Lost in translation: Best practices for working with Chinese clients

As tens of thousands of goods sail across the Pacific Ocean and dock at West Coast ports, they encounter a completely new business environment. Over the past few years, we have witnessed a significant surge in Chinese B2C brands entering the U.S. market, with Chinese companies accounting for more than a quarter of CES 2026 exhibitors.

I’ve spent years helping these brands tell their stories to American audiences and have quickly noticed barriers that lie beyond geographic distance.

PR doesn’t mean the same thing on both sides of the Pacific. In the U.S., the goals of PR are clearly defined: build trust through earned media, shape public perception and foster positive relationships.

The industry has its own developed discipline, distinct from advertising, sales and marketing. But in China, the industry was built differently from the ground up; falling under the business sector where the line between PR and marketing remains blurry contributing to a strong focus on conversion.

While PR in the U.S. is anchored in media relations and reputation management, PR in China is much more diverse for better or worse. Instead of newspaper features, TV segments or unbiased reviews, China’s media landscape operates on a fundamentally different architecture. Platforms like Douyin, RedNote and WeChat serve as fully integrated e-commerce social platforms that take users from discovery to purchase.

Essentially, every piece of content can be tied to a transaction.

The challenge is explaining why then, in the U.S. market, the seemingly indirect path through earned media builds durable value.

As PR professionals, our first task is to translate the value of intangible assets: awareness, sentiment and reputation. U.S. consumers trust reputable review sites that operate under editorial standards. It may take months for that piece to go live a potential red flag for Chinese clients who value speed but its “half-life” is far longer.

So, how do we measure the results in cross-cultural PR when Chinese platforms produce hard KPI results by tracking users straight from impression to purchase? Metrics like share of voice, earned media value and sentiment aren’t real-time conversation data. One possible fix is to reframe value around generative engine optimization (GEO).

Today, the value of PR goes beyond how many placements we land; it’s about how high-quality placements train large language models and allow clients to be frequently cited by AI platforms.

This has become a large part of my daily job. Unfavorable digital footprints don’t just sit in archives and strong conversion numbers can’t buy a corporate reputation if brands don’t foresee the importance of narratives in the media landscape.

Many of my clients are entering the U.S. for the first time and, as their first agency partner, we have to explain why thought leadership pieces one of the most intangible, yet effective deliverables are important. The thought leadership approach is often an entirely foreign term to them. It’s our job to encourage them to “be bold.”

The concept of a thought leadership piece being centered on how a leader envisions the industry's future can sometimes seem too daunting for brands. Getting our clients to share forward-looking ideas takes time and effort. Those clients rely on us to create a strategy and share professional assessments of what to say and what not to say.

For example, Insta360, facing well-established competitors like GoPro, decided to go beyond product-focused pitches in its U.S. approach. The founder took the stage at the Beyond Consumer Tech Summit to drive high-level conversations on AI-powered personal devices and digital storytelling.

While securing a spot on acclaimed media panels is challenging, opportunities can be proactively created sometimes by thinking outside the box.

Narwal, a fast-growing smart home and robotics brand, continues to rise systematically in exposure and visibility in the U.S. market. Its approach: elevating the narrative of robot vacuums to the working parent and home design world through experiences such as a viral, celebrity-driven Hollywood event.

As PR professionals, our value lies in the ability to adapt to the speed and data-driven nature of the industry and integrate trust-building and storytelling traditions. We’re here to build a bridge that ultimately brings them to land even across oceans.

Tiff Quan is a PR specialist at Venture PR.