Huawei: too late to save its international image? - Tom Doctoroff

Tom Doctoroff

China's telecom giant Huawei turned on an unprecedented PR machine after it got into rough weather and even exposed its reclusive founder to foreign journalists. Too late, too little, but not untypical for most Chinese companies, even when they have global aspirations, says marketing veteran Tom Doctoroff to the Holmes Report.

The Holmes Report:

Huawei's reluctance to communicate, furthermore, is only compounded when the stakes rise, as exemplified by the company's experiences over the past 18 months.  "Huawei's mismanagement of its international image is typical of Chinese entities — governmental or corporate — who simply can't respond to challenge," says former JWT China CEO Tom Doctoroff, now chief cultural insights officer at Prophet. "The instinctive impulse to lurch into a defensive, self-protective hunch precludes mutual understanding and win-win collaboration."

More at the Holmes Report.

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