'Made in China': Is That an Emblem or an Epithet?
Cellphones that explode in your pocket, drug-soaked seafood raised in raw sewage, counterfeit toothpaste laced with antifreeze, rat poison mixed with dog and cat food, lead paint on kids’ train sets, tires that fly apart on the highway – what on earth is going on?
Chaos, that’s what.
Trace it to China, the neo-capitalist behemoth that seduced the Western world with low costs, quick turnaround times, high productivity – call it global sourcing – and now has the chutzpah to sport a laissez-faire attitude toward what brand stewards on this side of the Pacific quaintly refer to as product quality and consumer safety.
The list of lethal products originating from the world’s largest factory grows with every news report chronicling a death, an injury or a close call (and the ensuing recall) from the contamination and failure of things produced in The People’s Republic for consumption by the American public.
Maybe it was a good thing as long as it lasted.
Business boomed, consumers didn’t complain much and the recall phenomenon became commonplace enough to not even be considered front-page news -- and we’re not talking about cheapo items sold in low-rent dollar stores, either.
Each of the above-mentioned incidents was and is associated with a global or national manufacturer of considerable repute, namely Motorola, Nokia, Colgate, Iams, Mighty Dog and Pet Pride, whose products were and are sold in dozens of such big-name retail emporia as Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, Kroger and K-Mart, to name a few.
And most of them have come to light in the past few weeks and months.
To see the kind of meltdown we’re talking about, we’ve done the legwork for you to skim through the sordid-but-almost-funny details right here and now:
For the exploding cellphone story go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/world/asia/06cnd-explode.html?em&ex=1183867200&en=0512f220402ea400&ei=5087%0A
For the ban on drug-contaminated seafood living in raw sewage click on: http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/28/news/international/china_fish/index.htm, then go to http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56004
For the lead-painted toy-train item visit The Consumerist (a blog) at: http://consumerist.com/consumer/finger_pointing/thomas-the-poisonous-tank-engine-recall-fallout-continues-270657.php
To learn how exploding car tires may cause a New Jersey entrepreneur to go bankrupt, try http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/27/autos/chinese_tire_recall/index.htm.
We find very useful Meg Marco’s question: “If outsourcing is done both to cut costs and defer responsibility, if something goes wrong are consumers OK with that? (Do you) hold the brand responsible, or not?”
We most certainly do -- as should the consumers of these products, whether considering future purchases or legal action – and as should the appropriate federal, state and local authorities in the event there are penalties for laws broken or standards violated.
Easy to say, of course. The tricky part is that because none of these sanctions applies to those who deliberately break the rules outside the United States, the best alternative is for your company to be a lot more choosy – and to consider the marketing and legal consequences of a quality meltdown -- the next time it sets up an outsourcing deal.
Meanwhile, the best news we’ve heard is a relatively new phenomenon that’s getting up to flying speed: the China-Free label. No, not the ‘Free-China’ label -- that’s a whole other matter over in the realm of politics.
The China-Free label is catching on fast. As a manufacturing mantra it has to do not so much with quality control as it has with quality assurance. As a brand-marketing philosophy it’s a return to first principles.
Josef Blumenfeld of Tradewind Strategies in Boston, puts it this way:
“Despite its unquestioned emergence as a global economic power, China does not have a single global brand. In survey after survey American consumers can’t name one either.
“In reality, the most-recognized Chinese brand is….Made in China.
“A successful brand conveys favorable attributes about the company, products and services it represents, says Blumenfeld, “and the market responds by increasing the revenue, profits and stock value of the world’s leading brands.
“Aside from low cost, the ‘Made in China’ brand projects nothing positive. The shocking revelations of tainted toothpaste, pet food and Thomas the Tank Engine toys coming from China has only tarnished the ‘Made in China’ brand further.
“And the market has responded. Reuters recently reported on the emergence of the ‘China-Free’ label – implying that the source of tainted ingredients has been eliminated from the supply chain.
(For a Reuters report on the ‘China-Free’ concept go to http://money.cnn.com/2007/07/06/news/companies/china.reut/index.htm)
“This counter-brand poses enormous risk for China and its sizzling growth,” says Blumenfeld.
“China has allowed its ‘Made in’ brand to become synonymous with ‘disposable,’ and no corporate brand has emerged to illustrate the improving quality of Chinese-made goods.
“China allowed ‘Made in China’ to say ‘cheap and disposable’ and its growth engine continued to chug ahead. If “China-Free” tells US consumers that a product is free of tainted ingredients, how quickly will it come to signify respect for the environment or adherence to international labor protocols?
“Unless China marshals its forces to protect Western consumers – as well its own citizens making products for export – ‘Made in China’ will continue to imbue its products with a host of negatives and risk. Beijing should heed this wake-up call. “China-Free” could stop China’s growth engine dead in its made-in-China tracks.”
An excellent point well made.
Think about it: How many people have simply written off buying any brand of California-grown fresh spinach since last year’s e.coli scare? There comes a time when something in the back of the American consumer’s mind simply says, enough – and there goes an entire category.
You think not? Then try this test: Slap a 'China-Free' sticker on a few thousand boxes of your product and watch it fly off the shelves.
If that time hasn’t arrived for ‘Made in China’ goods, it may be fast approaching.
What do you say?##
