Even When It's All About Streaming Ads, It's Really All About The Team

11/10/2009 - Part of TCBN's Global Brands Series
Michael Tang is president of HDT Holdings Technologies, a WPP-owned rich media advertising company based in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. He is also a researcher at Peking University and was in the USA recently for the Global Brand Summit in Chicago.    



Michael Tang, Founder and President of HDT, is a pioneer in online advertising in the China market. While attending the US-China Global Brand Summit recently held in Chicago, he shared his thoughts on the growth of Chinese media and the challenges for Chinese firms going global.

We first asked him his reasons for attending the Global Brand Summit.

I am one of the researchers for Hong Kong – ah, for Beijing University, Peking University. So you know, one of the organizers is Peking University, that’s why I’ve come here to help this forum. 

What can a company like Sina do for Chinese firms in the US?

As far as I understand that in Sina they also have an office in North America and so especially in internet there’s no regional boundary. Anybody can get into the portal of Sina. So either from, you know, in North America or east America that’s very easily. And also HDT did some of the work for some of the clients in China to do globally for Sina. They can book us in China, mainland China, and Hong Kong, and Singapore, and North America. There is some instance before. 

What do you think the key challenges are for Chinese companies who want to build a global brand?

That’s a good question. I think during the summit, you know, the panel discussion, one of the issues will be the cultural differences. I always believe that is one of the boundaries for the people coming to China or get out of the China. For instance, you know, even though Hong Kong is part of the China, and Hong Kong people and mainland China people, they also have cultural differences. And if you take it for domestic concern, even Guangzhou or Shanghai and Beijing, they have some minor cultural differences. So if you talk about America and China, of course the issue will be bigger. 

Do you know of any Chinese firms that have successfully built American brand teams?

I think it’s quite rare. And I don’t have any data in mind for time being, but I know a lot of failure cases in China, and you know, I’ve been advertising agency of businesses for 30 years. So I’ve been working in Hong Kong for 10 years, and Australia for 10 years, and 10 years in China, always in advertising. And when I was working in China the agencies I was working on, ever since I was managing director, we have a lot of failure cases that we hire people from abroad and it’s not working well with the local talents.

What is the biggest challenge in cross-cultural management?

I think the biggest challenge is manage the culture of different, of two, you know, different regions. I think my suggestion would be to abroad [foreign] talents should learn more about the local culture so they know how to manage or work together with the local talents. And it takes time, I’m sure. And I learned that a lot, even myself. I was working in Hong Kong, and came to China from Sydney, and it takes me some time to learn about, and I think for the management, how to put these two regions’ people together, that will be a challenge for them.


Learn more about HDT Holdings Technologies at http://hdtworld.com.