Study On The Branding Strategy Of Chinese Ceramic Exports

Chinese ceramics is China's traditional export product, which has a long history of 5,000 years. Now China has become a genuine major ceramic producing country and major trading country, taking a prominent status in the international market. As the birthplace of ceramic industry, China possesses the reputation of "Ceramic Capital". After the accession to the WTO, China's ceramic exports have gone to more than 200 countries and territories, enjoying a stable and sustainable development, contributing a great deal to the country's export development. According to the Customs'statistics, since 2002, our ceramic exports'growth has maintained the rapid growth of 20% in the last several years. But our ceramic exports slow down due to the gradual energy saving measures in the last two years, the decrease of the export tax rebate rate, as well as the depreciation of the RMB, and the limited adjustment of our ceramic export strategies.In addition, for Chinese ceramic enterprises, the cheap labor and so-called abundant resources have been our comparative advantages that we depend on. However, affected by the rising prices of raw materials and energy, rising labor costs and international trade protectionism, as well as some other factors, such comparative advantages are gradually overshadowed by multinational brands. The current competition evolves into competition in branding and products'popularity.For Chinese ceramic industry, the conflicts between the manufacturing power and small brand popularity, as well as conflicts between large export amount and weak export competitiveness are becoming more and more prominent. These factors lead to our ceramic industry's disadvantage in the competition with international ceramic giants. Our ceramic brands can hardly be seen as high-end products in international market. How to deal with the current competition, upgrade our products and take a lead in the development of the world's ceramic industry has become an urgent issue to both Chinese ceramic enterprises and the government. Without famous brands, the low-end products will sooner or later come to a dead end. Therefore, in order to remain invincible in the fierce competition and to enhance our core competitiveness, developing brand strategies, exploring international ceramic markets and building our own competitive advantages have become the primary issue and the focus.This paper is supported by relevant theories, such as brand-building strategies and international trade theories, aiming to make a complete study on the current famous domestic and international ceramic brands. Then, the paper uses SWOT model approach to analyze the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat of Chinese ceramic industry, so as to emphasize the urgency of the situation and give an overview of the industry. Next, the writer puts forward effective approaches for the brand building of Chinese ceramic products.This study is divided into seven parts.Chapter one is an introduction presenting the general situation of Chinese ceramic industry's development and points out the significance of the theme. Chinese civilizations and national image can be greatly reflected by Ceramics. Ceramic branding is not only the top priority and focus for ceramic industry, but also important for Chinese image in international stage. Then, the writer explains the purposes and implications of this paper, which are to help our ceramic industry win international market and reputation. The third part of chapter one is the summary of the theoretical articles relating the ceramic brand strategy including researches on brand building strategy, enterprise status, as well as inadequacy of ceramic brand building. To end this chapter, the writer mainly points out the major contribution of this paper, its research methods and the structure of the paper. Chapter two is branding theories. This chapter firstly introduces the connotation and characteristics of brand. The composing elements of a brand include external factors and internal factors. Brand, in essence, represents the sellers'commitments with the product features, benefits and services to the buyers. The brand's essential characteristics are practicability, symbolism and cultural identity. It has functions like identification and image modeling, value added, better sales and management, restriction and protection. It can create competitive advantages like avoiding frequent occurrence of anti-dumping, brand's premium effect, low cost advantage, differentiation advantage. Then, it introduces the brand strategies like brand positioning, brand differentiation, brand communication and brand marketing. In the end, it introduces brand strategy model. The relative study on brand strategy can provide theoretical guidance for the paper.Chapter three is mainly about the history of domestic and oversea ceramic industry and the analysis of its export situation. At first, the history of our ceramic industry is introduced. After that, the current situation of Chinese ceramic exports is introduced. The amount of domestic ceramic exports is increasing while the amount of sanitary ceramic exports has slight decrease; there are changes in export structure of ceramic products; there is further expansion in export markets; the EU exports maintain to be the first export market and the exports to the U.S. have slight increase over the previous year; the main production base for ceramic export is formed; there is steady development of high-grade ceramic market. Then this paper introduces the international trade situation, such as ceramic industry is developed to developing countries, developing export capability in developing countries. By these analyses, we can see the application of brand strategy has great importance to the development of our ceramic industry.Chapter four introduces the status of domestic and international ceramic brands. At first, the regional brands are introduced. Then China's ceramic brands and their brand strategies are introduced, including Dongpeng, New Zhongyuan, Huaguang and Red Rose. Then international ceramic brands and their branding strategies are introduced, including Wedgwood, Royal Doulton, Hermes, Royal Copenhagen and Noritake. The observation toward these typical and successful branding cases can provide a reference for the Chinese ceramic brand building.Chapter five conducts SWOT analysis towards our ceramic brand building. Our brand building has strengths such as affluent historical context, rich ceramic raw materials and resources, large ceramic industry scale, development of supporting industries. The weak points include the lack of brand awareness, effective branding strategy and core competence, rising prices of the domestic raw materials and energy, low-carbon economic pressure on national energy emission reduction policies. While there are still opportunities for our ceramic brand building, for example, fierce competition is beneficial for industry integration, autonomy is gained in foreign trade after China's accession to WTO, there are fairer competitive environment, and exchange rate reform helps improve the export structure of Chinese ceramic products. At the same time, we need be aware of the threats we are encountering, for example, consumers'weak sense of national brand, the adjustment of export tax rebate policy, appreciation of the RMB, international trade protectionism and anti-dumping. These analyses can provide guidance for the establishment of brand strategy.Chapter six finalizes the approaches and suggestions to our ceramic brand building. Combining with lots of theoretical study and case study, the paper puts forward meaningful and practical strategies, like conducting well brand positioning and upgrading brand culture connotation, enhancing core competitiveness, conducting continuous innovation and industry consolidation, conducting scale of production and government-led branding operation, and enhancing brand protection and brand crisis awareness.Chapter seven is the summary of the paper, obtaining the conclusion that Chinese ceramic brands will finally reach out to the world and involve in the international competition.