International Meetings: Asia Rising By Michelle Russell

Take Away

The Lesson of the Cherry Blossom

A meeting in Japan illustrates the challenges of marketing meetings in Asian cultures.

When the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) chose to feature the cherry blossom as the graph- ic element for its 2008 annual meeting in Chiba, Japan, the Park Ridge, Ill.–based association of financial professionals understood the tree’s importance in the Japanese culture. An omen ofgood fortune, the cherry tree is richly symbolic — even more so thanMDRT real- ized.

But leading up to the

                        

MDRT Experience 2008, which was held in April 2008,MDRT’smembers in Japan were objecting to the imageofasingle cherry blos- somused in the event’s mar- keting materials.“Onlythey wouldn’t saywhythe flower wasn’tagoodrepresentation for the meeting,” said Jody Egel, CAE, CMP, MDRT’s meetingsmanager.“Finally,a staff member from an MDRT chapter in Japan explainedthat in theJapaneseculture,theydon’tlook at the individual; it’smuchmore ofa group culture. Andlooking atoneflower is like lookingatoneper- son.” To make the meeting’s messaging culturally

acceptable, MDRT changed the single-flower image to clusters ofcherry blossoms. Luckily, the marketing was in its preliminary stages, soMDRT didn’t have to scrap the overall campaign or theme. That’s becauseMDRT’s previous experience in Asia—in additiontoChiba, it has met in Seoul, Singapore,Bangkok, andHongKong—taught the

                                   

             

    

PETAL TO THE METAL: MDRT’s revised, many- blossomed marketing piece.

organization to seek approval for any kind of graphic element fromsomeonewhoknowsthe cul- ture, Egel said, because “you don’t want to do something that would offend anyone.” Getting approval is a good idea when you’re working with cultures that don’t share Westerners’ directness as away ofdoing business. It can prove espe- cially difficult to find out why something might be offensive to a particular Asianculture—orcompany. MDRT’s2006annualmeet- ing inBangkokbrought that lesson home. “We had our partners’ logos printed on one side ofour registration tote bags, as promised in their agreement with us,” Egel said. MDRT sent the bags in advance to those sponsor companies with a large number ofemployees registered for the event. A platinum partner must not

      

have liked the way its logo looked, she said, because once on site in Bangkok, MDRT staff noticed that “all 1,000 to 2,000 attendees from that one companywere carrying the bag the opposite way”—with only their own logo facing out. “Instead oftalking to us about it,” Egel said,

“they just printed their logoonthe other side ofthe tote bag in a larger size.”MDRThas since gone out of its way to get local members involved before going to print—or picking food or entertainment —to ensure, she said, “that we’re doing what’s appropriate and not offensive.”

ON_THE_WEB: For tips on doing business in Asia from the Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands book series, click on the “Articles” tab at www.getcustoms.com.

26 pcma convene February 2011 ILLUSTRATION BY PAUL OAKLEY

Ask and Ask Again “Asians are very accommodating and hospitality-oriented,” MDRT’s Jody Egel said. “They want to please, and do whatever they can to make your meeting successful. But you have to under- standthe way that they communicate. In Japan, they won’t tell you no. If they don’t like some- thing, they will say, ‘That would be diffi- cult,’ ‘That’s probably not a good idea,’ or ‘That’s not going to work.’ They won’t say, ‘You can’t do that because of [X, Y, or Z].’ You have to ask more questions to make sure that you’re getting the right information.” For North American–

basedorganizations that are not as fortu- nate as MDRT to have members throughout Asia, Egel offers this advice: “No matter what kind of meeting you have or who the attendees are, a PCO [professional congress organizer] and/or a contact with the local convention bureau can be very helpful in elimi- nating some of those challenges.”

Michelle Russell is editor in chief of Convene.

International Meetings: Asia Rising is sponsored by the Japan National Tourism Organization, www.jnto.go.jp.