Wine Brand Naming in China

In international marketing the search for suitable brand names is complicated by a number of issues. One of these is the decision as to whether to standardize, localize, or use some form of intermediate adapted strategy. In the case of the PR China, the situation is more complex still, owing to a number of factors, but, particularly because of its completely different logographic language structure. This paper examines several of the key issues in wine brand naming and then reports an empirical study into Chinese consumers' reactions to live different naming strategies, each applied to a selection of wine brands. The results indicated that the original foreign brand name was the most appealing whilst a Translation plus Transliteration with Positive Connotation naming strategy was the second most appealing approach.