Good packaging and proper positioning

a cultural economics
When society developed into the era of commodity economy, the content covered by economics gradually surpassed the simple economics in the traditional sense and began to have many new branches. So now, economics has been given more and more prefixes by us, such as econometrics, environmental economics, and ethical economics. Of course, culture as a business closely related to human beings is also included in the category discussed by economics. “Cultural economics” is a new concept put forward under such a major premise. It was proposed by the famous economist Samuelson. According to Samuelson's definition, human nature may be the same, but it is often influenced by culture. Economic markets around the world are adapted to the uniqueness of each place in terms of history, social structure, psychology, religion, and political conditions. These factors influence people's willingness to work, consume, invest, save, and risk.

Samuelson sees the national tradition and cultural trend as a factor that restricts the world economy. He believes that the root of the current economic recession lies largely in the traditions, values, and political conditions of each country. He believes that protectionism in Japan, welfarism in Europe, and the social structure of French petty bourgeoisie are all factors that hinder economic recovery. Samuelson said that the characteristics of American culture are to emphasize individuality and struggling to forge ahead, and there is an epidemic of optimism on new technologies, which has caused the United States to have the longest period of prosperity. Although Samuelson did not directly address the reason why the United States’ economy had recently entered a recession, from his remarks, we can deduce what he has derived: the enthusiasm for new technologies, which led to the bursting of the bubble should be one of the important reasons.

Samuelson’s article in the US “Newsweek” was not long. It put forward an inseparable view of the economy and culture. This should be a point that is generally accepted and worthy of our attention. However, Samuelson seems to be inclined to view culture as a purely restrictive factor in economic growth. This is controversial. Relatively economically speaking, a society’s culture is relatively stable. It can experience both high-speed growth and a period of stagnation under relatively stable cultural conditions, such as Japan. This shows that the same culture plays different functions in different stages of economic development, and both promotion and restraint are concurrent. In short, culture often plays a role in economic development: "what if, what, if?"

There is indeed an interactive relationship between culture and economy, but it is not simply that one party is dominant, while the other is passive. In the process of economic development, people need to have a consciousness of cultural transformation and have the consciousness to keep up with the times, so that their own social culture has a strong ability to adjust, so that economic development can obtain effective cultural support at different stages. This may be one of the inspirations of "cultural economics" for us.

Second Packaging and Culture
One of the key points in cultural economics is to use all economic means to assist the promotion and survival of culture. As a kind of economic means, packaging has a crucial influence on culture, and this is precisely an important point that we have neglected in Chinese culture. We can use the case of culture and packaging to understand the cultural and economic interactions that cultural economics emphasizes.

The 24th Paris Book Salon was held in Paris, France from March 18th to 24th, 2004. As one of the highlights of the Sino-French cultural year, China's publishing industry was invited to participate in this salon's exhibition and various activities as a guest country. For a seven-day event, its courtesy and symbolic significance is far greater than its actual value. The French publishing industry showed great enthusiasm for the cooperation of the Chinese publishing industry during this event, which should herald the good prospects for the export of Chinese culture to France. However, the performance of the Chinese side in this activity is lackluster. During the event, in order to activate the exhibition atmosphere, the Chinese delegation selected three artists to conduct on-site calligraphy and engraving. This is a good thing to promote Chinese culture. However, because of the lack of self-positioning and packaging awareness, there is no proper packaging, and a lack of grand and elegant performance rituals, and they freely give their works on the spot, making Chinese culture self-deprecating. Valuing the value of traditional Chinese art is detrimental to the long-term cause of Chinese cultural output.

In a market economy society, works of art are valuable and artists have a noble social status. This is what the western society and the public agree with. However, in our organization's activities, artists are just like street performers without any packaging. Regardless of whether or not they should perform, there are no formal rituals for their artistic performance. There is neither sense of elegance, let alone cultural sacredness or mystery. . How could the artist's work be presented like waste paper! Even though it can entertain the crowd for a while, it is enough to make the Western art of the supremacy of the artist feel amazed, and it will make them despise our culture. In terms of packaging awareness of cultural output, we are far from being comparable to Japan, which has a common cultural origin. Japan’s culture originated in China, but the success of Japanese culture dissemination and promotion in today’s world far outweighs that of China. In addition to the reasons for economic strength, what is more important is that Japanese people have a strong sense of packaging, and they are also very good at packaging. The ability to advocate ceremonies has played a crucial role in helping the export of Japanese culture. Such as tea ceremony, kendo, judo, sumo, and so on, are all played in the packaging and ceremony. For Japanese, it will never be easy to engage in "free giving."

