Chinese brands learn how to play market

Awareness just as valuable as products for consumers

Su Lei still remembers his frustration as he tried to sell medical devices from Chinese manufacturer Mindray to hospitals in the United Kingdom a decade ago.

"I was out the door in five minutes. I didn't have much to say except that our products were good and were cheap. When they asked if we had existing UK customers, I didn't really have much to add," said Su, general manager of Mindray UK.

A decade later, Mindray has established a solid brand in the UK, recognized for quality and innovation. It supplies equipment to more than half of the UK's approximately 700 public hospitals, and its revenue over the past three years has grown by 25 percent on average.

Mindray's breakthroughs in the UK's quality-led medical devices market are a testament to the emphasis the company has placed on building a strong brand.

The challenge it faced cannot be underestimated. Not only was the company's name unfamiliar to most UK medical experts, it also had to work extra hard to overcome the perception of cheap "made in China" products.

To establish its brand, Mindray first focused on satisfying UK hospitals' targeted needs through significant research and development. In recent years, for example, the company has modified its equipment in response to the emphasis of Britain's National Health Service on data and information integration.

This new focus means monitoring machines need to be updated to transfer data to patients' records automatically. Traditionally, medical staff members have to read the data and transcribe it into the records, which is more costly and prone to error.

In addition to competitive products, Mindray formed a dedicated customer service team in the UK to provide timely assistance to users, and increased media engagement and participation in medical fairs. It also regularly hosted many medical industry events to enable its customers to share their experiences of using the company's products.

Su said, "Now that we've built a brand, maintaining consistency and enhancing our image is particularly important, especially at a time when China is increasing its globalization efforts."

Mindray's successful story highlights Chinese companies' recognition of the importance of branding in securing new customers as they expand overseas.

Peter Williamson, an honorary professor of international management at the Cambridge Judge Business School in the UK, said, "In the past, Chinese companies tended to focus on product performance and price, but as they have gone abroad, they have realized it is difficult to compete overseas without a strong brand."

Chinese companies have stepped up their branding efforts significantly in recent years. Last year, 14 such companies made it to WPP's global 100 brands rankings list, including the e-commerce giant Alibaba and internet company Tencent. This is a huge advance, as just one Chinese company featured on the list in 2006.

Meanwhile, WPP, a UK multinational advertising and public relations company, calculated that the top 100 Chinese brands last year had a combined value of $683.9 billion, year-on-year growth of 23 percent, and a 179 percent expansion of their total value in 2010.

WPP calculated brand value by combining financial data with consumer opinions gathered from interviews with more than 400,000 Chinese to give a dollar value to how a brand powers business.