Market entry in China: What to consider to generate a good brand name in China ? Have you heard about the story behind Coca-Cola in Chinese? When Coca-Cola first entered Chinese Market on 1927, it was given the name “蝌蝌啃蜡”, which means ‘tadpole chews the wax’. It was really scary and nobody wanted to buy the products. The company then offered …
Fengshui in Chinese companies’ naming
Is Fengshui still important in Chinese companies’ naming? Since ancient time, fengshui has been a part of Chinese traditional culture. Nowadays, many Chinese companies still take fengshui into account in naming. Then problems arise: What is Fengshui？Why is Fengshui still important now？And how a Chinese company uses fengshui in brand naming? Chinese company name should be integrated into the Chinese …
China’s Single’s Day — making and breaking the bank
Congratulations to China entrepreneur and mega-millionaire MA Yun of Alibaba, who has a new title and a new pic to go with it: Founder of Bankrupt Broads* Day The pic went viral a couple days before Nov 11 (11-11), a date which has become a world-class shopping orgy whose single-day online sales for Ma, through his Taobao and T-Mall online …
How many names for Chairman Mao? Chinese personal naming traditions from “nursing names” to “Stupid”
For many generations, Chinese families have taken great pains in picking names for their children, fearing that “if the name is not correct, the words will not ring true” — a poorly chosen name will doom the child to ill fortune. Some of the painstaking care of naming can be seen by breaking down in the idea of “mingzi” 名字, …
Pube names II — connotation is everything
As mentioned before, we chose donkey name as the best term for a “disparaging name that doesn’t hurt your brand”. We’d also considered pube name (borrowing from 屌丝 diǎo sī = literally “pubic hair”), but in the end we dropped it for being a bit too vulgar for permanent usage. Now, though, the “diaosi = pube / loser” meme seems to be reaching deeper into the …
Lady’s day — the holiday with the problematic name
International Women’s Day came and went about a month ago, March 8. If you are living in the US, you could be forgiven for having missed it — the holiday doesn’t have much pull there, as I remember it. But here in China you can’t miss it. International Women’s Day everywhere. TV, subway posters, billboards… The holiday has taken on …