Some say that it takes 10,000 hours to master a new skill. Our DMgt graduate, Dr Wang Yong, has invested a lot more time than that in pursuit of his passion. Over the past two decades, he has been devoted to developing brand management and carpooling in China.

Dr Wang started from scratch, but now he is Chairman of the Board at TopBrand Union, a boutique branding consultancy with over thirty Forbes 500 clients.

From Zero to Hero: The Leading Role of Dr Wang at TopBrand

Dr Wang’s journey began in 1996 when he founded the graphic design company Chuxing. As a college graduate who had majored in Fine Arts at Hengyang Normal University, he was also working as a teacher in his home province but decided to move to Beijing and put his efforts into developing his new company. Soon, Chuxing began to specialise in providing design services for the furniture industry.

Ten years later, Dr Wang had earned his first pot of gold and his clients included highly reputable brands. By the age of 29, he had already been named among the Top Ten Outstanding Youth of Beijing and had received the Golden Finger Award, the highest award for graphic design in China.

“My career path can be split into three 10-year periods, which are roughly from 1993 to 2003, 2005 to 2016, and 2016 until now ,” says Dr Wang.

In 2005, he restructured his design company and founded TopBrand Union to focus on providing brand management services. His team initiated the first China Brand Festival in 2007 and put tremendous effort into elevating its status to an event of national importance. Ten years later, China announced that 10 May would be officially recognised as China’s Brand Day starting from 2017.

Meanwhile, TopBrand Union became the first company managing such events to be listed on the National Equities Exchange and Quotations (NEEQ), also known as the New Third Board in China.

In the third decade of his career, Dr Wang moved on to pursue ventures that promote greater social responsibility.

Becoming a Carpooling Pioneer in Beijing

Despite his success, Dr Wang has always remained grounded and has maintained a strong need to give back to the community. As soon as he bought his first car in 1998, Dr Wang began to give free rides to hitchhikers.

In 2014, Dr Wang engaged in a new venture: developing a high-tech company to promote shared rides through an app, VV Pingche.

The app was designed to optimise travel routes so that car owners and passengers could easily find a ride nearby. Dr Wang saw this as an opportunity for everyone to help each other, contribute to saving energy, and help alleviate traffic jams.

This gave Dr Wang a sense of achievement as he believed this was a worthwhile venture that would promote social interaction and contribute to making the economy greener. Each day, thousands of people would receive free rides and make new friends along the way.

Initially, there was some misunderstanding and apprehension about carpooling in China. However over the past 17 years it has become a widely accepted practice nationwide as an increasing number of people have seen its benefits and begun to express their support for greener travel. This has motivated Dr Wang to continue his efforts to promote carpooling.

He has been a passionate advocate of carpooling for a long time. For six years in a row, he relentlessly submitted proposals for carpooling legislation to the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Eventually, the Beijing Commission of Transport released guidelines for the formal legislation of carpooling.

Through his charity work, Dr Wang has managed to gather support for the promotion of carpooling along with Deng Feng, Chen Weihong, Liang Yongchun and Zhao Pu. The first National Carpooling Day in China was announced on 6 June 2012.

In 2015, Dr Wang played the leading role in a movie entitled Shunfengche (English title: Free Ride), which was based on his real story of offering free rides. He was invited to play himself in the movie by the movie’s scriptwriter and director, Yue Xiaolin.

As a result of these efforts, carpooling was eventually developed in over 40 Chinese cities with more than 100,000 car owners signing up on the app developed by Dr Wang’s team.

COVID Impact and Branding Tips

Dr Wang believes that the perception of a company’s brand is closely associated with the branding of its country of origin. Over the past decades, he has seen the Chinese branding industry grow rapidly for a variety of reasons, including the digital economy and the rising recognition of domestic brands.

Today, change takes place faster than ever before. Because of this, Dr Wang believes enterprises should stick to their core strengths, increase awareness of their brands, and build up their strength and resources during regular times. This is the best way to be resilient to potential risks and crises when they occur. Enterprises should avoid having a shortsighted strategy and plan instead for the long run.

As for Dr Wang’s own business, TopBrand has remained profitable during the COVID-19 pandemic: it has not laid off any employees and remains committed to retaining all of its workforce.