Oh no. Say it isn't so. Shirley = Vanilli. I am not sure why this bothers me so much, except that I was truly charmed with that adorable little China girl singing her beautiful ballad to welcome us, the tee vee viewing world, to her Games. I twittered as I watched that she would surely be one of the media stars of this Olympics. I bought into the package. Being a sucker for the child star, the Hallmark verse, the Kodak moment, I am not too proud to admit I got a tear in my eye at the perfect cuteness. 
Now I cry for the real talent behind that performance, seven year old Yang Peiyi, who was not "flawless" enough physically (in the not so humble opinion of the organizers) to perform at the ceremony. Dear Yang, I hope there is a Chinese Barbra Streisand for you out there, a role model to prove that talent is truly the real beauty.
For me, just a decadent, shallow, trendy western marketing pro, this is another example of the ultimate triumph of brand reputation over brand image. The perfect image is an invention; lip-synced or photo shopped. While I'll guess (duh) the Chinese aren't buying into the need for transparency in this age of information, certainly most brand managers over here will see how this kind of fakery can only wound a brand — so much more than any gain that the invented perfect image might have produced. How embarrassing is this? Trust destroyed; brand evangelists now cynics. China doesn't care. I hope we do. Like it or not, the real brand truth will always be revealed.
