Examples of creative work out of China often appear on the top Western advertising blogs. Here is the beginning of a mission to put it all in one place. Keep in mind that most of these are by transnational outposts such as Ogilvy and Wieden + Kennedy.

There will be more in this series so click here to subscribe and be notified when they are posted. Oh and you can click on any of the images for a closer look.

via adgoodness and ibelieveinadvertising

As you can see in the above E-trade spot some a lot of people are psyched about China. In 2008 Brand China came out through the Beijing Olympics and stirred up hype all over the planet. In the United States this is/was presented throughout the media from news, obviously, to Hollywood films and advertising. This post is the first of a series, China in American Media, which will present exactly that. First up, advertising spotted over the course of the past year or so. Videos after the jump.

SalesGenie.com Super Bowl Ad

This one sparked some controversy. Click here.

T-Mobile Spot Featuring Yao Ming, Charles Barkley

GE Health Care Reimagined

Click here for a previous post about this one.

Coca-Cola Expat

Calgon Water Softener Commercial from the 1970s

An oldie to compare today’s ads to.

Subscribe to Design Brand China by clicking here to be updated when the next part of the series is published. Stay tuned!

We’ve all seen or heard about the piracy and copyright violation going on in China, its not really anything new. Here is something that does stand out from the clutter of fake iPhones and DVDs, an entire street of fake brands including:

McDnoald’s
Watons
Bucksstar Coffee
Pizza Hutt

All of these lined up next door to each other in Nanjing. This could become a tourist trap…

via

The Taiwan Tourism Bureau is targeting the sophisticated/businessman/traveler demographic with its recent ad placement in the magazine Monocle (November 2008). The ad resembles a feature article where it points out all of the hottest must-visit locations on the island for both shopping and design culture. The Bureau is positioning Taiwan as a high-tech innovation hub of today’s global economy. From personal experience I can say that most of the locations featured in the ad are indeed worth visiting.

Click either of the above images for larger resolutions and readable copy.

Also worth noting is that the ad is under the “Taiwan Touch Your Heart” campaign which has been around for a while. Below is a video with a collection of spots from their television campaign. It is nice to see that they are finding other aspects of Taiwan to help promote the country other than the Taipei 101.

I have become a FriendFeed fan in the past few weeks which may be obvious through the badge displayed on the homepage. It is a great way to passively share things that you may stumble across while surfing the web. I have my Google Reader shared articles, diggs, tweets, and YouTube favorites (to name a few) all collected together into this simple and easy to read stream.

Subscribing to what are called “Rooms,” where FriendFeed users can gather to share media related to a certain topic, I was made aware of an eBay auction for the metal type displayed in the picture above. $6 later, and a box of real life Chinese letterpess type is in the mail.

The FriendFeed Room I found the auction in is dedicated to typography and it had some other goodies. Here they are:

Contemporary Chinese typography.

Japanese book design.

Ancient Chinese typography.

By the way, as of 9:09 Eastern time 11/6/2008 the metal type is still available for purchase here.

This poster is taken from an exhibition of over 200 designers’ work from around the globe. The exhibition is in support of the victims of the Sichuan earthquake that occurred May 12th earlier this year. It really is inspiring to see how visual design transcends language barriers.

via

Apparently one of the Beijing Olympic torchbearers was Scott Oelkers, managing director of Domino’s Pizza in China. I remember seeing this guy in television commercials when I was still living in Taiwan and people mistook my dad for him all the time. Oelkers’ went from being a Mormon missionary assigned to Taiwan in 1979 to managing over 100 Domino’s Pizza locations there and in China. Missionaries often end up contributing to their “target market” outside of spreading their faith. One major example that comes to mind is Samuel Dyer and his efforts in the creation of a steel typeface for the Chinese language.

What’s interesting is how one of Domino’s Taiwan ad campaigns was such a success that it allowed them to build around 65 stores in just two years. Their agency (I wish I knew which it was) presented a campaign using Chinese puns and felt that it would make more sense if a foreigner was the one to say them. This is how Oelkers ended up not only as a business manager but also on the Taiwanese tubes and as a local celebrity of sorts. Scott says, “I can’t walk down the street in Taiwan without hearing the words “DaMeiLe, DaLeMei” being spoken by someone I pass by.” DaMeiLe is Domino’s Chinese name, and DaLeMei means “have you called yet?.”

There are some examples of the campaign here and more about Scott Oelkers here and here.

On a related note, the first two characters in Pizza Hut’s name, bisheng, is my Chinese name. I’ve recieved some freebies because of it.

Yet another ad in Coca Cola’s campaign for the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

via MadisonBoom

A very nice article about the state of Chinese graphic design was just posted a couple days ago over at PingMag. Click here.

Wired.com has a short gallery on Lenovo’s Olympics torch design here.