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On The Relevance/Significance Of Lady Gaga To YOUR China Business.

By Dan Harris on Posted in China Business

Every so often I will read something I know to be important, without really being able to put my finger on why it is important or even how. That is the case today with “Just for Fun: Oh My Lady Gaga! A Star is Born in…China,” a post on the usually oh-so serious China Law & Policy blog.  

The post discusses how incredibly popular Lady Gaga is in China and how the media (for her more than anyone else) so often write her name in English, not in Chinese characters. According to the post, Lady Gaga is hugely popular in China because she is both “accessible” and out there:

Accessible? She wears no pants half of the time and muppets the other half. “Of course.” As Tom explained, someone like Beyonce, who is beautiful and dresses in the highest of fashion, is absurdly inaccessible for the average person in both the U.S. and China. But Lady Gaga creates outfits, making her fashion style achievable with some imagination. “I can just imagine a Chinese girl in some factory town, inspired by Lady Gaga, putting tin cans on her head” Tom said.

That sentiment was echoed in my conversations with the Chinese young people I spoke to. While everyone mentioned Lady Gaga’s music, what they really stressed was her fashion. Although each mentioned that Chinese culture was still too traditional for Lady Gaga’s fashion to be widely copied in China, there was a tinge of envy in their voices, one young man even commenting that he looked to others to have the “courage” to copy her style. And that’s what is most interesting about this Lady Gaga phenomenon in China; for all the talk in the West about the Chinese youth not being taught to be “free thinkers,” their love for Lady Gaga demonstrates that they do have an independent streak in them. One that appreciates and respects differences and the absurd. And just good, fun dance music.

So why is this important? Not sure.

But for some reason, I think the underlying lesson of this post might be the same as that of a client of my firm’s who sells a super expensive toy.

I wish I could describe it more, but I cannot for fear of drawing competition. It is an adult toy (NOT of the sexual kind!) and it is a niche product even here in the United States, where it costs between $1,000 to $3,000.

This client started out having some parts manufactured in China and then got so many completely unsolicited requests from Chinese, he started marketing it a bit in China. Within six months (yes, six months!), China sales began surpassing United States sales (which are quite healthy).  

He told me he was stunned by all this because this product is really meant for “iconoclasts” who do not care what others think about them and who are not buying expensive toys to let everyone know they can afford expensive toys and because this toy had completely flopped in Japan. He believed the toy had flopped in Japan due to a lack of individualism there and he had  just assumed it would flop in China as well for the same reasons. He had even spoken with a “high end” China marketing consultant on an airplane who had explained that because the toys did not scream “wealth,” they would not sell well in China.

But the toys are selling incredibly well in China, and not just to the super rich, and our client is now convinced that the toy’s main selling point in China is that their purchase and use is a way for their buyers to say”I don’t care what others think, it’s time I did what I want to do.” 

So am I right to link the toy story to Lady Gaga? What can businesses learn from Lady Gaga’s popularity in China?  You tell me.  Please.

  • http://www.iqidu.com Mao Ruiqi

    Damn! What’s the product? Yeah, your point is well taken, but the mystery is the more intriguing.

  • Inst

    There’s a heterodox view that the Chinese are in fact highly individualistic, in so that they’re more individualistic than in the West. The argument goes by the line that Chinese people have very poor respect for law and the well-being of others, evinced by their driving, whereas Westerners are more likely to act altruistically and be by the book. At the same time, this extends to a lack of judgment towards others, which is an aspect of enforcing social norms.

  • http://chinabizgov.blogspot.com G.E. Anderson

    I’m with Mao Ruiqi — really curious to know what the product is.
    And I agree with your logic. Lady Gaga is a unique individual, but I’ve seen plenty of uniqueness in China, especially in the Beijing and Shanghai art scenes. The Chinese are every bit as individualistic as Americans, maybe more so.
    Whoever is still selling the story that all East Asian countries are collective societies should pay a visit to China.

  • http://CNReviews.com Baoru

    Japan is individualistic and collective at the same time. No offense to Japanese readers here, but when I think of Japan–I think of ummm…something out-of-the-ordinary. Funky clothes and hairstyles and makeup. But that’s actually good–though oftentimes bordering on the extreme.
    So if this mystery product sold in China, I am very, very curious as to why it hasn’t in Japan.
    This secret is killing me!

