With this in mind, we were interested to read in the FT
recently that Haier, the world’s leading appliance maker by sales volume and
one of China’s most famous brands, plans to expand in Europe: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d0ab49ba-b2b2-11e1-9bd6-00144feabdc0.html#axzz23b9UkQMG
With its German sounding name, it's likely that a lot of Western consumers probably think the brand is German. However, management say that it isn't an intentional move to give the impression that the brand comes from Germany, whose manufacturers have a global reputation for high quality and precision engineering. In fact, the name Haier comes from the Chinese character "hai" for “sea”.
With regards to its
Chinese roots, “We never emphasise that point,” says Li Pan, managing director
of Haier’s overseas division. “We don’t deny it, but we don’t emphasise it.” Arguably it helps the company not to have a Chinese sounding name, as frustratingly for Chinese
manufacturers, European consumers continue to perceive Chinese brands to be poor quality
and not cutting edge. For Haier, this certainly isn’t the case as it has been
singled out as a leader in Chinese innovation, spending heavily on local
R&D centres outside China; furthermore, its appliances have been highly
rated in the UK.
On a similar theme to the above, the importance of choosing an appropriate brand name to communicate a brand identity was further reinforced after a recent visit to a well-known restaurant chain in the UK. The Japanese style noodle bar ‘Wagamama’ was founded by London based, Hong Kong Chinese restaurateur, Alan Yau, in 1992. He clearly wanted to create a Japanese brand image and identity with a Japanese sounding name; however, while Wagamama is catchy, memorable and easy to pronounce, it also means selfish or self-centred in Japanese! In saying that, it’s all about customer perception and very few people in the UK will actually know the true meaning of the word, even if it sounds a bit strange to Japanese speakers.
