FEATURES: Face-off over image issue - Western talent made a strong comeback in Asian advertising campaigns in the post-crisis era. But its influence has been far less pervasive in the youth market s

When you're producing ads in Asian countries, what sort of faces

should you use in them? The obvious answer would seem to be: "Asian

ones".

But that hasn't stopped the history of Asian advertising being littered

with ads featuring western faces - because they were felt to be

aspirational, or because advertisers couldn't be bothered to re-record

them with local talent.

That's gradually changing, but for premium-branded goods and products,

the western faces are still there. One of the most successful examples

was fashion chain Giordano's recent campaign, which, despite being for a

home-grown Asian clothing company, featured as its stars a pair of

American twins. The campaign was phenomenally successful, said

Giordano's former marketing manager Rebecca Ang Lee, who handled the

promotion.

"We got a lot of feedback from customers when we used the images of the

American twins," she says. "We had people complimenting us, and saying

things like: 'I didn't use to be a Giordano customer, but I will be

now.' So we decided that was the route we wanted to pursue.

International faces still outsell Asian faces. The prestige of western

faces is still higher.

In particular, companies that want to go international tend to use

western faces, and Giordano is heading towards that route.

"In time to come, perhaps there will be some shift. Right now

everybody's talking about Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - Asians are

being seen as superior and interesting. But it's true that the US and

Europe are still ahead of us. People in Asia will always be seen as a

bit slower to catch up with fashion."

The situation hasn't changed as much as you'd expect, according to OMD

Asia chief executive Mike Cooper. Asian faces became more prevalent in

sectors like luxury goods, he argues, but there's been a regression in

recent years. "I don't think it has changed that much," he comments.

"Western faces are still being used a lot. In fact, I find it amazing

the amount of western talent that's used in Asian advertising.

"Smart marketers with big budgets are using local talent, and it's

always worked well for people like Procter & Gamble and Unilever to

shoot commercials lots of times with talent from different countries.

But foreigners are still being used too much as aspirational images; for

the majority of Asians, I don't think that's right.

"Since 1997 and the financial crisis, Asia's lost a lot of

confidence.

Maybe that's why there's been a return to using more western talent -

because there isn't so much confidence in local icons."

That's particularly true is the luxury goods market. In other areas

where it was traditionally the case, however, such as the youth sector,

the situation is changing fast. In the majority of countries, Asian

youth is no longer so inclined to look to Europe and in particular the

US for its touchstone of what is or isn't fashionable. A distinctively

Asian definition of cool is developing, according to Cheah Chee Kong -

otherwise known as CheeK - MTV Networks Asia's vice-president of network

editorial strategy.

"People used to think that youth culture was the same throughout the

world, but that's not true any more," he says. "Young Asian people are

increasingly seeing a mixture of western and Asian culture and values,

and thinking: 'That's what we are, and that can be cool.' The whole

definition of what's cool is changing, and it isn't just western any

more."

One of the key drivers of this greater sense of cultural confidence is

the rise of Japan as a strong centre of cultural influence. According to

the Roar survey, conducted in November 2000 by OMD, with the support of

Star, Channel V, 20th Century Fox and Hachette Filipacchi, Japan has

overtaken the US as the country with the most influence on fashion in

Asia.

The report, a study of youth attitudes, taken from the opinions of 4,400

young people in eight countries, found that Japan was most often rated

as the most influential country across the region. Japan was top-ranked

in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, with 78 per cent of Hong Kongers and

75 per cent of Taiwanese putting it in first place. The US was seen as

most influential only in the Philippines and Malaysia.

"The popularity of everything Japanese is increasing across Asia," says

CheeK. "A lot of countries in Asia need a focus for what is cool, and

it's shifting to places like Japan that are closer to home. For kids in

places like China, the Japanese thing gives them hope that they don't

have to be six feet tall or blond."

A separate study by MTV, Sources of Cool, published in April 2001, backs

up the view that the range of cultural influences in Asia is growing,

and that increasingly, those influences are closer to home. The study

found that this was giving rise to a more diverse culture, but at the

same time to a greater sense of cultural confidence. Sources of Cool

concluded that Asian youth are increasingly willing to co-opt trends

from overseas, particularly from Japan and the US, and include them in

their own personal sub-cultures.

According to CheeK, however, when it comes to its programming, MTV's

focus is very much on local faces. Except for a few presenters of mixed

parentage in Thailand, the company exclusively uses local people in each

country as its VJs. "Our policy is pretty clear - we localise across all

of Asia," he says. "It's really important for us to connect with the

audience.

