I think it’s interesting that Google made their announcement that they would potentially be leaving China on their blog post. Since then, there has been a lot of speculation as to the many reasons why Google may be quitting (as opposed to their official reason). I just think that it’s interesting that it was first posted on their corporate blog post. It says a lot about PR and how brands should be or are communicating to consumers or the publics today. Gone are the traditional days of brand driven communications. I’m sure people have been saying this for a long time now, but even in a place like China, where the Internet is relatively new, the way people hear about and interact with your brand is changing significantly. For myself, who wants to use the best products to meet my personal needs, most of my recent purchases have been through influencers. Mavens, if you will, of the various categories of goods that I buy… or through friends that share the same hobbies and interests as I do. The only question is, that despite the vast population online in China, how many of them have true purchasing power. Is this just a futile exercise on branding, or are these web experiences changing people’s opinion’s on purchasing products. Not to mention, how much of online conversation is controlled by Big Brother?
On a related incident, Google wasn’t the only one to take a stand on Big Brother. This article was pretty interesting and summed up for me the attitudes that I believe foreign companies will increasingly take in their stance against the government here. A take it or leave it attitude. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a product or brand that can win yet. If Google took their stance 5 years from now, as users in China continue to become disillusioned by the likes of Baidu and other greedy search engines, if Google acted a little later, I think more people would have been pissed off and really put big brother to the test.
