The Mintz Dynasty

Mintz's coup was to find a way to serve everyone's discrete interests--or at least seem to. "And that's not a small accomplishment," he stresses. "This isn't a little town up in the middle of nowhere. This is a national campaign that's shown on government-run TV. The highest level of credibility you can achieve in advertising in China is to pull off something big in television because, with the greatest amount of eyes and regulation, it's the most sensitive medium." (Just ask Nike and LeBron James, who saw a multimillion-dollar campaign yanked by the government after the hoops star crushed a number of culturally revered Chinese figures in a kung fu-themed TV spot. Nike eventually released a formal apology.)

"The government is perceived to be business friendly," says Hong Liang, chief China economist for Goldman Sachs. But the "rules and regulations can be a nightmare" and implementation "quite discretionary." This is in no small part, she points out, because the government is not simply a market regulator but a player in it as well. Knowing what each individual is playing for, then, becomes a key strategic asset.

Riding the Dragon

Toward the end of Fenton's trip, he has come north to Beijing before returning home to L.A., where he's not only DMG's general manager for North America but also has his own Hollywood management company. (Fenton was Mintz's agent at William Morris back in the early days.) Xiao and Bing have helped to arrange a farewell dinner, hosted by a general who heads China's weapons and space program. Mintz is, appropriately enough, piloting a black VW Touareg along the Avenue of Heavenly Peace (his driving philosophy in China: "You gotta look the other way and play chicken, man") and past the Great Hall of the People.

"Location, location, location," he says, downshifting near a row of traditional single-story buildings outside the Forbidden City. It is here, on the perimeter of the imperial compound, "where all the decisions for China are made, hands down." Mintz draws an analogy to the Yangtze River, which trickles down from a single point in the Dangla mountains. "China is controlled from just a few rooms," he says. "It's completely planned."

The general's dinner takes place in his office/residence on the moat surrounding the Forbidden City. A model-beautiful young woman serenades guests with a traditional zither; museum-quality antiques and furnishings fill every room, most of which look onto the ancient walls. Cordial and unassuming in a dark business suit, the general gives a casual tour of his office, pointing out a candid photo of himself with a smiling Henry Kissinger. Dinner is one lavish dish after another, served in the center of the table; there's fresh crab, flown in earlier that day at the general's request. Mintz translates as the general proudly relays that his son attended Oxford: "Bill Clinton," the general adds, encouragingly, confident that even an American guest will recognize at least one Rhodes Scholar.

Perhaps the key to Mintz's success is that he didn't import an American business so much as grow a Chinese one. Nearly every employee in DMG's offices is mainland Chinese; the culture and creative approach are also distinctly local. Even Mintz himself, unmistakably a New Yorker in so many respects, seems to have undergone a transformation over the years: Kenneth Hartmann, a German executive formerly with FAW-Volkswagen and now working for the North American division, relays that a Chinese colleague admiringly called Mintz "one of the most Chinese Americans he had ever met."

"The whole Chinese system works on the fact that you're here for the long term," Mintz insists. "China has become a modern country, but we're still talking about 5,000 years of history. It's not like they go around quoting Confucius every five minutes, but the Chinese inherently think in terms of building a strong power base for the future, because if you crumble under the pressure of China, they will have helped you for nothing. So they've got to know two things: 1) that you understand how to build relationships in China, because it's done very differently than back home, and 2) that you have the juice, the strength, the contacts, and the understanding to be able to withstand the test of time."

In a telling sign of China's commercial evolution, Mintz then adds that even guanxi is no longer sufficient in an economy this competitive and complex. "The true combination for success in China is guanxi and what they call shi li," he says. "Shi li is the ability to actually do good work. And that's the difference between now and the old China. Back in the day, it was all about guanxi, and they didn't care about anything as long as you had the connections. Well, China is not like that anymore. You need to have both."

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