International market competition has transcended the product competition stage and entered the era of brand competition. Whether a country has internationally renowned brands and how many internationally renowned brands it has have become symbols of the country's economic strength and international competitiveness. To remain invincible in international competition, Chinese enterprises must adapt to the requirements of the era of brand competition, carry out brand marketing, and create China's world-famous brands.

1. The current situation of brand marketing in my country’s foreign trade Since the reform and opening up, my country’s foreign trade has developed rapidly. In the 20 years from 1978 to 1998, the average growth rate of my country’s foreign trade reached 16.5%. In 1997, my country's total foreign trade import and export volume reached 325 billion yuan, making it one of the top ten trade companies in the world. What is disproportionate to this is that the situation of brand marketing in my country's foreign trade is worrying. Currently, not one of the top 50 well-known trademarks in the world is Chinese.

1. The degree of branding of export commodities is low.

Among the more than 160 billion U.S. dollars of goods exported by my country every year, only about 1/3 are marked with my country’s own brands; 1/3 of the goods have no brands: Yes 1/3 of the products are branded by foreign companies. Many knowledgeable people who have returned from abroad lamented: "There are indeed many Chinese goods in foreign markets, but there are not many Chinese brands. The streets and alleys are full of cheap Chinese goods without trademarks.

Or they are Chinese products produced for foreign companies. "Brand is one of the components of the product. It is difficult for products without their own brand to enter the international market. Even if they enter the international market, their competitiveness is far less than that of others, and it is difficult to enter the market. According to relevant statistics, there were 465,000 enterprises in my country including the service industry. By the end of 1995, there were only 538,700 trademarks registered domestically, and even fewer registered trademarks abroad. In order to complete their export tasks, many companies have to rely on "foreign brands" to earn very little raw material and processing fees and make wedding clothes for others.

2. The brand has a weak sense of self-protection.

In recent years, well-known Chinese brands have frequently been registered by foreign investors in the international market. According to statistics, since the 1990s, there have been more than 20 cases of trademark squatting for export commodities in my country, more than 150 cases by Australia, more than 100 cases by Japan, and 54 cases by Indonesia, resulting in an annual loss of about 1 billion yuan in intangible assets. If a trademark is preemptively registered, it will either be unable to enter the foreign market for 10 or 8 years, or it will cost hundreds or even thousands of times the registration fee to buy back the right to use the trademark. Years of planned economy have left many enterprises in our country with little awareness of trademarks and lack of awareness of brand self-protection. Many companies give up their brands for immediate profits. The Hohhot Rubber Factory transferred the "Eagle" brand trademark to the American Special Company for US$2.15 million; Zhujiang's "Huangmei" beer was used for free by Australia's Fujita Brewing Group and then banned; Guangzhou's "Jiehua" was cracked down by Procter & Gamble "Lenggong 3" Singapore's "Yonggu" swallowed up Wuxi's "Hongmei"; Anhui's "Yangzi" evolved into "Boxi Yang"... Brand means market. If you lose your own brand, you will lose your own market. Taking my country's detergent products market as an example, my country's largest detergent products companies such as Beijing "Panda", Four J11 "Double Cat", Guangzhou "Chrysanthemum" and other companies with an annual output of more than 80,000 tons of washing powder are closely related to the United States' "Procter & Gamble" and Japan's "Kao". ”, Germany’s “Henkel”, the United States’ “Lewis” and other companies’ joint ventures, three-quarters of China’s detergent market has been dominated by “Rejoice”, “Head and Shoulders”, “Kao”, “Pan” "Aunt" and other foreign famous brands are monopolized. State-owned brands are in a difficult situation under the siege of foreign famous brands, let alone seizing the international market.

3. The added value of the brand is low, and brand competition Not strong.

The added value of a brand refers to those things that are included in the brand, pertinent, and appreciated by consumers

and beyond the basic functions of the product Things, that is, the sense of trust, satisfaction and honor provided to consumers through the brand, can maintain a premium through its commodity form. Foreign surveys show that people who smoke "Marlboro" cigarettes take out each pack of cigarettes from their pockets on average 30 times, and 1/3 of them are to appreciate and show the brand to others. It can be seen that "Marlboro" provides consumers with higher brand added value.

In the international market, the brand added value of my country's export commodities is low, which is directly reflected in weak brand competitiveness, low product grade, low price, market share and excess Profit margins are low.

