Michael Alan Hamlin is the coauthor of High Visibility and Marketing Asian Places, and the author of The New Asian Corporation.

He was educated in Japan, lived throughout Asia, and has resided in the Philippines for the past two decades. Michael serves as managing director of TeamAsia (www.teamasia.com), a strategic marketing communications firm that develops corporate, and personal brand strategies, creative concepts, and marketing communications programs for its clients.

Roger Strukhoff: The book you co-authored, High Visibility: Transforming Your Personal and Professional Brand, cites numerous examples of how a smart, detailed, consistent branding strategy can differentiate and elevate people and companies from others of equal ability. Does this strategy work in Asia as well as North America and Europe? Are there any key differences companies should consider when addressing China, for example?

Michael Alan Hamlin: Yes, it absolutely works despite the old Asian adage about the "nail that sticks out gets hammered down." There are numerous examples of Chinese entrepreneurs building and leveraging their personal brands to increase awareness and desire for their products and services.

Two of them are Soho China chairman Pan Shiyi and his wife and Soho chief executive Zhang Xin, for example. Like all developers, Soho faces significant challenges in the current environment, but its two founders and top executives have expertly leveraged their personal brands to help build an admired corporate brand.

Strukhoff: Economic growth in China is expected to drop below 10% in 2009 for the first time in two decades…

Hamlin: Yes, but don’t forget about how Japanese executives worried in the late 70s that double digit growth was coming to an end. Those worries were exacerbated when the yen was allowed to float and promptly appreciated.

In both cases, Japanese business responded to these challenges by improving business processes and increasing quality. As a result, Japanese business practices (and products) became broadly admired the world over.

In addition to improving business processes, Japanese business also began shifting significant production capacity to countries that provided lower operating costs. That's probably inevitable for China as well, and will be a huge challenge given the number of jobs at stake.

The other thing Japanese companies did was to develop very strong brands that began to differentiate their products in meaningful ways from those of competitors. It is interesting that two decades later, Korean businesses followed the Japanese example, and began to build strong brands as the basis of competition shifted from price to quality and reliability and ultimately innovation.

Strukhoff: China is the giant among Eastern Asian economies and is emerging as a global economic superpower. How does this affect smaller, developing countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines?

Hamlin: There are tradeoffs. On the one hand, China is becoming an important market for Southeast Asian countries. These countries, especially Indochina, will also benefit from increasing investment by Chinese firms. On the other hand, many western investors are extremely myopic regarding investment  in Asia, and the result is that an extraordinary level of investment that might have gone to Southeast Asia is instead going to China.

Anecdotally, we're beginning to see instances in which investors appear to be evaluating investment options into Asia more dispassionately. But there is no question that China will continue to enjoy a very large percentage of total investment into developing Asia.

Strukhoff: What relationship exists between the Chinese economy and growing industrial might with the larger countries in the region such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan? How much of the relationship among these countries today is based on business and economics vs. based on the past historical legacy?

Hamlin: The historical legacy is universally unpleasant. These countries are doing business with each other because of the mutual economic and business benefits.

Sidebar – Excerpt from High Visibility

The book High Visibility describes leading business people throughout the world who have created very successful brands for their companies and for themselves.

The book offers lessons on how companies selling any product or service can learn to create unique value to their brand, which will lead them to the highest levels of business success. The book has many examples of how people can use symbolic acts and a sharp focus to build their successful brands.

The Branding Proposition: Two Examples

Richard Branson – What He Does
Sir Richard Branson, chairman of virgin corporation, is launching his virgin mobile cellular phone service in Sydney, Australia. He is riding in an armored carrier, driving quickly into the center of the city’s business district.

The vehicle breaks through a banner. Then Branson, dressed in combat gear, gets out of the carrier, and in a symbolic gesture, cuts the chains that are holding four actors who are wearing a competitor’s slogans.

The crowd “gets it.” This is a new era for mobile technology on the continent of  Australia.

Why He Does It
For Richard Branson, high visibility is a strategic tool that has made his personality inseparable from his products. He uses his celebrity  status to sell his wide array  of products and services, including broadcast stations and television programming, airlines, mobile telephony, and soda pop.

Branson manages a support system of policy planners, ad agencies, and media advisors who work  behind the scenes to create his image as a quirky, yet accessible man. His personal brand is created as carefully as the manufacture of his products and the delivery of his services.

Jennifer Lopez – What She Does
Jennifer Lopez is a pop music and film  star who has created the “J Lo” brand for herself and her products. In a single day, she will often attend dance rehearsals, album promotions, planning sessions for her new clothing line, and a filming session for MTV. She is clearly the leader as she asks questions of designers, makes comment about customer taste.

She is the boss of a multichanneled brand that has clothing, perfumes, and restaurants. Her total business operation grosses $300 million US per year.

Why She Does It
Jennifer Lopez has pursued high for most of her life. She has hired a virtual army of people to help her capture it--coaches, costume designers, press agent, nutritionist, choreographer, trainer, sponsors, venue agents, and an overall management firm that handles her brand.

She has become a multichannel brand, undergoing transformations from dancer to actress to singer to fashion designer. Aided by her support system, her transformation into a powerful brand in not an accident.

Follow the author at www.twitter.com/strukhoff