China is the world's factory, but its top firms remain oddly anonymous.

[Eddie Teach]

Hyundai. Huawei.

Consumer branding rule number one: the one that anglo-saxons can be confident they can pronounce will win.

I'm pretty sure that Koreans and Japanese have an easier time marketing to anglos because it's easier for Americans to pronounce their names.

We only know how to pronounce Hyundai because we've heard it so many times, it's certainly not the way it's spelled.

[derspiess]

My LG phone is crap.

My LG fridge is pretty good, I have to say.

[Razgovory]

China is also the world's factory for counterfeit drugs that claim hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide.  But nobody's talking about that.

Again, poor branding.

[Alatriste]

China is also the world's factory for counterfeit drugs that claim hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide.  But nobody's talking about that.

Again, poor branding.

Indeed. Poor branding makes a lot of sense if you make poor products...

[DGuller]

China is also the world's factory for counterfeit drugs that claim hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide.  But nobody's talking about that.

Again, poor branding.

[Tamas]

The Chicoms just can't do branding & marketing.  Just isn't in their DNA, it seems.  Lenovo might be an exception, but then again they're mostly reaping all of IBM's branding efforts.

If you use Lenovo hardware, you deserve your faith.

[Josquius]

Not quite yet, but they've moved from "never heard of them" to "they make that cheap shit I'd never buy" to "they make that fairly cheap shit lots of people buy because its good value for money" to "they make some pretty decent stuff that's quite competitive".  Samsung, LG and Hyundai are doing pretty good.  It won't be too much longer before they have proper entries in the high end part of the markets as well, I'd wager.

I'm sure I remember hearing LG were best for plasma TVs or...some sort of TV.

Hyundai. Huawei.

Consumer branding rule number one: the one that anglo-saxons can be confident they can pronounce will win.

I'm pretty sure that Koreans and Japanese have an easier time marketing to anglos because it's easier for Americans to pronounce their names.

Huawei...
When I try and say it (no education on pronouncing Chinese stuff at all here) it comes out like 'ha way'....Which will be interesting for their products in northern Britain...

[DontSayBanana]

We only know how to pronounce Hyundai because we've heard it so many times, it's certainly not the way it's spelled.

Still, it's got an approximate phonetic equivalent in HUN-day. At a first glance, Standard Mandarin only shares 9 phonemes out of 26 with General American.

[Valmy]

I'm pretty sure that Koreans and Japanese have an easier time marketing to anglos because it's easier for Americans to pronounce their names.

Um...Chinese names are all one syllable words.  What is so hard to pronounce about that?

[DontSayBanana]

I'm pretty sure that Koreans and Japanese have an easier time marketing to anglos because it's easier for Americans to pronounce their names.

Um...Chinese names are all one syllable words.  What is so hard to pronounce about that?

They're mostly syllables that don't exist and are hard to approximate in English because we don't have Mandarin accents.

[Valmy]

They're mostly syllables that don't exist and are hard to approximate because we don't have Mandarin accents.

Oh I must have missed where we pronounce Japanese, German, and Korean brands with perfect native accents and pronunciation.  I suppose the Chinese can easily say every American brand with a perfect American accent as well.  That has zero to do with marketing and brand recognition.  Zero.

We can pronounce their names just as well as we can pronounce any others I am sure.  'Huawei' is hardly more of a foreign name then 'Mitsubishi' so it being hard to pronounce (which it isn't, at least an American version of it) has nothing to do with us recognizing their brands.

[DontSayBanana]

Oh I must have missed where we pronounce Japanese, German, and Korean brands with perfect native accents and pronunciation.  I suppose the Chinese can easily say every American brand with a perfect American accent as well.  That has zero to do with marketing and brand recognition.  Zero.

We can pronounce their names just as well as we can pronounce any others I am sure.  'Huawei' is hardly more of a foreign name then 'Mitsubishi' so it being hard to pronounce (which it isn't) has nothing to do with us recognizing their brands.  It sounds like typical Chinese arrogance against foreigners bullshit to me.

English is a Germanic language;l there's only 4 letter pronunciations that don't exist in English (ä, ö, ü, and tch)- they're also hell on the American tongue, but I haven't seen a German brand yet that makes use of those vowels or doesn't forgive an americanized pronouncing the "d" or "t" and the "ch" separately.

Japanese and Korean do share a lot of phonemes with English, most of the differences are more stressed vowels or consonants. Thankfully, romanji did the dirty work of coming up with easy English approximations for those- Chinese and Vietnamese are just too different (there's an entire set of affricate phonemes in Mandarin that just doesn't exist in English pronunciation).

Face it: you can't brand it if your customers can't say it.

[Valmy]

Face it: you can't brand it if your customers can't say it.

Um...I can say Huawei just fine dude.  Granted I cannot say it with a perfect Mandarin Accent but what does that have to do with them getting me to remember their brand?  If there were ads and a memorable logo for Huawei I would certainly have no trouble remembering it.

Being an American may mean I say Mandarin words with an American accent to best of our western ability but it doesn't make me an idiot.  If Huawei thought it was worth their time to get me to be aware of their brand they could do so easily.  But I have yet to see 'The Rose Bowl Game brought to you by Huawei'.

English is a Germanic language;l

And yet we don't say their brands the same as they say them.  I can remember Volkswagon even if I do not say it like the average Westphalian though.

[Neil]

English is a Germanic language where most of the words come from French.

[Jacob]

Face it: you can't brand it if your customers can't say it.

Face it: you should not attempt a career in marketing.