WPP ‘Go Logo’ campus tour gets underway in China

The programme, led by The Brand Union, Ogilvy and London-based branding expert Mac Cato of Cato Dangoor Associates, takes the form of a campus tour around selected centres of learning for the marketing communications industry in Beijing and Shanghai. These include the China Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Fudan University, the China Europe International Business School, and the WPP School of Marketing and Communications at the Shanghai Art and Design Academy.

A bilingual website gives visitors the chance to showcase their work and provides information through blogs, articles and interviews with experts in the field. And the Go Logo China Video Challenge, a video contest, invites creative talent under the age of 25 to submit short films for the chance to win 10 six-month paid internships at Ogilvy and the Brand Union in China.

The project is inspired by Cato’s book Go Logo! A handbook to the Art of Global Branding, which is positioned as the antithesis of No Logo, a book by anti-corporate journalist Naomi Klein.

Benedict Gordon, regional strategist at the Brand Union Asia-Pacific, explained that Go Logo China aimed to “promote the value of emotional branding and great design, serve as counsellors for young designers in China, and ultimately get companies to value the importance of brand identity and design as a differentiator in the China market.

Cato said the project aimed to “give something back” to China, and added that brands should aim to do the same. “Giving something back is the key emotional reward that brands can offer consumers,” he said. “The product must deliver tangible results, bit it is the brand that an give something back by reflecting our emotional preferences.”

The campus tour will conclude tomorrow at the WPP School in Shanghai. The school launched last October in a partnership with the Shanghai Art and Design Academy.