The increasing prominence of China on the world stage and Cognito’s own footprint in Hong Kong have given me a front row seat to witness how China is becoming a world brand. Every week we see game-changing innovation, the rise of powerful companies and new technologies launching from this market.

From Cognito’s office in Hong Kong, we’re taking our own steps as a global communications and marketing firm to reflect this evolution and ensure we stay up to date – keeping abreast of the latest developments and remaining relevant as China’s influence increases.

To this end we recently launched Cognito’s Chinese name, which we’re in the process of rolling out across various platforms. What we’ve learned along the way was fascinating from both a human and business perspective.

Establishing the Chinese identity of a company with strong roots in the west is not as simple as just finding a name you like and printing some business cards. A Chinese identity requires a truly Chinese name.

We looked for a name that matched a particular confluence of criteria: one that made sense in both Mandarin and Cantonese, wasn’t already being used by another brand, and conveyed with meaning the core of Cognito’s business while retaining an echo of the existing name. We chose 可通 – a name that combines two characters that sound a little like “Cognito”.

There are a few ways to interpret the meaning, but my preferred translation is ‘can communicate’. As is standard Chinese practice, we’ve combined it with a further two characters denoting our business sector. This gives us our full name: 可通公关.

I’m still getting used to hearing ‘kě tōng gōngguān’ and realizing we’re referring to our Chinese brand. To be clear, this is the Mandarin version written in Simplified Chinese. We’ll of course also be using Cantonese and Traditional Chinese versions depending on what’s appropriate for the various markets in Greater China.

We see this move as demonstrating how serious we are about the region. Asia has always been an important part of our global strategy. We opened our first office in Singapore in 2010 and with our expansion into Hong Kong in 2017 established a second office in the region, giving us easier access to North Asia. We work with clients across the region coordinating communications in more than 15 different markets for local and international brands. In the past year alone members of the team have been to Beijing, Tokyo, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Shenzhen and Taipei for projects.

I expect this to accelerate in the coming year. We’ll be operating inside the People’s Republic more frequently, working with brands who want to bring the best of China to the world, and the best of the world to China.