Yesterday, I drove to my grocer to pick up a few items and throughout this short journey two employees in isolated events confided to me, “do not choose anything from China”. This was surely not a corporate directive but it speaks volumes about the confidence consumers have in products on the shelf.
Earlier, when I had heard a US talk show guest announce yet another lead laden toy from China (now seven manufacturers are involved), a recommendation was made to retailers to announce they are “Guaranteed Lead Free” (a euphemism for “Guaranteed China Free”). In another news show, I had witnessed a business owner tagging his shipments with China Free stickers to gain a competitive edge.
It will take years for China to clean up its act. They are just now writing laws and developing a legal system to mitigate these acts under a regime with little controls.
Corporates seeking profits for their shareholders sought to reduce costs by sending business to countries with low standards–China is the whipping boy. There are others.
Questions beg: What on earth are the product development folks doing? Is there no investigative trip to these plants? Do the corporates know and turn a blind eye? Is there a transparency issue here? How much should we trade risk for profit?
If I sound irate it’s because I am. Marketing must stick its nose into production and stop marketing blind. Food, tires, toys–where there are a handful of affected categories, there are likely hundreds.
When a product claims it is manufactured in Canada or USA, it really means it is assembled there. Consumers are simply riding on faith that corporates will do no harm. That faith is nearing zero. There is a call for brand marketers that can guarantee and do no harm. There is simply no cutting corners.
Corporates will say, “we have to keep the price down” (the Machiavellian strategy putting the blame on consumer demand). In truth, they have to keep the profits up. Milton Friedman, the widely followed economist who claimed “profit is good” is now challenged–if litigation costs kick-in and health costs soar, profits are not good.
Profits can be “Good” though.
August 20, 2007 at 10:43UTC
China has certainly hurt its brand by weak enforcement of safety and quality laws. Japan and Korea, for example, moved from selling low quality, cheap goods to upscale items without major hiccups of this kind. Perhaps it’s the national ethos of those two countries that compelled manufacturers to avoid risky shortcuts.
Executing company managers is certainly one way of sending a message to other potential violators, but a national consensus that quality is paramount would be better for China in the long run.
(As you note, a portion of the onus has to fall on the importing firms as well. In a free-wheeling developing nation economy where payoffs are cheaper than compliance, “buyer beware” definitely applies. It’s a bit shocking that so many products were imported before the problems were discovered.)
Believers in emotional branding would no doubt agree that fear isn’t the emotion you want to evoke when someone sees a “Made in China” label.
Roger