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Eastern thirst

Betting on 'great luck,' Budějovický Budvar heads to China

By Michael Heitmann
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 25th, 2008 issue

Photo illustration by CAROLINE WREN
Budvar wants to wish everyone in China some Bai De Fu.
The Chinese phrase, meaning “to have great luck,” is the name the state-owned brewery Budějovický Budvar has adopted for its flagship beer, which will go on sale in China for the first time next month.
“[The name] suits our Chinese customers, most of whom are unable to read or pronounce Latin-script letters,” said Budvar spokesman Petr Samec.
 The change was purely made for marketing purposes, as in China, “product names need to have a positive ring to them, they need to sound emotional, positive and poetic,” Samec said.
Budvar’s initial shipment of 206 hectoliters of beer is due to arrive in Shanghai July 17, just in time for the Summer Olympics. The beer’s trip to China takes 31 days, with the container going by truck to Prague, then via train to Hamburg and by ship to Shanghai.
The brewery’s move into the Chinese market, where it joins competitor Pilsner Urquell, among other Czech beers, has been long expected by industry observers. The brewery registered Budějovický Budvar as a trademark with Chinese authorities in 2006.
The extended trademark dispute between Budvar and Anheuser-Busch
(A-B), the U.S. brewer of Budweiser, blocked Budvar from entering China between 1997 and 2006.
In November 2006, the High People’s Court in Beijing rejected an appeal by A-B, confirming an earlier ruling that granted trademark rights to Budějovický Budvar. The court rejected A-B’s claims that consumers could confuse the beers. The trademarks are visually and phonetically different, the court ruled at the time.
(Budvar’s Samec declined to comment on current rumors of a potential merger between A-B and Belgium’s InBev and its possible impact on Budvar’s dispute with the U.S. company.)
The transformation of Budvar into Bai De Fu, which literally means “to reach happiness in 100 ways,” marks the extension of the spat between Budvar and
A-B to a new language. Budweiser is transcribed the same as Budvar in Chinese, according to Olga Lomová, the head of Charles University’s seminar on Chinese and Vietnamese studies.
“This trademarked name features on the label and is the basis for our beer’s identity,” said Samec. “Because of language differences, we made the decision to create a Chinese equivalent of the name, which also appears on the label. But it’s only an addition for our Chinese customers,” he said.
The price of a bottle of Bai De Fu will be around 30 to 40 Chinese Yuan, the equivalent of $4.35 to $5.80. Restaurants won’t have beer on tap, though “if sales go well, we’ll consider that option,” Samec said.
While humorous, Bai De Fu is primarily understood as signifying “Budvar” and not a sign of kitsch, Lomová said.
“It’s a word game that makes you smile, and makes you want to taste it,” she said. Neither the syllable “bud” nor the syllable “var” exist in their language, so Chinese like to pick other syllables that imitate the sound of the original word, but also imply meanings of happiness and prosperity.
Traditionally, brand names in China imply positive attributes like success, luck or old age. “Partly it does have a trace of magical thinking, but also expresses a sense of humor and an appreciation of word games,” Lomová said.
Beer on a stick
As the Summer Olympics draw closer, Budvar’s competitor, Pilsner Urquell, is planning to not only send beer — lots of it — to China, but even to send along its own “top bartenders,” said company spokesman Jiří Mareček.
“The premium lager from Plzeň will be on tap in the Czech Olympic House,” he promised. “We will send more than 120 kegs and 150 packs to China. All athletes who will place in the top 10 will receive a five-liter can as a gift,” he said.
Pilsner Urquell plans to stick to their original name in China, but Mareček added that its mother company, SABMiller, sells a number of local Chinese brands with names as varied as Snow, Blue Sword, Green Leaves, New Three Star, Löwen, Yatai, Tianjin and Singo.
As seen by this variety, beer is popular in China. The Chinese don’t go to the pub to drink it, said Lomová, who is currently in Taipei, Taiwan. They go to restaurants, though, and that of course calls for a drink, she said.
“Beer is a favorite drink in China, and Czech beer has a good reputation,” she said.
At times, the Chinese take an unconventional approach to beer-drinking. When Lomová visited in 1979, the restaurants didn’t have fridges and local beer would be lukewarm in the summer.
The locals found a solution: They would buy a popsicle at the ice cream parlor and stick it in their glass of warm beer for a while. “It looked weird, but it worked,” Lomová said.

Michael Heitmann can be reached at mheitmann@praguepost.com


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