The Addison-based cosmetics company says its sales in China are up 20 percent over last year, according to this piece on Slate. Because its usual direct-sales method was outlawed until a few years ago, Mary Kay has had to work differently there, doing most of its selling out of showrooms.
Its Shanghai corporate office prominently displays maxims of founder Mary Kay Ash, in both Mandarin and English. Here’s a noteworthy tidbit:
The uplifting talk and homilies strike a lot of Americans as hokey. But in Shanghai, aspirational phrases are part of the lingua franca. We heard the motto for Shanghai’s upcoming Expo 2010 repeated for us several times yesterday: “Better Life, Better City.”
So there’s something that Shanghai and Dallas have in common: Aspirational phrases are part of the lingua franca here too: “Live Large. Think Big,” anyone?
