The strategy of advertisement is very important for the successful market expansion in China, one of the newly growing markets of largest potential, after the implementation of the open policy since 1979. The purpose of this thesis are, firstly to clarify Chinese advertising environments and consumer trends, secondly to indicate the best way for foreign firms to advertise their consumer products by media in China. The major aim of this research is to provide foreign entrants to the market with the idea how to make a strategic advertising plan.
This paper dealt with Chinese advertising environment including media characteristics and Chinese consumer trends. Two foreign companies' cases were analysed as examples of success and failure as well as short and long-term prospects. Through investigating current Chinese advertising environments and analysing two cases, this paper suggested a way how to make an effective media strategy for Chinese consumer markets, including the market segmentation, targeting, advertising tactics adjusted to temporal and local variables, the selection of advertising agency, media mix and vehicles selection, media buying, how to use "guanxi(relationship)" culture and so on, which will be very helpful for foreign firms to get into China market.
This paper was based on a practical approach to the advertising strategy rather than a theoretical one, because it was difficult to theorize the subject with limited data available. Further studies including advertising effect analysis, measurement of objective reaching rate of each media vehicle and verification of consumer trends are recommended for better advertising strategy in China.