Insight China
Insight China: A podcast on Chinese marketing hosted by Jimmy Robinson and sponsored by PingPong Digital, an award-winning Chinese digital marketing agency. Features discussions on the latest trends in China, interviews with Chinese marketing experts, and China news updates. Connect with us on Linkedin, Jimmy at @luojimmysheng or PingPong Digital at @pingpongdigital, website: www.pingpongdigital.com. Music by Zhun.
Insight China
Episode 11 - Misconceptions around Marketing in China
In this special interview edition, we unpack misconceptions about marketing in China, a market ripe with opportunity yet often misunderstood. Explore diverse consumer segments, the need for strategic localisation, and whether China really is still just all about WeChat. Join us as we navigate the complexities of marketing in the world's second-largest economy.
Insight China: A podcast on Chinese marketing hosted by Jimmy Robinson and sponsored by PingPong Digital, a Chinese digital marketing agency. It features discussions on the latest China trends, interviews with Chinese marketing experts, and the latest China news updates. Find us on Linkedin at PingPong Digital, TikTok @insightChina, and reach Jimmy at @luojimmysheng or PingPong Digital at @pingpongdigital, website: www.pingpongdigital.com. Music by Zhun. Written and hosted by Jimmy Robinson.
00:00:08
Hey, I'm Jimmy Robinson. And you're listening to insight China, a China Marketing podcast brought to you by ping pong digital. In each episode of insight.
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China, we give you our deep dive insights into a different area of the Chinese market, followed by a quick lowdown on the biggest Chinese news stories you need to know.
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Catch new episodes on all major.
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Podcast platforms every month.
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Today is a special episode where I'm joined by our head of Strategy, Frank, and we are going to have an in-depth chat about some of the most common misconceptions about marketing in China.
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Frank has over 8 years of experience helping international brands enter and grow in China and Chinese brands to reach an international consumer base.
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Frank, do you want to say hi to our audience?
00:01:08
Thanks, Jimmy. It is a pleasure to join you on this episode.
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As we know, China is quickly recovering from COVID and here are some stats. Chinas consumer economy showed strong signs of resurgence in the first quarter of 2023 with retail sales rising 10.6%. This was the biggest jump in almost two years.
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And almost double the forecasted rate.
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This is extremely positive considering the post COVID iconic slowdown is still vividly felt in a lot of countries worldwide.
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Many international brands are strengthening their connexion with Chinese market. It's a great time to invest in China for sustained growth.
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For example, we're seeing Chinese tourists returning to Southeast Asian and European destinations immediately following the relaxation of the travel restrictions earlier this year.
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The number of international flights is increasing rapidly and fares are dropping. Many of the popular destinations are also preparing themselves for the return of Chinese tourists.
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Higher education is another sector to keep an eye on. China is already the largest origin country of international students in many major countries, but the growth rate is growing faster still and a lot of pent up demand during the COVID period is being released.
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There is no.
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Doubt that China will continue to be one of the largest markets for consumer goods.
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It has been the largest market for consumer electronics since 2013 and it's projected to account for 60% of the entire consumer goods market growth, including luxury products, according to Morgan Stanley. On top of these industries, 1 sector is quickly gaining traction.
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And that is the EV industry, the electric vehicle industry in China that benefits from a strong government push as well as international investment including Tesla's Shanghai Super Factory and now exerts itself as a leading force in the.
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World in fact, 15 out of the top 25 best selling EV brands are Chinese.
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But even though China has been in the spotlight of the global economy since 2010, there are still many misconceptions about how to effectively market brands and products to Chinese consumers.
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We stowed through the Internet from Twitter to Reddit, TikTok, Web articles, as well as product reviews to put together some popular misconceptions about how to effectively market brands and products to China.
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I'm going to pose some of these questions statements and General China feels to Frank and get some expert insights for you all and hopefully burst some myths along the way.
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So Frank, first up, China is a homogeneous big market.
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Yeah, this is probably the most classic misconception about China. And as you know, we get it a lot from our clients. Many of them were.
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Many of them, when they first approached us, speak of China as if it's just an afterthought, like, oh, we've got this amazing brand and we have done everything possible for the western market.
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But since our products also sells in China, so can you put together a simple marketing plan for us?
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But when we ask.
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But when we ask how much China market accounts for their global sales, they'd say something like 30% to 40% of their revenue.
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When you have a.
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Market that's generating 30% to 40% of your revenue or of strategic importance to your brand.
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It can't be more.
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Wrong to not take it seriously.
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One thing every brand aim for China should be aware of is.
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That it's the second largest economy in the world and it's a million light years. Far from being homogeneous.
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In fact, Chinas many provinces have higher GDP than some conventional developed countries in Europe. Here are a few examples.
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First Guangdong province in South China and Jiangsu province in the Yangtze River delta are both the size of Italy in terms of GDP.
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Another province in the Yangtze River Delta Jinjiang is of similar size of Netherlands, even Shandong province, in the relatively less developed north has the economic size on par with Spain.
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And some of the Chinese cities can match up with European countries like Shanghai and Beijing are both close to the GDP size of Switzerland.
