Chinese Alcohol and the Struggle Abroad

Cultural intermediaries perform to mediate how goods are perceived by intended receivers; by adding symbolic value, they legitimate culturally no-yet-legitimate goods and facilitate market dynamics. Previous research on cultural intermediaries has demonstrated the way in which cultural intermediaries make markets, many of which have focused on advertising, branding, food industry and other related industry. Other studies in this field have examined the factors that affect their intermediary work and some of them have researched on specific cases which are cultural taboos or culturally not-yet-legitimate, such as sex toys and entomophagy. This qualitative longitudinal study extends the existing literature by using a non-Western product – baijiu (Chinese alcohol) and exploring baijiu cultural intermediaries in the same market line but different stages. 25 baijiu practitioners in the UK and China participated in the research, with detailed evidence gained from the interview with them. The key feature of the methodology is the interview with upstream cultural intermediaries (marketing managers, brand representatives etc.) and downstream cultural intermediaries (bartenders, restaurant servers etc.), which enabled the analysis of cultural intermediaries in the same market line but different stages. Through their narratives, the similarities and differences of cultural intermediaries in the same market line are highlighted and deeper insights are provided into how cultural intermediaries perform under a non-Western context. The research findings have implications for the study of cultural intermediaries as they fill the gap of previous studies which lack of consideration on non-Western products. They also provide insights into the interconnections between cultural intermediaries within market chains, which can be a nuanced difference compare to previous research, and the future studies in this field can take. The findings also offer implications for the study of branding, especially in alcohol industry, and provide practical implications for marketing and brand managers.