Shanghai Advertising - the rise of consumer culture in a communist country.

I've chatted a bit with Fredrik Olsson from Miami ad agency in Gothenburg about his recent trip to Shanghai. What is advertising like over there? Do they have really naive billboards, like ours used to be in the 60s? Do they have guerrilla advertising which is Miami's speciality? Do they have TV-ads?
Fredrik was kind enough to respond at length: The Guerrilla advertising business in Shanghai is not without its dangers...

"The advertising biz in China is quite young, perhaps just a few years (not counting ol' Hong Kong of course), and it is only after this new year that foreign companies can register on the market in China without Chinese partners or other similar arrangements. Of course, there's been advertising made in China, particularly in expansive regions such as Shanghai, but it has been done illegally while waiting for the laws to change. This kind of inconsistency is typical for the communist party of China. But in China, there is no real communism. Yes you read that right. It's a dictatorship with all that entails, but there's no red-book of ideology that is followed slavishly like in the past Soviet Union. Shanghai is a technorati-town and is ruled by hyper-capitalism. Everything can be bought for money and those who are rich or well-connected don't exactly have to follow all the rules. In China there is no welfare state and there is no social security system for those who were born poor or sick.
But sure, there are rules for those who want to advertise. You can't criticize the party or engage in any "enemy of the state" ideas. It's OK to do events, in good order, but you can not arrange for too much interactivity/participation with the public audience as that might count as "market research" and that sort of thing is forbidden by The Party, who are terrified that someone else might find out what people in China think. All forms of guerrilla and alternative advertising are labelled "market research": A seemingly harmless activity such as handing out flyers on the street could get you a few days in jail. You might not get beat up but you'll be thoroughly interrogated. And, they'll keep an eye on you in the future.
It's clearly rare that they flog different thinkers and radical groups with advertising and media, but The Party have excellent tools for messing with your business. They can shut down your company with one phone call and kick you out of the country if you prove too 'difficult'. Or the holy police will come and search your house or your office when you least expect them to. Legally it's a different story - not that it matters in practice, since The Party will do what they want anyway - but there aren't that many laws rules or guidelines about guerrilla advertising. They don't have a precedent since nobody has thought of or dared to do something alternative yet. Graffiti is one good example. If you were to choose to spray-paint your ad on a wall there is no law against it since nobody has done this before. You can probably count on being punished anyway, but no law says it's illegal....yet.