Understanding Asia: key to PR success
Overview
If you are in the same position as the majority of the companies
we speak to you probably view Asia as one of the biggest opportunities
for the growth of your business. However, you may also see
it as one of the greatest challenges: how to approach this
seemingly complex, multifarious market. From our experience,
the reality of tackling a PR campaign in Asia rarely lives
up to the trauma you may have imagined.
The key to rolling out a smooth Asian PR campaign is in the planning and intelligent
prioritisation of target markets. It requires understanding of where and when
PR investment will derive maximum return on investment.
With that in mind and to help you take some of the stress out of ‘what to do
about Asia’, I have compiled a few tips to consider. If you would like to download
a PDF version of this whitepaper, please click here.
Ten top tips to sharpen your approach to PR in Asia
1. David’s Dim Sum strategy
Cut Asian PR campaigns into bite size chunks & divide your markets into tier 1, 2 and 3.
2. The Art of War haiku (sorry about mixing of cultural metaphors)
Attack tier 1 first
Focus on just three tier 1
Tier 2 and 3 next
3. Social media in Asia
It may not be the same blogs and microblogging sites we know in Europe and North America, but there is a huge and growing social media community in Asia. Almost half of the world’s internet traffic originates from the region, but whilst there is a huge community of personal blogs, the use of social media in B2B communications is not yet as developed in Asia. Listen to what this chap has to say about Asia’s ‘digital topography’ (Dec 2008): but then take your agency’s advice on the relative importance of social media targets in your top tier regions.
4. Lost in translation
Don’t cut corners, or the results will suffer. Translate your core press material into the local language and take your agency’s advice on the use of interpreters. If you’re launching in Taiwan, make sure you use Taiwanese translators, don’t just convert copy translated for Hong Kong or mainland China.
5. Great Wall
The world is a smaller place, but surprisingly, activities done in Korea may not affect your Chinese or Japanese audiences… the two can be done at different times without any negative impact. Hence a road trip around multiple countries in Asia is possible and may actually be more effective than a simultaneous launch using multiple spokespersons in different cities. Some markets may be more sensitive to receiving ‘old news’ later than global announcements, so plan carefully with your agency’s advice.
6. Silk road
Plan time on the road allocating at least one full day for press activity in each location. By all means build in time for sales meetings between press days, but don’t cut press time short particularly on first tours. First impressions really do count for a lot and relationships mean everything.
7. Rising sun
Timings for press announcements are important, we all know that, but if you’re accustomed to giving the media news under embargoes, keep an open mind to a different approach for Asia (see tip 5). Embargoes in Japan and China in particular are not always honoured, so work with an agency who knows all of the markets you’re targeting, to ensure you plan a launch itinerary and timing strategy that takes into consideration all of the countries you plan to target.
8. When in…errm, Seoul
Face to face meetings is virtually the only way to do things properly in Asia, so again don’t cut corners and propose telephone briefings when you are being advised to do face to face briefings.
9. You say guo-tie, I say gyoza…let’s call it a dumpling
Remember that whilst parts of Asia share many cultural and even linguistic elements, each country should be treated as a different territory when planning your campaign. Although there may be some pan-regional media, there is no such single entity as an Asian campaign.
10. For goodness sa-ke
In Korea it’s very much the norm to feed the media after a press briefing, in other territories it would be considered strange or even rude to brief the press at lunchtime – again you need to take the advice of your agency and accept a different structure for each city you visit.
