Books: Ad Man in China

400 MILLION CUSTOMERS—Carl Crow—Harper ($3).

To judge by the writings of travelers, philosophers, novelists and the like, most foreigners in China are on the trail of something almost as visionary as the philosopher’s stone. But in fact what entices most foreigners to China is the vision of doing business with China’s 400,000,000 potential customers. For the past 25 years head of a Shanghai advertising agency, Carl Crow now reveals in 400 Million Customers where he got to while following that vision. An unpretentious, anecdotal account, it is pleasant reading because it deals with a novel part of the Chinese scene and because its humor is as often at the expense of the author and his clients as of the Chinese.

In general, Author Crow’s problem was one of learning (by U. S. advertising standards) to do business standing on his head—a position which produced a remarkable number of headaches. In explanation hecites the Chinese consumer’s upsidedown wish to buy rather than be sold, his perverse refusal to switch brands once satisfied with the one he has got, resulting in an all-round sales resistance calculated to turn an occidental adman’s hair grey. Example: Smarting under the British monopoly, a U. S. client gave the Crow agency a go-ahead on the biggest advertising campaign ever put on in China. Chinese smokers took a few sample puffs, grimaced, went back to the British brand. When another manufacturer duplicated a favorite British blend exactly, designed a beautiful packet, priced it lower, the sales were still nil. Chinese customers, guided by the Confucian maxim that “fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue,” merely figured the more elegant the packet, the cheaper the price, the shoddier the quality. Drugs, another leading gold mine for western civilization’s advertisers, were an even bigger flop than cigarets. “The total consumption of foreign pills,” says Crow, “probably does not average much more than one pill per annum per person.” Yet curiously enough reliable insurance companies call the Chinese as good risks as English or Americans.

All the more gratifying because so rare were the two campaigns which the Crow agency did put across. As publisher of China’s first fashion book, introducing slit skirts to replace trousers, Author Crow is proud to have brought out of hiding “the most beautiful leg the world has ever seen.” As publisher of China’s first manual on poker-playing, he not only turned out a tremendous bestseller, but had the deep satisfaction of restoring that game to the classic traditions obtaining when he played it in Fort Worth, Tex. 30 years ago, before decadence set in through the use of wild cards.

Having filled a good-sized book with observations on personnel problems, Chinese face-saving, food, business etiquet, chiseling, the role of witch-doctors in business, the vagaries of U. S. export managers, and whatever else was at hand except a statement of profits, Author Crow gently implies that although the Chinese birth rate is approximately one a minute, it consists of a remarkably small number of suckers.