Kara S Alaimo, Columnist

When Marketing in One Country Backfires Abroad

In a hyper-connected world, there’s no such thing as a local public relations strategy.

March 31, 2017 at 7:00 PM UTC

Kara Alaimo is an associate professor of communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She is the author of “Over the Influence: Why Social Media Is Toxic for Women and Girls — and How We Can Take It Back.”

Consistency counts.
Photographer: BRENT LEWIN/GETTY IMAGES

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Last week, Apple launched (PRODUCT)RED, a special-edition iPhone. An undisclosed portion of sales of the phone will support The Global Fund to Fight AIDS. But the product is strangely missing from the Chinese version of Apple’s website, which promotes a red phone but has no mention of the disease.

Apple didn’t respond to my question about why that’s the case. But my colleague Jingsi Christina Wu, a professor of media studies at Hofstra University, said the Chinese government probably didn’t approve of the (PRODUCT)RED message. Although HIV/AIDS is a major public health challenge for China, she said the government doesn’t generally like to acknowledge it openly. Part of the problem is its association with homosexuality and sexually transmitted diseases in general -- subjects the government still considers somewhat taboo. According to Human Rights Watch, the country has threatened and suppressed the work of HIV activists.