| China has been in the spotlight ever since the beginning of the new Century.Despite of the miraculous achievements, however, the growth of China is refrained bymany problems. The status of Chinese enterprises on the global market place is stillmarked by a lack of competitiveness, especially in terms of branding. To change froma big economy to a strong economy, it is very important for China to cultivate its ownbrands with global influence.Advertising is the main platform for branding, and to build up iconic brandswhich are characterized by profound and lasting influence among consumers, theadvertising should be far more than simply about the products, but should be morefocused on the communications on the level of values and cultures. This, however, isconsidered to be quite a big challenge when it comes to branding across cultures. Toventure a way in this field, this paper, through adapting from the "cultural brandingtheory" by Douglas Holt which is proved to closely related to iconic brands buildingwithin a culture, is set to analyze how to build an iconic brand in different cultures bydeconstructing the branding process of Nike in China with approaches of semioticanalysis and discourse analysis, two most effective constructionist meaning-buildingmethods according to Stuart Hall.The paper is threaded by the following questions:(1) How does CulturalBranding work in cross-cultural context by examining Nike’s branding advertisementsin China?(2) How did Nike build up its brand meaning and iconic status in China?(3)What can the Chinese enterprises learn from Nike’s experience in China whileentering the global market?Through the semiotic and discourse analysis of Nike’s classic advertisements inChina, the meaning building process was deconstructed and effectiveness of thecultural branding theory in cross-cultural context was substantiated. The relationshipbetween Nike’s success in China and the effort made by Chinese brands to win aninternational fame was also given consideration. |
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