China Grow

I received an e-mail from Haifeng Wang, the editor of China Sign magazine, on May 10. She told me a Hong Kong-based magazine was stealing our articles, photos and all, and translating and publishing them. Darek Johnson’s international acclaim may have grown in the process.

A day later, Haifeng invited me to speak at the 12th Shanghai International Ad Technology & Equipment Exhibition (I’ll refer to it as "The Show"). Arrangements were made, and I took the 16-hour flight from Chicago to Shanghai on June 26 for the three-day exhibition.

Here are some of my impressions about The Show, the Chinese sign industry and China itself, as presumptuous as that might be, based on three days of empirical investigation.

Before I left the United States, I researched The Show on the English-language website of Gray Business Promotion and was quite surprised to read that 98,000 people attended the 2004 show. I don’t believe that’s true for the 2005 show. Although it was spread across four buildings, and seemed about the size of an ISA international show, The Show didn’t appear to have attracted even twice the record 21,000 that the most recent ISA Sign Expo drew. Again, I would essentially equate the two shows. The day I spoke, as part of an all-day seminar series, approximately 60 people attended, so there weren’t any other show proceedings that would have kept people from the exhibit hall.

The Show very much reminded me of an ISA Sign Expo. The biggest distinction is my guesstimate that 80% of the exhibitors were Chinese, and only 20% were companies we would see at an ISA show. And yes, large-format digital printers dominated; also, LEDs were everywhere. Even though neon proliferates outside the hall on Shanghai buildings, neon-product exhibitors are even more scarce than in the United States. I saw two. Exhibitors approached attendees much more agressively than is done in the United States.

Recognizable non-Chinese exhibitors included EFI, Roland DGA Corporation, Mutoh America Inc., Mimaki USA and 3M Industrial Adhesives & Tapes Div., but I didn’t see a single familiar face, except for Jim Chang, founder of the former Amiable Technologies, now part of SA International. I don’t know the China/Israel diplomatic relationship, but I didn’t see a single Israeli company, as would be seen at an ISA show: no |2433|, Nur America Inc. or Matan Digital Printers Ltd., in addition to Scanvec Amiable’s conspicuous absence. However, the website info about the 2004 show indicated Scitex’s presence.Scanvec Amiable, Scitex Vision, NUR America Inc., Matan Digital Printers Ltd.

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I loved the architectural signage on display. The bright colors, myriad shapes and textures looked like custom signs, rather than wholesale. (Actually, they might have been fabricated by what we would call normal sign companies. I tried to ask several exhibitors about wholesaling, but neither the word nor the concept seems to register. Overall, I was surprised at how few people spoke even conversational English.)

Another distinction involves organization. A private company coordinated The Show (of course, private, in a Communist country, is a relative term). Unless I missed something, no China sign association exists. According to my host (before The Show commenced, Haifeng e-mailed me to say she had taken the English name of "Fiona"), China Sign is the only magazine authorized by the Chinese government to publish a magazine about signs. (I know, Hong Kong has officially been part of China again since 1997, so I don’t know how that other sign magazine can exist.)

The banner at the show entrance carried the names of numerous "advertising associations," but the term "advertising" seems to mostly mean "signs." How ironic! The United States is supposed to be so fiscally sophisticated, yet its residents often fail to make the connection between on-premise signs and advertising.

Inside the exhibit hall, for an additional 20 yuan (approximately $1.10, which changed because, as of July 21, the yuan was no longer tied to the U.S. dollar), one could view the history of Chinese advertising, which goes back a bit further than, say, American advertising. The 2,400-sq.-ft. exhibit stated the first advertising, Oracle Bones, dates back to circa 3,000 B.C.

Shanghai itself, as China’s financial hub, is undoubtedly the most westernized Chinese city. It resembles an American metropolis (smog, traffic jams, et al), except for hundreds of high-rise apartment buildings, dozens of brand-new, Jetsons-like buildings, and bamboo scaffolding around many of those still being built.

Perhaps because of Communism, I saw essentially no idle people. Workers with stereotypical "coolie" straw hats kept the ubiquitous bushes and trees well trimmed, and the gutters and sidewalks received constant anti-litter attention.

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I saw my friends at Sign Munhwa, the Korean sign magazine that regularly buys the rights to translate ST articles into Korean. Their booth was next to the Hong Kong sign magazine’s booth. Fortunately, Sign Munhwa had someone fluent in Chinese and English, who spoke to the Hong Kong gentleman with some words I could understand, such as "copyright" and "plagiarism." A form of flattery, I suppose.Roland DGA CorporationMutoh America Inc.Mimaki USA Inc.Vutek Inc.3M Industrial Adhesives & Tapes Div.