Several Taiwan companies are showing
that everyone wins when corporations
actively promote culture and the arts:
firms find it's good for image-building,
artists and performers gain badly-needed
support, and the public enjoys a larger
assortment of cultural activities.
A new wind of awareness is blowing through many of Taiwan's corporate boardrooms. As various firms seek to upgrade and internationalize their operations, they are becoming more concerned about corporate image -building. One way to go, used with great success in other advanced economies, is corporate sponsorship of culture and the arts. "Many business enterprises have benefited greatly from Taiwan's rapid economic growth over the years," says Richard Tsai, chairman of Fubon Securities Investment Trust. "So now they should take on more social responsibility by supporting public activities such as art and music. Companies like ours can do a lot to help raise local cultural standards."
Luis Ko, president of I-Mei Foods Co. has similar expectations. "Many Taiwan firms are striving to internationalize their operations, but in the process they shouldn't forget their deep domestic roots," he says. "By building upon these characteristics and strengthening their ties to society, domestic firms can establish clearer identities and market themselves better over seas. Protecting Taiwan's local culture is not only part of our social responsibility, it's also good for business."
"Nowadays, besides selling products, a business enterprise has to sell its 'image' as well," says Kenneth Lo, president of Chinatrust Commercial Bank. "Customer awareness has achieved new heights. To win their continuing support, you have to let them know your business not only pursues profits, it also cares about the community."
Lo's viewpoint is supported by the way respected local business magazines, including CommonWealth and Global Views Monthly, have recently been assessing the performance of Taiwan companies. In the past, the top firms were selected primarily on the basis of their assets, revenues, and corporate leadership. But other criteria are gradually gaining more attention: whether a company is conscious of environmental protection, for instance, or is involved in public service activities. "Such concerns by the business media is a good indication that the public has higher expectations for business enterprises," Lo says. "Companies are supposed to contribute to society, not just make money."
For some firms, public philanthropy is nothing new. What has changed is the degree of commitment, measured by larger outlays of time and money. Lo points out that his company has been involved in the cultural scene for decades. For instance, Chinatrust provides an annual NT$2 million [US$62,500] subsidy to the Rong-Shing Chorus in Taipei, a group it has sponsored for over forty years. The chorus has more than 100 children and adult members, and it usually presents two formal concerts a year.
Chinatrust initiated a trail-blazing cultural event in 1986, when it organized a public concert on the plaza of its main office building in downtown Taipei. "In a way, we pioneered the idea of cultural sponsorship among domestic enterprises," Lo says proudly. "At the time, this was a unique event, and it was a first step in bolstering music appreciation among the public."
Later, due to problems with traffic noise and unpredictable weather, the free concerts were relocated to an auditorium in Chinatrust's headquarters. Held every spring and autumn, they showcase domestic and foreign musicians. Beginning with the fifteenth concert, in 1988, the company started charging a nominal ticket fee, with the proceeds shared between the musicians and selected public-service organizations that assisted underprivileged groups.
"We switched away from having free admission so we could cultivate the concept of 'pay for appreciation,'" Lo ex plains. "This also gave financially strapped individual artists and performing groups modest support, helping them to survive and continue developing their talent." To date, Chinatrust has sponsored fifty-seven charity concerts, with ticket sales amounting to more than US$62,500. Lo points out that these concerts are held primarily to boost music appreciation, rather than raise funds.
Another activity, however, has produced quite large revenues. For the last ten years, Chinatrust has teamed up with ICRT (the local English-language radio station) as primary sponsors of the "Light up a Life" campaign during the Christmas season. The proceeds--so far US$2.3 million--have gone to a wide assortment of charity groups, including the Eden Social Welfare Foundation and the Love-Tree Foundation (both organizations serve the handicapped), and several orphanages.
"Our overall objective has been to build our company's reputation by serving the public interest, and it's worked," Lo says. In addition to the concerts, each year the company selects a variety of other events, both Western and Chinese, to sponsor or co-sponsor. These have included performances of Peking opera, Taiwanese opera, and Taiwanese folk songs, as well as dance theater, piano recitals, and orchestral performances.
For instance, between 1995 and 1997, the company sponsored several large-scale concerts by prestigious performers from abroad, including Luciano Pavarotti, Michael Jackson, Rod Stewart, Phil Collins, and Whitney Houston. This sponsor ship has thus far cost over US$1 million. "We hope such events can help elevate the quality of concert performances and cultivate more music lovers," Lo says. "I believe if more people appreciate music, our society will become more harmonious and culturally better-off."
Arts and culture promoter Paul Lin, president of Tai-Yuan Art and Cultural Foundation, says that he is pleased with this sort of social awareness among Taiwan's corporations. "The increasing number of cultural activities is a trend, because of the higher standard of living here," Lin explains. "Likewise, corporate support is also on the rise, because the business community is realizing that a strictly profits-driven approach to sales is insufficient to build loyalty to their products and services. The public is more interested in quality-of-life issues, and businesses must respond."
