Is it a common practice to call somebody a "global"-something for local marketing purpose in China? I googled around and found that the Chinese subsidiary of Shiseido, a large Japanese cosmetics/skin care brand, appointed a Chinese-born American actress Liu Yifen as the "global ambassador" back in March this year.
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She apparently played Mulan character in the Disney movie so she should be more famous outside of China than Li Xian, but my googling didn't find any marketing effort by Shiseido using her outside of China. I still don't know if this is a common practice or not but certainly it's not unheard of.
Anyway, if the Chinese subsidiary of Ricoh Imaging, a business to sell things to Chinese market, think that they can sell more if Li Xian is called the global ambassador rather than just an ambassador, more power to them.
BTW I found this advertisement article written by a marketing agency in China to tell you why it's important for luxury brands to choose Key Opinion Leader (KOL) like Li Xian as the brand ambassador to appeal to young Chinese consumers. (I didn't know what KOL was, now I know and feel as if I didn't have to, so I had to let you know too.
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How Brands in China choose their brand ambassador? - Chinese Tourists Agency
That was published on Jun 20 2020. That might be a coincidence or not, but it certainly shows that the Chinese subsidiary of Ricoh Imaging carefully chose Li Xian, the cool young Key Oinion Leader representing new Chinese values, as their ambassador.
Originally posted by FozzFoster Maybe it's like saying that baseball has the 'World' Series.
Sounds like it.