  • qingdao

    I know nothing about Lady Gaga, but I would like to add that music is VERY important and almost always under-estimated. Plato said something like “. . .the first thing to change in any society is the music.” Think of Europe changing from minuets to the waltz around the time of Napolean; or the influence of jazz and rock and roll in the U.S. Michael Pettis, a leading economist on China, owns his own bar in Beijing and supports a lot of up-coming rock groups, which he claims are every bit as good as any in the West. Secondly, I would like to respectfully disagree: “the Chinese” are NOT as individualistic as Americans.

  • http://wangbo.blogtown.co.nz Chris Waugh

    “So am I right to link the toy story to Lady Gaga?”
    You absolutely are right.
    As for the particular balance between individualism and collectivism, or all the talk you seem to obliquely refer to about Chinese kids being brainwashed and having the creativity stomped out of them, I would invite you to step onto any Chinese university campus and spend some time getting to know the kids. Collectivism is for real, brainwashing exists, but one talent all the students I’ve ever taught have collectively possessed and always manage to surprise me with is their energy and creativity.

  • http://www.qualityinspection.org Renaud

    Instead of individuality, I’d think of uniqueness. The yuppies in the large cities often say that they would like to have some unique attributes, such as a unique mobile phone or speaking a rare foreign language.
    I am not sure why. Maybe it’s simply the fact that getting a good office job is getting so tough, and that millions of other people can often do the same job.

  • Inst

    IMO individuality vs conformism is not necessarily the right axis; and individuality and conformist are not even the extremes of the axis. On one hand, you accept all the dogmas of the society without question and accept all the social norms simply based on their existence. On the other hand, you are afflicted by active ressentiment and if it’s socially normative in your society you will reject it. Non-conformism, or ideally a-conformism, is a “rational” center between these two extremes that considers social norms based on an individual system of judgment instead of taking the points of those two extremes.
    As far as individuality vs conformism goes; I think it has a bit to do with the target market in China versus Japan. For people who play with 100-200k JPY toys in Japan, these guys are likely to be middle management and middle-management traditionally has no preference for iconoclasm. On the other hand, in the Chinese case, 7k-14k CNY toys are the preserve of entrepreneurs. These guys can only be considered conformist if you accept the fact that barring political matters, they are the ones making the rules in their organizations.
    It’s not untrue that Japan has its own share of entrepreneurs, but these people don’t have the same space as they do in China, where the entire domestic private sector is not composed of B-schooler grads, but rather of country-bumpkin or ivory-tower entrepreneurs who have blundered their way into competence. After reading Richard McGregor’s “The Party”, it’s true that the public sector and state-owned corporates still occupy a vast sector of the Chinese economy, but the entrepreneurs have significant space in China. In Japan, on the other hand, the private sector is relatively mature. Entrepreneurs, I have read, made a good go at it during the early 2000s, but the Softbank scandal apparently tarnished their sheen.

  • http://www.ningboguide.com/ Craig

    So, Chinese are expressing their individuality…by copying a Western entertainer?

  • Ben

    I’m with you on this one Dan. I see something important here and I am not sure what it is either. Maybe this is just one of those things we won’t know for a few years and then we can look back at this and say “I told you so.”

  • the running man

    Just for clarification, there is a difference between individualism, and single-child, narcissistic superiority complex based on inferiority complex driven by, yes, quashed individualism (of yes, collectivistic rote conditioning, and insipid consumerism).
    The sixties haven’t occured in China yet; some even say the forties.

  • http://www.empoweradd.org Jeff

    A few quotes from Howard Bloom:
    “Our material goods can elevate our dreams.”
    “All of us have the hunger for belonging and the lust for attention.”
    To paraphrase: We try to fit in, yet still want to be “different.” It goes back to the Stone Age. The culture in China is just now understanding and relishing in consumerism.

  • http://killermelons.posterous.com Shaan

    I wanted to guess Segway–but it’s more expensive, and I haven’t seen that many around in Beijing at least. I guess Chinese know the difference between being unique and looking like a douche.