In 1995, my country's radio exports accounted for more than half of the world's output, but its sales accounted for less than 10% of the world's total sales. In the international market, the price of radios produced in my country with foreign brands is several times higher than similar products with its own brands. The reason is that the added value of foreign brands is higher than the added value of Chinese brands. In 1994, my country's clothing exports ranked first in the world, reaching 23.7 billion U.S. dollars, but the average selling price per piece was only 3.2 U.S. dollars, which is very different from the price of international famous brand clothing. The reason is that my country's foreign trade clothing lacks high added value. Well-known brands

brands.

If the added value of the brand is low, the brand competitiveness will inevitably be weak. Taking beer as an example, my country's most competitive brand "Tsingtao Beer" had a brand value of 3.342 billion yuan in 1996. Not only is it incomparable to the US$11.99 billion American "Budweiser", it is also not very famous. Compared with the brand value of "Heineken Beer" of 2.7 billion US dollars, it is also far behind. The British "Financial Times" on October 20, 1997 reported that the world's most valuable brand is "Coca-Cola", with a brand value of 47.99 billion US dollars, and "Nike", which ranks tenth, also has a brand value of 11.132 billion US dollars. . In 1997, a research report on China's most valuable brands revealed that the most valuable brand in my country is "Hongtashan" with a brand value of 35.3 billion yuan, and "Changhong" ranked second with a brand value of 18.2 billion yuan. Comparing the two, the difference is very obvious.

4. The awareness of brand marketing is weak and the marketing methods are single.

Due to the late start of brand marketing of Chinese enterprises, in the international market, most manufacturers have not yet established a correct concept of brand marketing, and the awareness of brand marketing has not been truly paid into Action and marketing methods are single. Chinese companies have not really gone abroad to carry out brand marketing through international media with great fanfare. Our country's annual expenditure on brand international marketing is pitifully small, and the total expenditure is not even equivalent to that of "Coca-Cola". Many companies only promote their brands through international expositions. There are very few companies that comprehensively use advertising, public relations, business promotion and personnel promotion to carry out brand marketing.

Nowadays, many foreign brands, such as "Coca-Cola", "KFC", etc., are well known to women and children in our country. This is mainly due to their successful brand marketing in China. result. Foreign brands not only use advertisements to bombard Chinese consumers, but also carry out various public relations activities, such as "Philips" sponsoring the Football Association Cup, "Hilton" sponsoring the basketball league, "Coca-Cola" donating to the Hope Project... and our Chinese Brands are rarely known to foreigners abroad. Chinese enterprises have not yet established the concept of global brand marketing, and their marketing methods cannot adapt to international trends.

2. Countermeasures for brand marketing in my country’s foreign trade

1. Implement branding strategy and strengthen brand protection awareness.

Commodity brands best reflect the characteristics of national industry. They are not only the intangible assets of enterprises, but also the precious wealth of the entire country and nation. Well-known brands are not only a stepping stone for export products to enter the international market, but also a talisman to defend the domestic market.

In the fierce competition in the international market, we should enhance our awareness of brand protection, especially to protect state-owned famous brands. Strengthening the registration of brands overseas so that famous brand products can obtain legal protection is one of the most effective means to protect domestic brands. At home, our own national brands, especially famous brands with high market visibility and good market prospects, must not be easily abandoned in the process of joint ventures with foreign businessmen. Since the 1990s, developed countries have not only focused on commodity exports, capital exports and technology exports, but also on brand exports, relying on intangible assets to squeeze out the market, and then squeeze out national brands across our country to achieve the purpose of monopolizing the Chinese market. This should arouse our concern. Pay attention to.

2. Implement famous brand strategy and improve brand competitiveness.

Faced with the competitive development environment of famous brands, at present, when Chinese enterprises implement famous brand strategies in foreign trade, they should do the following tasks:

(1) Implement strict quality management in accordance with international standards to ensure the high quality and high effectiveness of products. If Chinese enterprises want to create international famous brands, they should carry out comprehensive and strict quality management from decision-making, design, manufacturing, testing, sales to after-sales service, implement the 1809000 series of standards, and ensure the high quality and high efficiency of export commodities.

(2) Develop marketable products in the international market, especially good products that can satisfy consumer preferences:

Famous brands are also "private brands", which is what the public calls a product brand that enjoys credibility, a certain degree of popularity and market share. Only by developing products that are popular with the public and suitable for the needs of more consumers can the popularity be increased. , expand market share.

(3) Strengthen management, take famous brands as the leader, establish modern enterprise groups, and form large-scale industries. Our country's enterprises are in the stage of deepening reform. Based on the existing famous brand product manufacturing enterprises and on the basis of carrying out the value assessment of the intangible assets of famous brand trademarks, we will use famous brands as the leader and assets as the link to create conditions for cross-border, cross-industry, Mergers, holdings, and acquisitions of uncompetitive enterprises across ownership systems can be carried out to form modern enterprise groups, expand the asset scale, operating scale, and competitive strength of famous brand enterprises, and form large-scale industries, which can improve the enterprise's asset scale efficiency and international competitiveness.

