The Past as a Strategic Branding Resource: A Case Study of Jay Chou, a Successful Chinese Music Artist

We explore a Chinese-styled aesthetic representational branding process, illuminating potential insights into interconnections between art, branding, and consumption in conjunction with processes of aesthetic representation. Interviews with Chinese entrepreneurs reveal concern around Chinese brands’ internationalization, particularly concerning retail strategy. Chinese export brands lack privileged positions in competition with prominent global brands. This paper sheds light on Chinese resources to address these needs by presenting the case of Jay Chou, a prominent Chinese music artist. As Eckhardt and Bengtsson (2007) suggest in the Chinese case it may be productive to engage the past as a strategic brand-signifying practice in a contemporary marketing regime. We investigate permutations of Chinese culture and ideology by linking consumer research and the production and consumption of images with Chinese traditions and artistic conventions of aural and visual perceptions. Thus, cultural issues around Chinese historical and traditional arts are brought into contemporary consumer research.