Tom Doctoroff: Paul French is wrong about China (and Tom Doctoroff)

Tom Doctoroff, CEO of J. Walter Thompson for Greater China, accepted my invitation to respond to the critique of his book by Shanghai-based writer and businessman Paul French.

In a nutshell, French said (blog posting here or video here)hat Doctoroff falsely claims a pioneering role in opening China in his book Billions: Selling to the new Chinese consumer.

The real pioneer, French said, is Carl Crow, a Shanghai adman in the 1920s and 1930s who introduced Buick and other brands to China. French recently published the book Carl Crow, a tough old China hand.

Doctoroff’s reply to French:

Thomas,

I don’t know what to say. I believe the posting is unbalanced and the tone is bully-boy cocky.

How does one respond to a sweeping statement — at least my book, on the first page, warns of “generalizations” — that yours truly is “wrong about China.”

And then he rails against me, sarcasm dripping, for having the audacity to call myself a “pioneer” when Carl Crow had already seen “everything.” He’s playing a gotcha game gone bad.

First, I have never called myself a pioneer. And, by the way, no one “took credit” (or implied involvement) for launching Buick. We did not even do that work. Bates did.

Second, Carl Crow was man of ahead of his time — yes, he was a “pioneer” and blessed with extraordinary insight and observational skill. However, he did not see “everything.”

The world has changed just a bit in 75 years.

He did not see a middle class boasting 150 million people and an auto market with 6 million passenger cars sold per year. He did not see a mass market — now penetrating the rural fringe — snapping up mobile phones and using them to transform their lives. He did not see multinational corporations setting up R&D centers and manufacturing scale on the mainland. He did not see that extraordinary release of energy that resulted from the embrace of capital markets.

For anyone to assume that “everything” has been seen before discredits that extraordinary genius of the Chinese people and their ability to adapt to an evolving world without sacrificing their enduring cultural orientation.

It also denigrates the efforts of, yes, expatriate businessmen who, while far from perfect and certainly not always noble, have done their part to make China a more dynamic place as the 21st century unfolds.

Tom Doctoroff

Technorati Tags: billions, China, Chinese consumers, Paul French, Tom Doctoroff

Paul French: Why Tom Doctoroff is wrong about China

Shanghai-based writer/businessman Paul French rants (and froths a little) in this video about why China marketing guru Tom Doctoroff is wrong about China.

Doctoroff is CEO Greater China of J. Walter Thompson, a blogger and author of the bestselling book Billions: Selling to the New Chinese Consumer.

UPDATE: Doctoroff accepted my invitation to reply and did so in this posting: Tom Doctoroff: Paul French is wrong about China (and Tom Doctoroff)

Why is French apoplectic?

French says that Doctoroff and other current-day China gurus from the west falsely claim pioneering roles in opening up China.

In fact, the real foreign pioneer in opening China’s market to western-style consumerism was the 1920s and 1930s Shanghai adman Carl Crow.

In particular, French said Doctoroff claims to be the first to launch Buick in China (which Crow did), the first to use a woman in a car advertisement (which Crow did) as well as a few other things that Crow did first. (The title of Doctoroff’s own book - Billions - echoes Crow’s book 400 Million Consumers)

Full disclosure of the French agenda: He wrote a (great) biography called Carl Crow, a Tough Old China Hand.

I also highly recommend reading Crows own essays on China Foreign Devils in the Flowery Kingdom. Crow’s seminal work, 400 Million Consumers, will soon be issued in reprint by the China Economic Review.

Be great to hear from Doctoroff on this!

UPDATE: Doctoroff accepted my invitation to reply and did so in this posting: Tom Doctoroff: Paul French is wrong about China (and Tom Doctoroff)

Technorati Tags: Carl Crow, China, JW Thompson, JWT, Paul French, Tom Doctoroff

User Generated Dubbing: American Idol in Hmong

Proof that User Generated Dubbing has now reached landlocked Laos: American Idol dubbed into Hmong.

Really amusing interpretive noises for emotion.

Technorati Tags: American idol, dubbing, Hmong, user generated

Lonnie Hodge: Praise for Baidu selling search results

Unlike Google, China’s dominant search engine - Baidu - sells its results page.
Lonnie Hodge, a search engine optimization expert (see video here about his departure from academics after many years), sent over some slides about a relatively new way Baidu is selling search results: Brandlink.

For one million RMB (Roughly US$130,000), a brand - and only the brand itself - can show their logo and image with search results.

Brandlink can help companies control and develop their reputation.
“We were contacted by two companies who were Google and Baidu-bombed by a competitor via BBS and blog reference negativity (mostly fake) and both were doing a lot of damage,” Hodge said, adding that Brandlink might help mitigate this problem.

It is naive to think that Google’s results are not for sale
Google may not be directly involved in the sale of their results, but Hodge pointed out that there is a reason people pay top dollar to search engine specialists. These specialists work for the wealthiest and savviest companies to skew results. “The average SEO specialist in the US with 5 to 7 years of campaign management can command US$100,000 to US$250,000 for his/her talents. That certainly indicates an uneven playing field exists and that the results are dubious at best.”

initial results show from Baidu’s Brandlink show an improved rate of click-through

But the question remains: Are purchased search results unethical?
Hodge praised Baidu for only selling the top four results and putting a line under them and only allowing brands and government agencies to buy their own search results page.