2008 Beijing Olympics
Analyze the reasons why the Chinese government hired a Western public relations firm to work on the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The major reason as to why Chinese government hired a Western public relations firm to work on the 2008 Beijing Olympics was to repair their image before the Olympics. Several agencies around the world were invited to discuss a contract with Chinese officials about the pre-games PR strategies, media training, and market research on Western perceptions of China. This was done to see what other people think of them and how the Chinese officials can portray a story to the media right before the 2008 Beijing Olympics (Pichard & Mcgregor, 2008). Ofcorse country image plays an important role in international public relations and advertising which ultimately helps in influencing international consumers’ purchasing powers and their attitude towards country’s brands and goods. All this time China was concerned solely about the country’s destination image which was elevated for holding the Olympics. According to Stephanie Clifford (2008) it was a challenge for China’s centralized political system to control the world stage and the messages given to the global media and other social networking cites. Throughout, Chinese government clearly examined that western companies were better at handling media communications globally. Basically, Chinese government wanted this biggest sporting event to be taken in a positive way and also distracting the people from political issues that China was facing at the time. Therefore, the wise decisions made by the Chinese government for hiring the western public relations were for two important facts: one was to rebuild the negative image into a constructive positive one and second reason was to get the recognition globally of the country itself. The 2008 Beijing Olympics was successful because the western PR handled the media and the sponsorships in the best possible way under the permissions of the Chinese