Fiats latest advert appears to have angered the Chinese people, due to Richard Gere driving to Lhasa. The below news article, from the Financial Times, gives us more details:
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Very bad move by Fiat indeed, currently Fiat occupies for a really small market share of China (if not the smallest out of everyone).
I don’t know what will happen to Fiat this time.
I think we’re seeing the future of branding and advertising. I’ve spoken about how increasingly fragmented the advertising terrain has become. Companies and products that want to stand out have got to make a racket and one way of doing this is designing advertising and marketing campaigns that get talked about and take on a life of their own. There is probably no better way of doing this than offending one group’s sensibilities while re-enforcing and complimenting another group’s. The Fiat ad does this since it was intended for airing in Europe where Free-Tibet sentiment is high. In the European market, the ad’s message is sure to resonate and build visibility and goodwill for the Fiat brand.