(4) Grasp the market rules, do a good job in marketing, expand product visibility, and improve brand competitiveness. First of all, the international market should be segmented and the international marketing environment should be studied. From product appearance design to trademark design, from the intrinsic quality of goods to external functions, they should all adapt to the needs of the local market. The second is to use various means and channels, especially various international media, to promote the product in an all-round way and expand brand awareness. Finally, we must integrate into the local society, carry out public relations activities, and provide good after-sales service.

(5) "Use foreigners to control foreigners" to carry out brand marketing. Hong Kong and Taiwan companies can learn from this brand marketing approach. The strategy adopted by Hong Kong companies is to enter the Western market by purchasing the technology and patents of Western companies, using both their famous brands and their markets to gain a foothold and then launch their own brands. Taiwanese companies join forces with well-known foreign companies to develop their own brands while using their famous brands. Once their brands and products are accepted by the market, they will compete independently. . Many Western developed countries purchased Chinese brands through joint ventures to enter the Chinese market. After occupying the market, they immediately blocked Chinese brands and created their own brands. Chinese enterprises can learn from these experiences when carrying out brand marketing. In the "three to one supplement" and license trade, you should try your best to use your own brand to avoid being passive forever. Enterprises with advanced equipment, excellent technology, and high-quality employees should not only consider immediate interests and adopt the "branded" method of processing products for export, but should create their own famous brands through their own efforts. Some strong and large-scale companies can go abroad, acquire foreign companies, and use other people's brands to launch their own brands.

3. Stick to the domestic market and expand the international market.

my country's market is one of the most dynamic

markets in the world. Due to the continuous expansion of my country's opening up to the outside world, the domestic market has become an important part of the international market. The meaning of our country's enterprises participating in international competition has evolved from striving to expand exports and allowing more domestic products to enter foreign markets to having to compete with foreign products in both domestic and international markets. We call this “International competition is domestic” and “domestic competition is international”. At present, one of the important tasks of brand marketing for Chinese enterprises is to defend the domestic market. According to a survey by relevant departments, in the domestic market, the market share of foreign brands is shocking: cameras occupy 99% of the market, fax machines 98%, mobile phones 6%, large and medium-sized computers 75%, and electronic components 70%. %, cars 70%, video recorders 60%, washing cosmetics 50%, carbonated drinks 33%, fast food industry 33%, film and beer markets are also dominated by foreign brands. It can be seen that domestic brands are also struggling in the domestic market, and the task of holding on to and regaining the domestic market occupied by foreign brands is not easy. If China's export commodities want to gain a firm foothold in the world market, they must first create a famous brand in the domestic market, occupy and cover the domestic market, and regain the territory that should belong to them. If Chinese brands cannot win in the domestic market by virtue of "timing, location, and harmony", it will be futile to create famous brands in foreign markets. Looking at the world's famous brands, they all expand the international market on the basis of first occupying the domestic market, and my country's export products are no exception.

3. Give full play to government functions in brand marketing

Famous brands are not only a measure of a country’s technological level, industrial foundation and international The main factor of competitiveness is also an important image of a country on the international stage. The popularity and competitiveness of domestic products in

the international market are related to the improvement of the country's image and popularity.

Therefore, in the brand marketing of enterprises' foreign trade, relevant government departments should have clear concepts and policy guidance to provide policy preferences and support for enterprises to create international famous brands. Specifically, the following measures can be taken:

1. Incorporate the development of exported brand-name products into the medium and long-term development plan of the national economy, and vigorously support

national brand products that have a market and a future.

2. Increase publicity for the implementation of the famous brand strategy, raise awareness of the importance of famous brands, further establish and improve relevant laws and policies, and prevent foreign businessmen from swallowing up domestic products through joint ventures and other means

Brand, supervise the overseas registration of Chinese brands and protect state-owned intangible assets.

3. Strengthen the pace of "anti-dumping" investigations against foreign brands and protect national brands.

4. Assist enterprises to carry out marketing work abroad and encourage famous brands to participate in international competition.

5. In accordance with international practice, organize domestic enterprises to respond to Western countries’ “anti-dumping” investigations of my country’s exports and safeguard the interests of state-owned brands.

6. Increase the crackdown on counterfeiting and smuggling activities, protect genuine famous brands, and maintain the reputation of state-owned brands.