My new shoes
Thursday, February 8th, 2007
You may have heard that the concept of intellectual property hasn’t developed here in China to the same point that it has reached in the West. “Counterfeit”, “pirate”, or otherwise infringing products are sold very openly. That is one side of the coin. The flipside is that the understanding of branding and brand marketing is a nascent field here.
So it was with great interest that I noticed an Apple store in a small town near Shanghai. Stores selling Apple computers in China never seem to have gotten the memo –they are not nearly as appealing as the Apple stores in the U.S., possibly because they are all independent resellers and are not run by Apple itself. In contrast, this store was doing everything right.The store had a huge apple logo over the entrance, a nice layout, and the products all prominently displayed the apple logo. Posters on the walls showed the logo alongside athletes (a ping pong or badminton champ) endorsing the product, and the whole place was very clean and bright. But the most amazing thing about this store was that despite its appearance it was not an Apple store. Instead it was a store for “Golden Apple™” brand athletic shoes, obviously it’s simply a coincidence that their logo and store look very much like those of a famous company headquartered in Cupertino.
Since I needed a pair of shoes, and I have been making a habit of buying ostentatiously infringing products (preferably with misspelled brand names) whenever possible, I purchased a pair. The apple logo on the insole of the shoe even had a piece of clear plastic over it to protect it during shipping –that’s the kind of care taken to present one’s logo in a positive light that I expect to see from a company like the U.S.’s Apple Inc.
I played dumb and asked the employees if they also sold computers, and they told me “oh no, that is an American company. We are a Chinese company and do not sell computers.” They added “our logo is different, it has a bite”, perhaps with that statement betraying that they actually do understand intellectual property issues related to trademarks. They seemed so sincere they almost had me convinced, but their logo really is practically identical to Apple Inc’s logo.
On the plus side, If Apple Inc ever decides to sell shoes in China, I know just the company they should partner with. “Golden Apple” is perfect –they understand branding and customer experience better than most Chinese stores, and already have experience selling Apple branded products. They’d just need a few training sessions to get up to speed on intellectual property issues.
I love my Apple –excuse me, Golden Apple shoes.
