Cultural chameleon

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A few years back, management guru Peter Drucker wrote that “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. American beer brand Budweiser has been living this mantra for some time now; it has achieved huge success in China by stepping aside from its iconic American forms and adapting to the local culture in a way that is both impressive and surprising. 

It’s surprising because it so forcefully underlines the fact that a familiar global brand can mean such different things in different places. It puts paid to what remains of the idea that with our Nikes and Apples, humankind is merging into some shared digital culture. It suggests that, ultimately, successful global brands need to be as much vectors of cultural difference as icons of universality.

A recent Chinese Bud TV spot illustrates this well. It’s set in an expensive western-style restaurant in a Shanghai skyscraper. A young Chinese yuppie in black tie sits at an impeccably laid table, gestures to the waiter who, with an acknowledging nod, brings our hero a bottle of the restaurant’s finest Budweiser. 

The bottle is tall, almost like a wine bottle with a gold neck. It looks expensive. He sips, the room becomes bathed in light and a beautiful woman arrives. With his suave smile, he offers a glass of Budweiser to his gracious western-looking date, they touch glasses, taste and we then cut away to a fireworks display as they float off across the night sky in a delicate suggestion of what lies ahead. We cut to an elegant image of what looks like a chef preparing the hops and then the final pack shot.

In the UK this ad might be seen as a spoof. And to give you a sense of how different this is to the way things are playing out back in the US, consider Bud’s recent Super Bowl ad, which caused huge controversy with a Trump-style attack on craft beers. To the sound of industrial rock and quick-cut images of blue collar machismo, words flash in block capitals stating how Bud is (unlike craft beer) NOT A HOBBY, NOT SMALL, NOT SIPPED, NOT IMPORTED, NOT A FRUIT CUP, NOT FOR EVERYONE and how Budweiser is NOT BACKING DOWN.

Let’s leave aside the irony that AB InBev has itself been investing heavily in craft brewers, it is clearly the case that it is deeply pragmatic about the need for geographies to pursue local strategies. Budweiser in China sells for three times the price of local beer. So, we can immediately see that as a super-premium product in China, it makes sense for the setting of the Chinese Bud ad to be about young millionaires in a posh restaurant, however unlikely that would seem elsewhere in the world.

But there is a great deal more to the cultural difference than the level of ‘premiumness’ and – to really understand what is going on in the Chinese ad, and why something that looks cheesily surreal to European eyes works so well in China – it’s useful to look at the ad through a cultural lens.

At TNS we have developed a semiotic framework that tells us how ‘the ideal man’ is constructed distinctly in different markets. By looking at the ad through the codes, we can see that the Bud ad fits with deep instincts about how a Chinese man should be. 

The framework has six lenses, but for our purposes we will talk about just three: how he is embedded in society; his consequent modus operandi; and the character of his masculinity, in contrast to femininity. 

Embeddedness refers to how a man is expected to align to his social environment – his essential way of being. In this regard, the Chinese ideal man is ‘circumspect’. He does not force himself onto a situation but must be hyper-aware of social interplay. In the ad we see that our hero fits perfectly to the cosmopolitan westernised setting, immaculately (and suitably) dressed, scrupulously polite, a consummate insider who, though high status, does not overplay his hand. He stands out by fitting in.

Modus operandi is all about the way a man should behave and, in this respect, the Chinese ideal man is strategic and prudent. He holds back from action until he is guaranteed success. In the TV spot our hero prepares the ground for his quarry and captures her while barely lifting a finger.

The masculinity code is about how he acts towards women. While the American is rugged/romantic, the ideal Chinese man is harmonious/caring, and here our hero treats the woman with great solicitude and gentleness. He raises his glass slightly lower than hers in a sign of respect, even though we know that he has won her – a victory confirmed by the softly exploding fireworks (another very characteristic Chinese touch) and the copious use of red and gold.

This same analysis can be used equally to show how Budweiser’s Super Bowl ad is as deeply American as the restaurant ad is Chinese. The embeddedness code for the US male is that he should have righteous purpose. Suffice it to say that NOT BACKING DOWN is full of righteous purpose; indeed it is an ad that sets out to take back the moral high ground from craft beer by wrapping the brand in blue collar patriotism. 

But, as we look at other codes, from the ‘can do’ of his modus operandi to the ‘ruggedness’ of his masculinity, NOT BACKING DOWN ticks every box of the American ideal.

What Budweiser shows us is that in managing a global beer brand – even one with a provenance heritage as rich as it has – local success is contingent on a willingness to define the brand in terms that make sense locally. The irony is that aligning to the culture is even more important if you are a prestigious foreign brand that charges a premium because it is foreign. Budweiser may be a premium foreign brand, but it’s a foreigner that is being very smart about winning local hearts and minds through implicit alignment with local codes.

William Landell Mills is qualitative director at TNS