A Deep Dive into China’s Cultural Strategy (Part II)
In the first part of this series, we explored how Chinese brands transform traditional heritage into modern aesthetic language - How Chinese Brands Leverage Heritage to Captivate Consumers.
Now, we look deeper into this cultural renaissance: as brands shift from selling products to defining values, how do they co-create a shared emotional world with consumers, and in doing so, build a business moat that competitors cannot easily replicate?
This article spotlights four brands that have transformed cultural symbols into distinctive commercial identities.
To Summer (观夏): The Olfactory Architect of Eastern Memory
Core Positioning: More than a fragrance brand, To Summer is a dream-maker of poetic Eastern living.
To Summer’s storytelling goes far beyond scent. Its signature fragrance “Yihe Osmanthus” does not merely recreate a flower’s aroma,it revives the golden sweetness drifting through Beijing’s imperial gardens in autumn, a sensory key to collective memory. Another scent, “Kunlun Boiled Snow”, paints an imagined retreat in a snow-capped cabin, blending warmth with stillness.
Through essays, photography, and sensory narratives, To Summer unveils the material origins and regional stories behind each scent, turning fragrance into a medium of cultural translation.
Its Guozijian courtyard in Beijing exemplifies this vision: a physical “theatre of Eastern aesthetics,” where light, wood, and fragrance create a fully immersive experience. Here, purchase becomes participation, an act of emotional connection rather than consumption. To Summer has become an architect of collective feeling, turning cultural memory into an accessible, elevated form of spiritual consumption.
Fnji (梵几): The Philosophical Interpreter of Contemporary Chinese Living
Core Positioning: Beyond a furniture brand, Fnji advocates a “philosophy of home”.
Fnji fuses the essence of Ming-style design,restraint, balance, respect for material,with modern ergonomics and spatial needs. Its motto, “Born in the wild, at peace indoors”, distills Daoist ideas of harmony between humans and nature into tangible daily life.
Each showroom functions as a philosophical sanctuary, blending gallery, teahouse, and domestic space. Rather than pushing sales, Fnji cultivates reflection and education.
Through exhibitions, artisanal showcases, and intimate music gatherings, it has built a community bonded by shared aesthetics and values. The brand’s success lies in transforming home design into a dialogue on how to live, elevating consumption into a search for meaning.
Songmont (山下有松): The Carrier of Landscape and Spirit
Core Positioning: A brand translating the poetics of Chinese landscape painting into functional, everyday bags.
Songmont stands out for making the stillness of shanshui painting portable. The brand name, drawn from a classical artwork, evokes a mood of quiet retreat.
Its emblematic “Song Bag”, soft, foldable, shaped like mountain contours and calligraphic strokes,turns natural rhythm into modern form. Each spontaneous fold resembles the living texture of a painted landscape.
In doing so, Songmont turns the literati ideal of “landscapes within one’s chest” into a wearable expression. Craftsmanship and the use of natural materials reinforce sincerity and cultural grounding.
The brand also encourages user participation through social media hashtags like #行走的山水 (“Walking Landscapes”), where customers share their journeys and daily scenes with Songmont bags. This co-authorship transforms artistic symbolism into lived identity, bridging art, function, and modern storytelling.
Songmont Chongqing Shop
Greatroam (归丛): The Aesthetic Reformer of Life and Death
Core Positioning: A design-led life-service brand reimagining farewell rituals through aesthetics and philosophy.
Greatroam confronts one of China’s most sensitive cultural territories: death and rebuilds it through beauty and empathy. Its name, meaning “to return and to merge”, echoes the belief in returning to nature.
Through minimalist wooden and ceramic urns, Greatroam strips away the gloom traditionally associated with funerary objects, transforming them into calm, contemplative pieces that could belong in a home.
Beyond products, its content explores topics such as dignified farewell and life education, sparking public conversation about values often left unspoken. In doing so, Greatroam acts as a reformer of social consciousness, using design to challenge taboo and to create emotional clarity around the most universal of human experiences.
The Emerging Logic of Cultural Branding in China
Together, these brands reveal a new framework for Chinese cultural strategy, one that prioritizes emotional resonance over symbolic display.
- Deep Translation: Instead of simply borrowing traditional motifs, these brands reinterpret aesthetics, philosophy, and ritual for contemporary life.
- Immersive Expression: Cultural value is built not only through products, but through space, storytelling, and community experiences.
- Emotional Precision: Each brand speaks to a modern need, nostalgia, serenity, identity, or dignity-delivering meaning where Western minimalism often stops at form.
- Shared Narrative: By inviting users to co-create, brands allow culture to evolve organically, keeping it alive through participation.
For global brands eyeing China, the real challenge is not in mastering visual tropes of “Chinoiserie,” but in developing the strategic intelligence to decode China’s cultural psychology, and to connect with consumers seeking both beauty and belonging.
At fanfanfang, we believe the future of brand storytelling lies in this intersection: where culture becomes strategy, and aesthetics becomes soul.