Offering Straight Talk on an Asian Weakness

Joseph Baladi grew up in Brazil and moved to Australia at the age of eleven. His career then took him to New York City, Mexico City, Tokyo, and Singapore. Joseph developed a broad view of values, consumer behavior and an appreciation for the power of brands to contribute to a company’s success. He has provided brand building advice to major global firms, such as Procter & Gamble, Mars, and Coca-Cola. Now based in Singapore, many praise him as the loudest voice advocating powerful Asian brands. Joseph has written hundreds of thought provoking articles on leadership for publications around the world. The Brutal Truth About Asian Branding is his first book. He can be contacted at [email protected]. Joseph gave this exclusive interview to Victor Fic, our special correspondent for economics and politics.

What does the term branding mean?

It means “process.” Not advertising, certainly not “logo”, but rather, a process that is started and maintained from within the organization. The central goal is self-definition of “ purpose “ and customer promise. Equally importantly, it means figuring out how to consistently deliver on these concerns.

Some critics complain that the weakness of books on branding is that they only address the ‘how’ question, whereas you focus on the ‘why.’ Your response to this?

My book focuses on the bad practices that are arresting the development of Asian brands. Among other things, Asian branding is incapacitated by the dual challenges of CEO ignorance about branding and third party branding advisors who poorly educate them. The reasons range from Alphatype CEOs who feel they know everything about branding to consultants who are willing to tell them what they want to hear, to common variety poor competencies among providers. And yes, I do spend sometime discussing the “why” in my book . This includes revealing that the real value of brands exists within a “cultural” context - meaning that brands help people define themselves.

You promise the reader that you will expose “brutal truths.” What are they?

There are many brutal truths that I identify in the book. And what is important to understand is that most are somehow connected. This means that when something goes “south” it triggers a chain reaction that creates vicious cycles. For instance:

• Branding is not created by third party providers or by an external influences like advertising;
• Branding is almost entirely and exclusively an internal process;
• Branding and advertising are connected but certainly NOT the same;
• The branding phase delivers, among other things, the “Brand Blueprint”. This should be the biggest ingredient in the “communications strategy” created for advertising. But it is not;
• A great deal of advertising in Asia is “off-brand” mostly because it is created without brand blueprints;
• Most Asian CEOs are unaware of most of this.

Name names, Joseph. What are some of Asia’s merely good brands that fall short of great? What are the latter brands?

As far as brands that “fall short,” I don’t name names any where. But many companies are blazing positive trails for others to follow, like Singapore-based Eu Yan Sang. By envisioning a different future it not only redefined itself but the entire Traditional Chinese Medicine category. Banyan Tree is another example. It is a luxury hospitality brand that refused to copy western luxury positioning models, and instead not only embraced its “Asianness” but also pioneered environmental consciousness in the category.

What causes this flaw?

If by flaws you refer to the reasons that contribute to poor branding in Asia, I identify 5 key reasons in the book:

1. Myopic CEO leadership;
2. Corporate culture is by default, rather than by design;
3. Charlatan brand practitioners;
4. Performance of government agencies;
5. Advertising agencies’ lack of branding competencies.

You warn that weak regional brands will slow economic growth in Asia. Is this an overstatement or can you argue your point?

Economic growth is often and justifiably measured by consumer consumption. Consumers mostly buy brands. It seems counter-intuitive that the Asian economic boom can continue on the back of consumer attraction to western brands, which is the present situation. Asian and Chinese brands must rise to maintain momentum. I am sure they will in time. Overall CEO education and books like mine will help.

Are you one of the few people ringing an alarm here?

I am one of the few people willing to stand up and tell Asian CEOs what they need to hear instead of what they want to hear. I want to believe that there are legions of CEOs who are receptive to straight talk even blunt talk. These individuals want to “know.”

You want Asian CEOs to think differently about branding, that you want to see a revolution. Meaning what?

The kind of unprecedented global change underway is so massive, so huge in scale that it literally can’t be seen by many. It’s that big. It’s like needing altitude and distance to recognize events - as well as the implications and opportunities.

The most visible manifestation of the opportunities are in how the so-called Asian or Chinese Century is defined. If the penny drops and sufficient Asian CEOs recognize the power of branding, the Asian Century might have a similar impact on the lives of people around the world that the American century did - that is through its brands, commercial and otherwise. This is where the real prize for the Asian/Chinese century lies.

It is easy to demand change, but how do you propose to achieve this?

We do it one visionary at a time. We need courageous leaders, particularly in China if the “Made in China” problems are to be overcome. They exist and will lead the change forward.