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What brands need to realise is that, like Europe, consumers of each region is so different from another in so many ways.
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They speak different dialects. They have vastly different aesthetic tastes they have.
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Very different cultural practises and lifestyle.
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Taking my hometown Chengdu as an example, many of you may know Chengdu as the city of Pandas or spicy hot pots, which which are true. But what matters to brands is it's a unique lifestyle.
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Chengdu is famous for a slow, temple relaxed vibe for its colourful nightlife and vibrant youth culture, uncommon in Shanghai or Beijing.
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There's less stress in there. People don't favour rat racing against each other. Yes, people may not make as much money as people in Shanghai or Shenzhen, but they are also happier in what they have. That's why Chengdu has got a nickname, chens, to them. People are.
00:07:10
Chungs the dam.
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People are comparing it to Amsterdam because it shares that sort of chill.
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This is also why, although Chengdu users don't make the most money, but they always rank amongst the highest when it comes to the willingness of spending money.
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This is just one example of how different the Chinese market is.
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So, Frank, what should brands do to take advantage of this?
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To be honest, many brands now have already developed a more nuanced understanding of China, but still many kinds we see.
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Have what we.
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Call a Shanghai fallacy, that is, equating every Chinese city to Shanghai.
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I think the first step for brands to truly succeed in China is to keep an open mind.
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Stop making assumptions about China and listen to your Chinese stuff. Your Chinese agencies, and most importantly, your Chinese customers.
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For so many times when we started a new project with a new client, we'd ask them a simple question.
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Have you ever spoken with your customers in China?
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And the result.
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Is shocking. Most of the brands, including some brands who have been trading in China for years and have been bringing a lot of revenues every year, have never spoken with a single Chinese customer or distributor.
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It was possible for brand to succeed in China this way. In the past 10 years.
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Maybe as the market was less developed and the competition was relatively less intense.
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You need to change your mindset and strategy for sustainable growth in China in the next year.
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That's fascinating. And it's also crazy to think about the fact that a brand would enter into a market.
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Having never spoken to a single potential customer of theirs, crazy. OK, second misconception.
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China's marketing is all about WeChat. I hope this isn't the case, Frank, but is this still something that's widely believed?
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Yes, unfortunately yes. And I can understand where everyone is coming from with this idea, because WeChat is the app that gets talked about a lot, especially lately.
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Elon Musk, for example, has made his admiration for WeChat publicly known and has vowed to make Twitter the next WeChat. The reasons for WeChat to become almost the poster boy.
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For Chinese social media are simple, large user base and versatility.
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First, Wechat's official record of number of users stands at over 1.2 billion. As of today, China's total population is 1.4 billion, and that means almost everyone in China has a WeChat account.
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It's important to note that we chance growth success is not completely from zero.
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Its predecessor QQ, also created by Tencent, was already hugely popular in the first decade of the 2000s, and Tencent launched an amazingly successful mass user migration.
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Q is an mission style, instant message and desktop app. Just FYI.
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QQ is still operational today and is used by over 500 million users, but it's hardly heard of or referred to by non Chinese marketers.
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Second reason for WeChat success is obviously it's versatility.
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This is what Elon Musk was talking about when he referred to WeChat as the everything.
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I think everyone knows what I mean. You can use WeChat to do literally everything, make payments, book, hotels, rent cars etc etc.
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During COVID, China CDC designated WeChat and Alipay as the only two official platforms as the host of personal health QR codes for everyone in China.
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This has in turn further increased its adoption rate.
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WeChat is also the first to truly immovable first social.
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App. It was one of the first apps to be released as Mobile only.
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Its desktop versions are released much later and a lot more buggier compared to.
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Its mobile apps.
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This has helped to position itself in a very advantageous position, even in the already unique digital landscape in China.
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But while WeChat is important, we have moved far beyond the point where digital marketing in China is all about WeChat.
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China's digital landscape has progressed so quickly and the sophistication is nothing less compared to that of the rest of the world.
00:11:52
And there is an app for pretty much everything. People who follow our work will know that we talk a lot about other platforms.
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For example, there is Weibo, a Twitter like microblogging platform with a strong focus on news and entertainment. There is Tik Tok's twin sister doing same UX and similar UI, the vertical scrolling.
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For time 2.
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We and one.
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Doll is the standard practise for almost every brand and organisation. Planning digital marketing in China.
00:12:22
Wait, Frank, what is 2? We and one dog. What does that mean?
00:12:28
Yeah, this is a. This is a abbreviation for the two platforms WeChat and Weibo, and that one Doe is doing.
00:12:39
Ah, got it.
00:12:41
In recent years, little Red Book, another popular.
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And in recent years, the literate book emerged as an alternative to the WeChat Weibo dowing mix, especially for consumer goods and lifestyle brands.
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Over 70% of the users of literate book are young female in top tier cities.
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Then you have Billy.
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Billy the long form video platform that to an extent can be compared to YouTube, but with an edge in youth culture kaisho a doing competitor with a massive user base in lower tier cities and countryside.
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The knowledge sharing platform like Quora and Doban for everything artsy and literary, from books to films to TV shows, etc.
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So these are just some.
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Big ones in each of their categories.