But finding additional funds from corporate sponsorship is only part of a larger picture; distribution of resources also remains a problem. "Currently, most of the corporate resources go to a few prominent groups like Cloud Gate Dance Theater and the Ming Hua Yuan Taiwanese Opera Co.," Lin points out. "But there are many promising performing artists and groups in urgent need of financial assistance."
Lin explains that corporations can get immediate returns on their image-building plans by sponsoring artists or groups already well-known to the public, leaving little funding for relative unknowns in the arts and cultural field. "Sponsorship of such artists and groups may not have the immediate results companies seek," Lin says. He encourages businesses to be more daring. "When good but lesser-known groups are well supported, they have a much better chance to succeed, and some may even gain international recognition for Taiwan," he says.
Lin also suggests another important way to help budding artists and performing groups survive. "The government needs to formulate preferential tax measures to encourage businesses to support arts and cultural activities." Such a measure, he thinks, will really get the ball rolling. "Firms will realize that corporate sponsorship of cultural events also benefits their own businesses."
One major obstacle, however, continues to hinder the promotion of many cultural activities. "The big problem is where to perform," says Chinatrust's Kenneth Lo. "Except for Taipei's National Concert Hall and National Theater, we really don't have very many high-quality places for performances."
In light of this dilemma, Chinatrust took an unusual step: it invested more than US$12.5 million to construct an ultra -modern, multifunctional performance hall in Taipei's expensive Hsinyi development district, next to Chinatrust's twenty -two- floor skyscraper. The 19,800 square foot hall seats almost 1,000, and officially opened in April 1997. So far, the company has allocated nearly US$2 million for its operational budget. This was the first privately-invested project of this sort, and it didn't come cheap. "The construction of the hall and the land costs came to a total of US$43 million, and we are prepared to face a 'permanent' deficit," Lo says. "It's impossible for us to reap any return on this investment in the foreseeable future. We've already discarded any thoughts of cost-effectiveness."
Clearly, in this case, the bottom line focuses on public service and corporate image, not strictly dollars and cents. "We hope our operation of the hall will demonstrate our determination to offer sustained support for the arts, and that it can be a model for private-sector philanthropy," Lo says. "All firms need to take their social responsibilities more seriously, and when they do, we can surely look forward to an overall improvement in our quality of life."
Richard Tsai, chairman of Fubon Securities Investment Trust, agrees with the idea that it's high time for successful business enterprises to give something back to society. For Fubon, sponsorship of the arts also seemed a good place to start. In July 1997, it set up the Fubon Art Foundation. "Its major objective is to promote art-related activities in an effort to help raise our society's cultural standards," he says. The foundation has already arranged a number of art exhibitions, artist-led public seminars, jazz performances, and arts training camps for teachers in primary and secondary schools. "Our basic idea is that art shouldn't be beyond the reach of ordinary people," Tsai explains. "Rather, it should be something that we can easily come into contact with in our daily lives."
To reach this goal, last November the foundation launched a campaign in Taipei called "Feast of the Mind: A Buffet of Art." The central idea, Tsai explains, is to introduce a variety of "new cultural dishes" in heretofore under-utilized venues. The foundation is cooperating with local artists to exhibit their works in selected public places with high levels of pedestrian traffic. "We hope that the display of art can help improve the appearance of public spaces, while giving passing crowds visual surprises and spiritual enjoyment," Tsai says. Each exhibit is slated to move to various locations around the city, exposing different segments of the populace to the artists' work.
The foundation hosted the first exhibits on its own premises, which are scattered around the city. Drawing support from its top banking and securities executives, the foundation turned lobby areas and corridors in various Fubon office buildings into temporary galleries showing works by painters, sculptors, and contemporary designers. "In this way, when our clients pay us a visit, they make contact with art at the same time," Tsai explains. "This is the heart of the our campaign: Let our lives become more artistic, and let art become more a part of our lives." Tsai expects that such exhibits will eventually be hosted in government buildings and other private-sector businesses, giving artists more opportunities to show their works as well as interact with the public.
In March, to take advantage of the twice-a-month two-day weekend implemented by the government at the beginning of this year, the foundation organized its first weekend art fair, held in Taipei's Ta-an Forest Park. The event was co-sponsored by the Ministry of Education, the Council for Cultural Affairs, and the Taipei City Government. Thirty local artists displayed their works and met the public. To create a more relaxing atmosphere, the foundation set up an open-air café and invited jazz bands to perform.
"Who says art just exists in museums or galleries, attracting only people who are formally attired?" Tsai asks. "The art fair was designed to correct the traditional stereotype of art being only for the few." The event drew large crowds on both days, a solid indication that Fubon's ideal of combining art and daily life has struck a responsive chord among the public.
