CRRC: To establish cultural relevancy of a symbol, globally

Challenge: Cross Cultural Testing

My role: Team Manager, Brand Researcher

Agency: Zheng Bang

May 2015, Beijing

inspire people to look to the stars

China Aerospace Agency (CASC) approached ZhengBang’s Global Team to inspire people to look to the stars. This meant rebranding the agency to give it a distinct voice which could emotionally connect what it did with the story of a nation’s dreams.

CASC was one of the most stressful and intense projects during my time at ZhengBang. The challenge began already with accessing information: as a high-security government agency, CASC only allowed Chinese-born team members on-site, and tightly controlled important data. Moreover, our project goals quickly became muddled. Were we branding a space agency? A research center? Aerospace technology? Or did it have to be something else?

legendary resilience

We noticed that CASC had a long history of disappointments and stumbling over obstacles. While this did not at first seem like a promising background, we could not help but see a beauty in this history. The trajectory of CASC, repeatedly falling short due to lack of resources and lack of technology, seemed to capture something central to Chinese society and history: resilience. The sense of duty to achieving something greater, for the greater whole, kept CASC going. In 2012, everything changed when they landed the Jade Rabbit, an unmanned exploration vehicle, on the Moon.

achieving the nation’s dream

Not all stories needed to be about personal dreams and passions. Great achievements could be accomplished not only in giant leaps, but in small, persistent steps, taken by many and driven by a commitment to family, community and country. To express with beauty of this idea, we decided to brand China Aerospace the same way as the Olympic Games and Confucius - the pride of the nation.

“At CASC we believe in achieving the nation’s dreams.”

We are looking forward to see the finalized brand strategy out in the world.