to seize the business opportunities brought by the digital revolution, Samsung launched a "new management" innovation movement from 1994 to 1996. The "new management" is not only about redesigning Samsung's business structure, but also about making world-class products, delivering total customer satisfaction, and being a good global corporate citizen. "New management" is a decisive turning point in Samsung's development process, and it is the repositioning of the entire company on the basis of "quality first". It infuses Samsung's products with digital technology that elevates the brand's taste.

Martin Rolle commented: "Japanese and Koreans are at the forefront of the digital revolution, which is another driver of Japanese and Korean brands."

The rapid growth of emerging economies, including the BRICs development, providing major Japanese and Korean brands with a huge market for further globalization. Almost all of these brands focus on China as a very important market in their globalization.

In addition to industrialization, the digital revolution, and emerging markets, there is another force driving the globalization of Japanese brands, and that is the rising operating costs of domestic companies.

Looking at the brand value and financial performance over the past 10 years, Samsung has been successful and Sony has been in trouble. However, in Al Reese's view, Samsung's success is not the success of the brand strategy, but the manufacturing cost is lower than Sony. He believes that Samsung and Sony have adopted the same branding strategy: In the fragmented electronics industry, both companies expand their product lines to cover new product categories, and both market their products under a single brand name. Why does this "expansion" strategy work for Samsung but not for Sony? The answer is the cost of production, and the cost of making a product in Japan is higher than in South Korea.

Looking back at history, the cost of making products in Japan was not high in the past. However, with the development of the Japanese economy, wages have increased, and so have production costs. This situation will happen in China one day. How to do?

Al Rees advises Chinese managers to prepare for the future. When the day comes when operating costs rise, Chinese companies will have to sell branded value rather than low-priced products. "So how do you increase brand equity? By focusing on making your brand represent specific attributes that make sense in consumers' minds. If you want to expand your product line, start a new brand, don't use an existing one."

With Toyota Take this most valuable brand as an example. When Toyota decided to make high-end cars, it did not use the brand name "Toyota", but called it "Lexus"; when Toyota decided to enter the youth market, it did not use the brand name "Toyota", but called it "Scion" ; Toyota decided to produce a hybrid car, instead of using the brand name "Toyota", it called it "Prius".

Al Rees says Chinese companies must do the same when globalizing their brands. Focus, let the core brand represent a certain attribute, and then use the new brand for the new product category.

The foundation of famous brands: quality

Japanese and Korean famous brand companies know that quality is the capital of brand marketing in the global market. Therefore, in the process of brand globalization, they spare no effort to improve product quality.

Hyundai entered the U.S. market with the small cars Pony and Excel in 1986, and achieved a good start with sales of 170,000 units in the first year. However, due to quality problems, sales fell to 90,000 units in 1998. The famous American talk show host David Reitman even joked on the show: "Want to scare astronauts? Just stick a Hyundai logo on the control panel of his spaceship."

At this critical moment, Zheng Mengjiu, the chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, took office in 2002, decisively put forward the concept of "quality management", strengthened quality and marketing, and sales increased rapidly since then. In 2005, Hyundai Motor officially established a factory in the United States, ushering in an era of "Made in America" integrating development, production, sales and after-sales service. Since then, Hyundai has really opened the door to the American market. So far, Hyundai Motor Group's market share in the United States has risen from 3.3% in 2001 to 9.4% now, quadrupling in 10 years.

Hyundai Motors owes its success to its commitment to quality management. Data from the JD POWER U.S. New Car Quality Survey shows that Hyundai's new car quality has improved significantly (see figure "U.S. New Car Quality Survey 1995-2010" on page 34).

In Liu Chengyuan's view, most corporate brands in Japan and South Korea are the result of taking advantage of the trend on the basis of conscientiously doing a good job in products and services. A product has a brand. The so-called quality is the taste, conduct and quality of the enterprise, employees, products and services. There is usually no shortcut to enhance corporate brand value, but more efforts should be made to improve product quality, optimize employee conduct, and enhance corporate taste. Chinese enterprises like packaging and hype, but they have not done enough to improve taste, character and quality, and need to be corrected.

In 2010, Toyota was forced to recall thousands of vehicles from the global market due to quality problems with pedals, brakes and fuel lines. Analysts at JPMorgan Chase estimate that the recall will cost Toyota as much as $1.8 billion. At the same time, the loss caused by the suspension of sales of the eight problem models due to the repair of the accelerator pedal will also be as high as 700 million US dollars. As a result, Toyota's brand value in 2010 decreased by 16% year-on-year.

Liu Chengyuan believes that Toyota's setbacks show that quality is the foundation of the brand, and it also has a positive warning significance for Toyota and Toyota people who are running smoothly. He believes that Toyota, which has learned its lessons, will get better and better in the future.

Martin Rolle said that both the quality concept of the brand and the emotional concept of the brand are inseparably and closely related to the country or region. In the 1950s and 1960s, Japan was not known for quality. Korea has improved its quality over the past 20 years. Today, no one would question the quality of products from Japan and Korea.

Wings of Famous Brands: Design

Many Asian consumers, including many Chinese consumers, are very fond of Korean pop culture, such as movies, TV dramas, comedy, architecture, and therefore like Korean brands.

In Martin Roll's view, it's brand design that works well. He explained that the "Korean Wave" movement vigorously promoted by the Korean government has had a positive impact on Korean brands. Through this campaign, the Korean government is trying to get global consumers to form the concept of a modern, moving, dynamic, and globalized society in Korea. In terms of brand design, Samsung and Hyundai also hope to express this Korean image, while conveying the personality of high quality and innovative design.

For example, the oblique letter H in the oval of Hyundai Motor Company's logo is the first letter of Hyundai's English name HYUNDAI. The oval represents both the steering wheel of the car and the earth. The combination of the two means that Hyundai cars are all over the world.

In 1969, Honda used an elongated "H" trademark to highlight the eagle's image. In 1980, in order to reflect the characteristics of Honda's youth, advanced technology and novel design, it was decided to use the "H" trademark that resembles a three-string speaker.

Comparing the brand design of Hyundai and Honda, I feel that Hyundai's design is more dynamic and Honda's design is more technical. This reflects the cultural characteristics of Japanese and Korean brand images to a certain extent.