Promoting the arts can also mean preserving Taiwan's traditional artistic heritage. "Taiwan's domestic firms are rooted in local culture," says Luis Ko, president of I-Mei Foods Co. He urges companies interested in developing their image to identify themselves with things Taiwanese. "Customers worldwide tend to define a company's product by its place of origin: When we see a Ford, we think of the United States; Philips products, the Netherlands; and a Toyota, Japan. We hope that someday when people in the global village see I-Mei products, they'll think of Taiwan."
For several decades, I-Mei has sponsored performances of Taiwanese opera and puppet shows, which Ko says are the most representative forms of the island's traditional culture. In particular, the company has supported the Ho-Lo Taiwanese Opera group and the Say-Tien-Hsiar Taiwanese Puppetry Foundation with subsidies, publicity campaigns, and educational programs. "We have had our marketing people design their advertising, and we also pay for their newspaper ads," Ko says. "With better promotion, we think that these traditional art forms can become more a part of everyone's daily life."
At first, the company supported opera and puppet shows by helping pack the audiences. "We purchased a lot of tickets beforehand and then invited friends and acquaintances to see the show," he says. "The audiences really liked the performances. Afterward, I didn't need to push tickets any more--instead, people called me, because they were worried they couldn't get a ticket." Ko explains that his guest list for performances still includes prominent scholars, entrepreneurs, and political figures as a means to push wider support for traditional opera. "I expect their attendance will encourage others to develop stronger feelings toward our culture," he says.
Interestingly, I-Mei has reversed Fubon's arts-to-the-people strategy by moving the venue of Taiwanese opera performances from temple public squares, where they are most commonly presented, to indoor theaters. For instance, it has sponsored Ho-Lo Opera performances at the Taipei Municipal Social Education Hall.
"Taiwanese opera used to be performed on open-air, temporary stages and watched mainly by country people," Ko explains. "But after watching the performance in a theater, many people have told me that this was the first time that they were able to see such performances in such comfort." The hope is that by providing a more audience-friendly venue, the organizers will attract larger audiences, especially young people, who are generally disinclined to attend such performances.
I-Mei's devotion to preserving tradition puppetry is no less intense, especially because Luis Ko is himself a collector of puppets and a director of the Say-Tien-Hsiar Taiwanese Puppetry Foundation. "In the past, many historical events were made known through puppetry performances," Ko says. "Puppeteers gave the past and its heroes life." But television has detracted from the original quality of the art, Ko laments. "The puppets are made larger for the benefit of TV cameras, and the figures, clothing, and accessories don't exhibit the same high standards of craftsmanship as before."
The shrinking market for puppet performances has discouraged young people from learning the skills of the art form--giving performances, puppet-making, and constructing stage scenery. I-Mei hopes to turn things around through its sponsor ship of performances at schools and other educational programs, such as puppetry clubs on campuses--including one at National Taiwan University.
Ko is also pushing a creative marketing angle to help support puppet craftsmen, and encourage others to enter the field. "Taiwanese puppets could be made for sale--they are ideal gifts, because they represent Taiwan's traditional culture so well," Ko says. "I'm sure many local people would be pleased to purchase them, as would tourists as mementos of their visit here."
Other I-Mei sponsorships include a radio program, Proverbs in Taiwanese, and free circulation of Professional, an occasional publication distributed through its islandwide chain of food stores. "In the booklet we introduce the origins of various customs and holidays, as well as explain the beauty and elegance of Taiwanese and Hakka languages," Ko says. "At the same time our customers purchase our products, we give them a chance to learn more about Taiwan's traditional culture and, we hope, integrate that knowledge into their daily lives." Some of I-Mei's packaging promotes the Hakka and Manchu languages. For instance, its Sha-Chi-Ma cookie packets sport Manchu script, because the product originated from Manchuria. In addition, the company's advertising often makes reference to the origins of certain products.
How much does all this cost? I-Mei recently boosted its budget for arts and culture sponsorship from around US$156,000 to $250,000 a year. This year it has already sponsored, with the corporation of the China Television Company, a broadcast of a New Year's concert from Vienna by satellite, as well as an aboriginal dance performance and a painting competition. "I-Mei has been operating here for more than sixty years," Ko stresses. "We want the public to realize that as a local company, we care about Taiwan's tradition and the cultural health of society. We are very much aware of our social responsibilities toward this place."
Such public spirit seems destined to catch on. "There is no question that corporate philanthropy in culture and the arts can win public admiration and respect for local companies," says Paul Lin of the Tai-Yuan Foundation. "Moreover, such support opens more opportunities for local artists and performing groups, and it provides the public a more varied cultural life. In short, everyone wins."