Global Expansion Driven by Branding: How Going Global Enterprises Protect Their 'Digital Assets'? | Superhui Ke Ting Event Recap

In 2026, Chinese brand globalization is shifting from 'scale-based expansion' to 'asset-based expansion.' While the volume of going global continues to grow, brand premium capabilities, channel authority, and ownership of trademarks and domain names lag behind overall scale. Tariff adjustments, tightened platform rules, and detailed compliance requirements in various regions make order-and-cost-driven approaches unsustainable. Against this backdrop, going global enterprises are reallocating resources in three directions: geographic re-layout of production capacity to regions closer to customers with stable trade rules; data-driven market decision-making, shifting budgets from experience-based judgments to verifiable evidence; and assetization of brand identifiers, incorporating first points of contact like domains and trademarks into unified asset ledgers. On October 29, 2026, 36Kr held the third event in its 'Deep Water Rules' Going Global series Superhui Ke Ting in Beijing. Themed 'Global Expansion Driven by Branding and Protection of Digital Assets,' the event featured guests including Ge Jianfeng, Director of Industrial Cooperation at Petty Shares; Wu Ze, Director of Business Development at Guangda Da; and Wang Xiao, Senior Product Expert for SME Applications at Alibaba Cloud. They discussed overseas production layout, AI-driven global ad placement, and end-to-end global brand capabilities with representatives from attending enterprises. From Vietnam to Cambodia: The 'Site Selection Guide' for Overseas Production Layout. During the Superhui Ke Ting segment, Ge Jianfeng shared 'Decision Logic and Experience Sharing on Petty's Overseas Production Base Layout.' He noted that Petty Shares, founded in 1992 and listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2017 as China's first pet industry listed company, specializes in pet snacks primarily exported to the US. The company currently operates production bases in Wenzhou, Zhejiang; Taizhou, Jiangsu; Uzbekistan; Vietnam; Cambodia; and New Zealand. Petty first laid out operations in Uzbekistan in 2011 for upstream raw material price advantages, followed by Vietnam in 2013 due to low labor and land costs, zero tariffs on US exports, political stability, and proximity to China. Ge admitted that entering Vietnam presented challenges, including the lack of a pet industry category initially, requiring multiple communications with the Ministry of Commerce and Customs to establish standards. Shifting from hourly to piece-rate work triggered union strikes and nearly half the staff leaving; efficiency was gradually restored through demonstrations by Chinese veteran employees, capacity competitions, and reward mechanisms. Currently, the Vietnam factory's efficiency reaches 80% of China's.