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The power of popular culture celebrity has yet to reach China, despite it's opening up and embracing of free market ideals in the past decade. But inevitably it will. What is still under control is WHOSE culture it will mirror... Youth celebrities or 'idols' are strong opinion leaders for youth worldwide. And the teen market is becoming increasingly important in many Asian nations, including the massive potential Chinese market. Advertisers, market researchers, and marketing professionals are well aware of their power, and it is useful to understand the different dynamics that underly differences in those cheesy 'top idols' lists from country to country and culture to culture. One interesting contrast has been provided today in the naming of "top idols" by a sample of Hong Kong teenagers aged 13 to 17, and a similar sample of mainland Chinese teenagers in Guanzhou, Nanjing and Changsha. Hong Kong City University research of 298 high school students (admittedly a very small sample) revealed that 9 of the 'top ten idols' were Cantonese pop stars. Despite proclamations from above that there should be no idols apart from him/her, 'God' came in at the rear of the field with a creditable 9th. Out of 1,343 students in Guangzhou, Nanjing and Changsa in mainland China, an incredibly eclectic group made up the top ten, including foreign capitalists, elderly local pollies, dead revolutionaries and scientists. Former premier Chou En Lai came in first, followed by US IT entrepreneur and richest man in the world Bill Gates, revolutionary Mao Zedong, scientist Albert Einstein, and top current pollie Deng Xiaoping. In officially atheist China, God didn't even get a look in. Also interesting, but not reported, would be results from Shanghai, as the China mainland's most global city. Results may well vary there again. As distinct from top ten youth idol lists world wide, the Chinese list is characterised by eclecticism, and a respect for intellectuals and politicians and 'old guys' generally unheard of elsewhere. Now that's the sort of kids any one would want of course... But much of this can be attributed to the Chinese education system and highly controlled media. No matter how much we like it, this list will change as China becomes more global. That it will change is inevitable, but HOW it changes is still up for grabs by forward thinkers. The Western style pop-idol is generally manufactured by ad agencies and cunning PR stunts, bequeathing a credibility on singers and actors far beyond the quality of their natural talent. Idol status goes far beyond acclaim for artistic talent only, and moves to a curiosity of their personal lives, opinions, and values. As such pop celebrities become powerful opinion leaders for their fans, despite these being generally immature and transient. This transience however is no barrier to their value as celebrity endorsers in promotion and advertising, especially for short to medium term product launches. Perhaps the first "manufactured" pop idols were the American 1960's pop group "The Monkees" - a group of limited-to-average out of work struggling talents who were developed as a commodity by rigorous selection, training, media exposure and what we know call "brand guardianship". They were not only marketed by advertisers, but created and developed by them. It was a multi-media blitz - several singles and record albums and the TV show were the result. More recent examples were the Richard Branson manufactured "Sex Pistols", plus the "Spice Girls" and others who we do not want to refer to by name in order to avoid unwanted hits to this server! A more recent but well established pop-icon genre were supermodels. Typically pop-idols have a limited shelf life, consistent with the lower attention spans of this age group, though certain ex-pop-idols have managed to steal enough of the branding equity to develop latter, more substantive careers. MTV, born in the USA, is now acknowledged by many as the leading global youth brand. Ad placement rates attest to it's brand power. Despite localization, especially to markets that have their own indigenous pop culture such as the Canto-pop oriented Hong Kong and Thailand (and increasingly but from a fair way back - Indonesia), the core brand image of MTV remains Western. Countries such as Singapore and Malaysia face a double-edged sword. In these paternally-governed places, the development of a youth culture was discouraged, resulting in the stultification of the development of any indigenous-culture-based, creative and grass roots industry. Into the void comes the Global MTV, which explains why visiting US pop-idols are greeted with mass hysteria, while local clubs feature insipid cover versions of US hits rather than the sometimes more talented "local heroes". At the same time however, paradoxically and in a limited way, MTV has probably done more to encourage local indigenous talent and local youth icons than those that claim to safeguard and nurture local culture. The implications from the two surveys quoted above for advertising strategy in Hong Kong and China and the use of celebrity endorsements in Asia generally are so obvious they need not be spelled out for our readers. Yet another example, again from the US, is also relevant. Recently the US Disney owned ABC network came under severe criticism for considering replacing the well regarded "Newsline" program in a prime time slot with the comic Dave Letterman. The justification was that even though both programs were attracting the same ratings, the viewer ship profile of Letterman was "much younger". The unstated argument of course is that a youth viewership results in higher ad placement rates, in an American broadcast industry that, unlike countries like Britain and Australia with their independent high-quality government funded TV stations, is at the beck and call of commercial interests, even when it comes to programming. Such is the American belief in the innate goodness of private enterprise. As distinct from the US and British/Australian models, Asian models generally see the media as dependent on government control as the US is to commercial interests. Such is the Asian belief in the innate goodness of their political rulers - and indeed the credibility or "power" itself. There is absolutely no doubt that as China embraces private enterprise, the nature of youth idols and heroes will change. Much as we dislike it, it is an inevitable by-product of the model, and government curbs and balances, even for a country as large and potentially powerful, as well as authoritarian as China, will become increasingly ineffective. Singapore and Malaysia may already have missed the boat. Among Chinese youth in these countries, Hong Kong celebrities and Western Hollywood stars predominate. And for some segments, Indian Bollywood stars do rate. Malaysia failed to capitalise on a potentially powerful Bumi Rock culture for various political fears. Now Malaysia faces the threat of what is referred to as American culture "satan-rock" influences that gained influence in the absence of a viable local alternative. Much better for Asian countries serious about retaining their identity to nurture and develop their own creative indigenous youth culture and celebrities now, than see the void pounced upon by foreign popular cultures. China still has a choice... Email the Chao Phraya River Rat
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© Asian Business Strategy & Street Intelligence Ezine 2002
The views expressed here may not necessarily reflect those of partners, publishers, editorial board nor sponsors of the Asia Pacific Management Forum
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