When marketing in one country backfires abroad

In a hyper-connected world, there's no such thing as a local PR strategy

Last week, Apple launched (PRODUCT)RED, a special-edition iPhone. An undisclosed portion of sales of the phone will support The Global Fund to Fight AIDS. But the product is strangely missing from the Chinese version of Apple’s website, which promotes a red phone but has no mention of the disease.
 
Apple didn’t respond to my question about why that’s the case. But my colleague Jingsi Christina Wu, a professor of media studies at Hofstra University, said the Chinese government probably didn’t approve of the (PRODUCT)RED message. Although HIV/AIDS is a major public health challenge for China, she said the government doesn’t