As a cultural symbol, Chinese brands are a wonderful expression of national cohesion, solidarity and vitality, representing a country’s comprehensive strengths and a nation’s essence of spirit. The fact that the State Council agreed in 2017 to make every May 10 the Chinese Brands Day signals China’s focus on brands and commitment to brand building. On May 22, China National Radio (CNR) hosted a sharing conference named “Gathering by West Lake — 2017 Chinese Brands Assembly Action” at Hangzhou International Expo Center, the main venue for G20 Hangzhou Summit. As a response to the establishment of the Chinese Brands Day, CNR aimed to shoulder the responsibility of a national media to help collect advice and suggestions for the development of Chinese brands. Ms. Jiang Haiqing, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of CNR, and Mr. Liu Pingjun, President of China Council for Brand Development, attended the conference and made keynote speeches. Mr. Yue Lei, Senior Vice President of Sanpower Group, representing the outstanding Chinese brands, shared the brand building and brand development ideology of Sanpower with business leaders and academic elites and discussed with them Chinese brands. The attendees analyzed the development trend and predicted the prospect of China’s economy, and also explored the innovation incentives and development opportunities for the upgrading of Chinese brands.

Ms. Jiang stated in her speech that China’s brand development has entered a brand-new historical stage with the implementation and advancement of the “Made in China 2025” strategy aiming at improving the country’s strengths. Chinese brands will obtain more momentum in development and usher in a brighter future in company with CNR, a national quality media platform.

Mr. Liu said in his speech that quality is the basis of a brand and innovation the soul. In 2017, Premier Li Keqiang, for the first time in the government work report, proposed to promote China’s economy into an era of high quality and the State Council officially approved May 10 as the Chinese Brands Day, helping the country’s transformation from a quality economy to a brand economy. Up to now, China has established a scientific, impartial, open, and well-acknowledged brand value evaluation mechanism with Chinese peculiarity. In the process of brand nurturing and building in the future, China will exert its efforts in four directions: industrial cluster, brand evaluation result, regional brand, and brand city as tourist destination, so as to promote Chinese brands to the world.

The roundtable forum, chaired by Mr. Yang Xi, Deputy Director of the Planning and Cooperation Department of CNR and winner of the Golden Mike Award, pushed this conference into climax. Mr. Yue and other entrepreneurs and experts from Panshi, Wensli Group, Hong Kong Caidi International, Wahaha Group, Sunrain Group, Xizi UHC, yiwugou.com, and Newsun, etc., carried out a high-level discussion on the development of Chinese brands.

Under new circumstances, the development of Chinese brands needs both quality and virtue as driving forces. Mr. Yue believes that brand building, which is a progressive process, consists of four interconnected stages including virtue, reputation, quality and taste. Among the four stages, virtue should take precedence. Guan Zhong, an extraordinary statesman of ancient China, once said, virtue matters most. He also told his disciples that it is virtue that decides one’s failure or success. Back to the present era, a brand can only be gradually cultivated when the bottom line of virtue is kept. Once brand reputation is established, the quality of brand should be persistently held so as to sublime brand building to the stage of taste. As a cultural symbol, a brand is supposed to lead fashion and embody its cultural confidence.