It's based a lot of feedback: we're convinced that if we want it to work

in Asia, it has to be localised. You have to be real, and you have to be

honest - otherwise people won't be able to connect with you."

The company has tried to use Asian faces since its launch in 1995, as

part of a broader strategy of focusing on local content. When it

introduces locally-produced shows featuring local music, he adds,

ratings frequently jump by three or four times. MTV's rival Channel V

takes the same view.

Its regional channel Channel V International has three mixed-parentage

presenters, but according to commercial director Jasper Donat, "that

just happened, and was not due to any desire on our part". Other than

that, it nearly exclusively uses local people in its shows, and

employing Asian talent is the way forward, says Donat: "Except in places

like Australia, we'll never have a white face on Channel V. And for

Channel V to start using white faces in its marketing would be

ridiculous, unless we're promoting international music. It's still cool

to have UK or US DJs, for example.

"When it comes to people with more western features being regarded as

cool, that's just about musicians, a lot of whom are from the US and

Europe.

But the majority of the music we play is local.

"In most markets, using a white face would do you a disservice. Asian

kids will look at that and think you're trying to sell to them and

trying to be international, and they'll say no way."

One solution, among advertisers in particular, to the issue of how to be

all things to all people, has been to use mixed parentage or Eurasian

faces. Particularly popular in countries like Thailand, Eurasians are

supposed to be a kind of everyman, whose appeal is both pan-Asian and

potentially pan-global: exotic to everyone, threatening to no one, and

possible for everyone to identify with.

Eurasians have a new-found prestige and social acceptability, says Neil

Ducray, managing director of TBWA Hong Kong: "Ten years ago, in most

markets, Eurasians were really looked down on, but now they're huge.

People can identify with them, but they've still got a cachet."

However according to OMD's Cooper, the era of the Eurasian is already on

the wane. "For a long time, you'd have ads with Eurasian faces in them,

that were supposed to appeal to everyone, but actually they don't appeal

to anyone," he says.

CheeK puts is down to conservatism: "A lot of advertisers are using

mixed parentage or Eurasian faces. All the faces in Thai advertising are

Eurasian - it's scary to me. I don't have anything against the

advertising community, but they tend to stick to the safe and tried and

tested."

And Eurasian faces, which were once taboo, have now become the ultimate

expression of conservatism and orthodoxy among advertisers.

The irony of it is that with Asian youth growing in confidence, this

conservatism may no longer be necessary. In fact, far from Asia taking

its cultural cues from the west, the opposite may be starting to happen:

the west is looking to Asia. There's what you might think of as the

Crouching Tiger Effect, where a slightly stereotypical Asian-ness is

seen as attractive; but there's also the deeper issue of Asians actively

having an input into the shape of global youth culture, as it fragments

and offers individuals more choices.

"People in the west are starting to see that Asian culture isn't

something that no one can understand," says CheeK. "People are a bit

more open to Asian ideas. Asian faces are getting more airtime - I think

that's a sign of the times."

It's in the youth market where this change is most obvious, but it's

true across most product categories. For the vast majority of

advertisers, local faces are still best. After all, for most products,

even multinational brands would prefer to be seen as local (see

analysis, page 24).

In her current job as head of marketing communications, consumer

financial services for OCBC Bank, for example, ex-Giordano marketing

manager Rebecca Ang Lee has found that, far from preferring images of

American twins, its customers want to see Chinese faces in its

marketing. "It's a very Chinese bank, set up in 1932, and most of its

customers are Chinese, so all our advertising features Chinese faces, or

at least pan-Asian ones," she says. "It's about building long-term

relationships with values like trust and sincerity, so it's important to

have people who are the same as our customers."

"Ask most people," adds Ducray of TBWA, "and they'll tell you that it's

already happened. The change is already in place - there might sometimes

be a western face, but usually there'll be an Asian one."

The number of product areas where western faces still have a cachet,

then, is falling. In particular, they're used less often as an exemplar

of what is fashionable, and across most of Asia, their influence in the

youth market is waning. They might still be used to signify luxury, or

when a brand wants to emphasise its global nature. As ever, though, it's

about appropriateness to the brand, and the number of brands where it's

appropriate to use a western face is falling. And with the increasing

cultural confidence of Asian youth, one thing's for certain going

forward: the western monopoly on cool is over.