Vanke Pavilion [Photo: Baidu]
by Xu Leiying
The World Expo is not only a platform where diverse cultures meet or a place to showcase high-tech products, but also an important occasion for enterprises to promote their brands.
Many enterprises from both home and abroad are seeking business opportunities at the Shanghai World Expo Park. For instance, the Ginseng Board of Wisconsin (GBW) has teamed up with China's most famous drugstore Tongrentang and launched Tongrentang-branded American ginseng in China for the first time in July. Now, visitors can buy the local specialty of the United States as souvenirs in the gift shop of the USA Pavilion.
Chun Yu, President of Tongrentang, said the Expo offers an excellent opportunity for both the GBW and Tongrentang.
Butch Weege, Director of the GBW expressed his hope that more Chinese consumers would come to know the taste and quality of American ginseng through the platform of the World Expo.
Besides souvenirs in gift shops, visitors can easily find many other brands in the World Expo Park, even in the toilets. A papermaker has introduced its product which does not rely on the consumption of trees. Posters in the restrooms there say that the company's products are eco-friendly.
Company executives consider the World Expo, which has attracted millions of people, a rare opportunity to woo consumers from all over the world. They are trying find every possible location to introduce their brands.
At the Shanghai Expo's Urban Best Practices Area (UBPA), those who stop by London's zero-carbon buildings will see domestic brand Himin Solar Energy, which is providing solar energy power generation and heating systems for London's UBPA cases.
Visitors who want to learn more about Himin can go to the Chinese Enterprise Pavilion in which 16 leading domestic enterprises, including Himin Group, are displaying their products, technologies and corporate cultures.
But two other Chinese enterprises -- cooling systems maker Broad Ltd. and real estate developer China Vanke Co. -- decided that a joint pavilion was not large enough to house their designs and technologies. That prompted the two companies to build their own pavilions to fully express their understanding about future buildings. Visitors who enter the Expo's Puxi Section through Gate 3 will immediately see the two huge buildings.
