China Trip Insights on Creating Meaningful Brands

At the end of October I spent 10 days in China, traveling with my orchestra from Beijing to Shanghai, to Macao and to Hong Kong. With concerts almost every night, the schedule was very tight, but as it usually happens with going to new places, this still gave me an opportunity to see the world through a different lens.

And one day while walking in the historical centre of Macao, the UNESCO World Heritage site, by the way, I thought that it was the time to revive my little tradition of putting together my travel insights and discoveries, and capture them on paper. Well, eventually, on the blog. They’re very subjective, based on the places that I got to see on the fast-paced trip, but, I believe, they could still be useful for those curious visionaries on the journey to build meaningful brands (Is that you, right?). Because brands with hearts start with people with hearts, adventurous, attentive, and open to new things. 

Brand approaches

#1 Culture & brands’ marriage: joining forces to present new projects
Fotografiska & Louis Vuitton in Shanghai

I visited Shanghai just 5 days after the opening of a new Fotografiska museum. With outposts in Stockholm, Berlin, Tallinn, and New York, it is a place to discover contemporary photography. At the new premises in Shanghai, which are restored warehouse buildings, Louis Vuitton presented a special pop-up – “Nóng Hó 侬好, Shanghai” (“Hello, Shanghai”), featuring the new edition of the Louis Vuitton City Guide Shanghai, the brand’s artist books, and limited edition items.

Next to it, there was a temporary LV coffee shop where I tried a special cinnamon latte, which for some reason looked like a fried egg on top of coffee (it was still tasty, though). The vibe was very lively, and there were a lot of young people hanging out there. I also read that LV hosted a four-week-long cultural festival with book club meetings, architecture tours, film screenings, and jazz music experiences. Besides that, the brand launched its first Chinese podcast series “Louis Vuitton [EXTENDED]” on the Xiaoyuzhou platform with the episodes covering the memories of the Suzhou River and the classic local breakfast of youtiao (Chinese deep-fried donuts) and soymilk.

In addition to presenting the pop-up, Louis Vuitton became a sponsor of the Feng Li exhibition “White Nights in Wonderland”, one of the key inaugural shows at Fotografiska Shanghai. I think the partnership was a smart move both from the museum and the brand: the pop-up was generating a lot of attention and traffic to the the newly opened museum, and the Fotografiska audiences could discover the LV project. Also, it’s important that collaboration didn’t stop at the pop-up level, but it also included exhibition support. As a take away from this story, as a brand leader, what can you do to help in jumpstarting a new cultural project? How can you join forces with culture to create meaningful content and experiences?

Thought sparks

#2 Being an entrepreneur with artistic sensibilities
Madame Song exhibition at M+ in Hong Kong

I spent just a few hours in Hong Kong before heading to the airport, so I only managed to see my friend living in the city and to have a quick visit to the M+ museum of contemporary visual culture. For me, it was especially interesting because several years ago I was helping with the partnerships at the International Collectors Summit in Moscow, and Uli Sigg, whose collection laid the foundation for M+, was a keynote speaker there.  

A Swiss businessman and a former ambassador to China, while living in the country, Uli Sigg started collecting the works of contemporary Chinese artists to chronicle the development of the local art scene and the transformation of the local society from 1970s. In 2012, he gave almost 1,500 works to the future M+ museum. In “A Foreword to Viewing the M+ Sigg Collection: Why I collected what I collected“, Uli Sigg wrote that he perceived himself more of a researcher rather then a collector, and his ultimate study object in that case was China.  

In addition to the “M+ Sigg Collection: Another Story” exhibition , I got to see the temporary show “Madame Song: Pioneering Art and Fashion in China”, which is on view until April 2024. Madame Song, or Song Huai-Kuei, was a legend in the Chinese art, film, music, and fashion during the 1980s and 1990s. She started as an artist working with her Bulgarian husband Maryn Varbanov, but later she became the chief representative of Pierre Cardin in China, organizing his first runway shows and training first models in China, a profession that hadn’t even existed before.

Madame Song helped to open Pierre Cardin’s Maxim restaurant in Beijing, one of the first Western establishments in China, which became a gathering spot for the creative community. She was also a cultural diplomat, wearing Western style outfits inside China and traditional Chinese clothes outside the country.

In one of the texts accompanying the exhibition, I read a beautiful phrase that Madame Song was an entrepreneur with artistic sensibilities, and it stuck in my head and I kept thinking that indeed, business and art shouldn’t be on the polar sides of life, and you can be an artist at heart appreciating its value while finding creative solutions in business development. I think this also relates to Uli Sigg and his China research through the local artists’ works. 

Inspiring conversations

#3 Creating a fertile land for artists to bloom
Talking with Cartier client experience manager in Beijing

I had an inspiring conversation with the member of the Cartier client experience team about brands’ partnerships with culture. And one phrase that I found especially inspiring was about the need for brands to create a land where artistic talent could bloom. I think it’s a perfect metaphor for starting new art initiatives and analysing the current ones: are you contributing to the creating a fruitful land for emerging talent to bloom?

And I’ll leave you with this for now. In the upcoming part 2 of the China travel insights I’ll talk about creating immersive experiences, letting your audiences share love for your brand and helping them to perform at their best as well as elevating your brand through the power of small details. Untill the next post!