Conflicting calls for charity

A popular statistic floating around in the charity world is that China has only donated 0.05% of its GDP to charity organizations in 2004.

Yet, evidence shows that the Chinese do value charity - a few examples:

1. In 2007, Shandong province made May 18 "wo yao bang" day ("I will help" in Chinese) to encourage richer people to help the poor. Originally, May 18 was a red letter day because its pronunciation in Chinese sounds very much like "I'll make a fortune."

2. Even a New York Times article from 1876 praises the Chinese for "a vast deal of charitable work" being done, talking specifically about asylums for orphans and the poor.

3. After the earthquake, multi-national corporations that did not give their share to the victims were mercilessly criticized by netizens. The criticism seemed to work, as companies like Coca-cola significantly upped their donations (Coca-cola went from 5 million RMB to 17 million RMB). More information can be found in EastSouthWestNorth here.

The government did not set up its first official charity website until 2004, but scholars are noticing that natural disasters are provoking the Chinese to donate. The Chinese Red Cross received £30m for the Boxing Day tsunami in 2005 and Katrina and the Pakistan earthquake have also received considerable amounts.

There is a trend of the Chinese expecting the richer to give back, but many of the "new rich" still haven't started feeling the obligation. Mencius once said, " take care of yourself if you are poor, and help others if you are rich."

A case study of charity giving in China can be found here.

Is Olympic advertising effective?

While other companies are steering away from China-specific advertising, sports-giant Adidas is taking advantage of Chinese nationalism to overtake Nike in China’s market. Not only are they focusing on Chinese pride, they are solely advertising in China and ignoring other top markets, like the US and Europe. Their commercial can be seen here.

China is a hot market, especially considering the retail slump in the US as a result of the sub-prime crisis.

Other companies are shying away from country-specific themes and using global themes to protect their company from international backlash in case the Olympics go awry. Coke is appealing to a national color, rather than a national sentiment. They are painting Beijing red. However, studies are revealing that Chinese consumers don't really acknowledge Olympic sponsorship. Here's a quote from a WSJ op-ed:

The results of the research were disheartening for those companies that have ponied up the kind of money involved in becoming an Olympic sponsor. Nearly 80% of those Chinese consumers we polled said they "did not care" who the official sponsors were and the vast majority "did not consider official Olympic sponsorship" when buying a product. Boycotts in the Western world of official Olympic sponsors are already being called for during the Olympic Torch run in light of the Darfur and Tibet controversies. With this kind of potential backlash in their home countries, Olympic sponsors need a sales bump in China.

Could Adidas be hurting itself more in the Western market, rather than helping itself in the Chinese market?