Sponsor the World Cup, the Olympics, or even the NBA, and watch the customers pour in.
At least that is the strategy at some of the mainland's biggest state-backed brands, a privileged cohort known as the "national champions", which the central government has promised to turn into global success stories over the next decade through expensive, high-profile advertising campaigns.
But the carefully orchestrated rise of these companies has not been as simple as hoped. While several state brands have gained a foothold in the United States and Europe, a new wave of non-state players has taken the world stage by storm. Companies such as e-commerce giant Alibaba and smartphone maker Xiaomi are crowding out the champions' place in the sun, industry watchers say.
Many of China's national champions have taken sponsorship of major international sporting events as a cure-all for their global branding needs.
Haier, the white goods brand, has maintained a major partnership with the National Basketball Association in the US for several years. Solar-cell producer JinkoSolar has signed up to sponsor German and US football teams. Competitor Yingli sponsored the World Cup in South Africa in 2008 and the same event in Brazil this year, projecting its name before hundreds of millions of viewers.
Taking these chosen brands global is written into government policy. The companies have had virtually unlimited access to bank credit. For their executives, many appointed by the state and with little to no experience in marketing, the bigger the campaign, the more beautiful it seems, says John Yang, the regional director for marketing firm Monogram.
"The decision-making is all at the top at these companies," Yang said. "They don't leave the marketing decisions to the people who actually understand marketing."