The output of Chinese culture should first of all be carefully designed in terms of packaging and rituals to form a unique, sacred, or mysterious form of formal beauty. In addition, in terms of the pricing of cultural products, we should not consider domestic labor costs, income levels, and lower exchange rate of RMB, which often makes China's cultural products less expensive in the international market than in the West. Western cultural products, such as copyright, will sell much more expensively. From a practical point of view, it is perfectly reasonable for the West to position and price its own products according to the regional or international exchange rate. It is only that we should clearly understand that cultural products are not shirt lighters, and that the lower the price, the more competitive they are. In the 21st century, when everything in the human society enters the “turntable” of “globalization,” the fast-selling culture and art approach is not suitable for internationalization, and low-cost and convenient creation (similar to a one-minute painting Art works in the form of "not only" are not given the respect they deserve, but they may lead others to despise our culture. Therefore, when exporting cultural products, we should not first hold the same attitude of “cheap” or “small profits but quick turnover” that we export with our agricultural and sideline products or household products. After all, we are operating and promoting our products. Culture is even promoting the image of our country, not just buying and selling culture. In the Western concept, it is even more agreeable to "a penny and a piece of goods." Whether it is packaging, ceremonies or pricing, we need to understand and familiarize ourselves with the cultural essence of each country and then find a fitting point to carefully design and match bridges. China’s culture and art must better go to the world and be truly exported to mainstream Western societies. Must have better packaging and more appropriate pricing.

In addition, we can also see the effectiveness of the principles of cultural economics in the industrial culture. Industrial culture, which is a combination of local products, folk culture, and sightseeing services, is intended to use industrial cultural activities to enable the industry to enhance the competitiveness of its products through cultural packaging. Therefore, the relationship between community building and tourism development lies in the search for local and unique industrial culture, using various marketing strategies and packaging methods to obtain local economic benefits. Somewhere in Jiangsu Province, a “lobster festival” was planned and the local lobster was fully packaged and had a great success. The lobster festival's new creativity, great influence, and good results have made lobster, once unrefined, not only a hot commodity, but also an important industry. This fully illustrates the unexpected role that a creative cultural plan can play under the conditions of a market economy. The Chinese steamed buns have been used for thousands of years and still cannot really go abroad. Although the American hamburger has only been used for hundreds of years, it has now spread all over the world.

A recent example of successful cultural economics in China was the “12 Girls Band”. It relies on a cultural background and ethnic preferences, or they more accurately enter the culture of a region, and succeeded in the Japanese market. The success of the 12 Girls Band “wall flowers wall outside incense” has immediately become a model for Chinese imitation, and a group of women’s folk music similar to the “Women's Twelve Band Square” form has emerged in Guangzhou—“Fang Wah 18 "We also plan to sail across the ocean and fight for the Asian market." It is not bad to imitate successful cases, but we should see the deeper revelation brought about by the success of the “12 Girls Square”, or even reflection, rather than “follow-up” without any consideration. Cultural and commercial success should not be the symbolization of this successful model, but ignore its essence and the laws behind it.

The success of the “12 Girls Band” in packaging is not merely a speculation in the visual arts. The Japanese market is largely in line with the Japanese aesthetic psychology. The most obvious feature of this kind of psychology is that The worship of stars, costumes and bodies. Twelve young women, dressed in uniform and dressed in traditional musical instruments but in modern form, are undoubtedly novel and attractive to the Japanese. The success of the “12 Girls Band” was precisely because the economic and business planners behind it identified the Japanese and Chinese culture as a single source of the same strain, and combined the Japanese visual department with Chinese folk music to create a meticulous culture. The result of the packaging.

From the great success of the “12 Girls Band” pop art form in Japan, we can in depth relate the topic of Chinese folk music to the world. Foreigners have always been interested in Chinese culture, but due to various obstacles in the exchange of East and West cultures over the years, foreigners’ understanding of Chinese culture is still incomplete. Moreover, in the past, the Chinese culture that we provided to foreign countries was mostly distorted or “marginal”. The atmosphere of politics or localization was too strong, and it further emphasized foreign misunderstandings of Chinese culture. The demonization of China by the West actually affects foreigners’ understanding of Chinese culture. Therefore, the Western people's first understanding of Chinese culture is sometimes not the culture itself, but a culture that has been given a certain meaning or color in advance. Packaging is the carrier of such a special prerequisite culture.

Many third-world cultures are often not merely the charm of culture when they enter the West. For example, the Western music market’s interest in and recognition of Zhu Zheqin’s “Sister Drum” stems from their curiosity about Tibet. The essence of culture is only a connecting point in such incidents. When the culture is finally implemented in the market and there is no way to affirm whether the cultural content itself will be accepted by the market, then it is necessary to clarify the relationship between culture and economy and find the market. The demand and adapting to the economic market's foothold are properly positioned and packaged in an appropriate manner. If we take hold of this pattern, we will see the weight of the culture of nationality in the hearts of Westerners. When a culture is transplanted from its home country to a foreign business field, it must rely on a substance that can stimulate the market's interest in buying, thereby stimulating business behavior. "Twelve Girls Band" is based on this principle, so that the so-called "coincidence" is more powerful than the purely dependent commercial promotion strategy.

So how can we make our national culture marketable?