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You still have dozens smaller apps and digital communities that cater to specific audience groups.
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All these are just within the territory of social media.
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There are a lot.
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Other digital territories to take advantage of. If a brand is to make the most of the Chinese market.
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China's well developed e-commerce sector for one.
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Almost all Chinese e-commerce marketplaces have integrated social media threads and digital marketing functions. Taobao, JD, Pinto odour, you name it, or have built in search engine marketing, remarketing, live streaming and paid display ad systems. There are a lot of other digital marketing tactics that brands.
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And take advantage of.
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Like podcast paid knowledge, communities, audio books, newsletters, digital OH, that is to say, the.
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Out of home.
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Advertising spaces, like in the elevators and O2O integrations at point of sales, for example.
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I guess my point is that in today's China, brands should not only broaden its focus from WeChat, but also should consider a wide mix of communication tools and channels in order to communicate with an increasingly sophisticated audience.
00:14:54
There is certainly a lot more to China than just. WeChat is basically what you're saying here, and brands need to start recognising just how diverse the digital landscape actually is in China. In order to effectively reach, target and communicate to their desired target audiences, right?
00:15:14
An interesting statement I found on Twitter. The cost of doing business in China is increasing.
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Frank, talk about this for a moment.
00:15:29
Well, on the surface, yes, many brands are just realising that $5000 doesn't get you far, especially with more social platforms to choose from and increase the competition from other brands.
00:15:43
And it's easy to understand when more people are interested in something. Something gets more expensive. It's the same with.
00:15:50
China, after almost 20 years of quick development, China has become this well sought after land of opportunity and it's only normal for the prices to go up.
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Plus, we're in a time of post COVID economic cycle of inflation. Everything is more expensive and to an extent a little crazier than before.
00:16:11
But this doesn't mean that brands should stop looking at the Chinese market.
00:16:16
On the contrary, China still presents the biggest opportunity today. Yes, China's growth is slowing down a little, but that's only by China standard.
00:16:26
The 5% to 6% growth rate is still many times compared to let's say to the UK.
00:16:35
As we can see, many industries are still relying on China to provide momentum for growth.
00:16:42
What this means is that there is still big opportunities and big returns to be made if friends can invest and invest properly.
00:16:52
By investing properly, I don't mean brands necessarily need to spend millions of dollars or pounds. Well, it'd be nice if you.
00:17:00
Can, but if you.
00:17:02
But if you are on the budget as is with most of the brands, there are still a lot of ways to crack the Chinese market. For example, if you can have a deeper understanding of the market.
00:17:14
And the audience, you can take advantage of the myriad of vertical apps and consumer communities.
00:17:20
A very good example is new British sportswear brand gym shark. A client of ours.
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Their approach is simple, yet extremely effective.
00:17:31
As a sportswear brand, its entry point to the Chinese market is not the general sporting population, not the regular gym goers even, but it targeted a tiny community of bodybuilders and strength trainers. They engaged with the community of personal trainers even before they set up an official sales channel.
00:17:51
Which tapped into the public's FOMO minds.
00:17:55
Last year, when I was in Shanghai, I visited quite a few gyms. To my surprise, there were.
00:18:01
Always a few personal trainers wearing gym shark at.
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Each of them.
00:18:04
It's a smart tactic that they adopted, right? They're basically positioning their products to the local experts within a specific field.
00:18:15
And as you know, fans could see they're their favourite trainers or whoever wearing this stuff. It feels very professional, right? And then you want to kind of, you know.
00:18:25
Engage in that. Be involved in that. Have that kind of like product as well. It's a a genius way to kind of go about it.
00:18:34
Yes. And it's important to note that this community is very affluent because gym or going to gyms in China are currently a symbol of lifestyles.
00:18:46
Right. It's still a luxury purchase essentially. So you've got to have some capital there. So it's not necessarily the case that the cost of just doing business in China is increasing. We've seen increases across the board.
00:19:00
What you would have been investing in China 10 years ago, obviously just through basic inflation is going to cost a lot more in today's marketplace.
00:19:09
And with the increase in competition and you know?
00:19:14
The the diverse.
00:19:15
Platforms. Now you've obviously got to be looking at putting the right kind of budget behind the right kinds of platforms.
00:19:22
In order to have success in the market, so not necessarily a case if it's just getting more expensive, I think it's more a case here that you need to be doing the right things at the beginning in order to get better results because the strategies of 10 years ago just don't apply anymore.
00:19:40
Now, one question that we picked out of Reddit was this. I thought all foreign brands by default had an advantage when entering China because Chinese people value foreign products. Frank.
00:19:59
What are your thoughts on this statement?
00:20:02
I can see where this kind of belief, that being foreign, guarantees success for a brand is coming from. It's based on the three assumptions.
00:20:14
One foreign products are innately better in quality.
00:20:18
Two foreign brands are innately better in branding and three western lifestyle is innately superior to Chinese lifestyle.
00:20:30
This may be true like 20 years ago, but now this is just arrogant and ignorant for brand to think like this.
00:20:40
It's true that.
00:20:40
There was a time when the word foreign meant high end or premium or simply good.
00:20:48
When I was a child, a lot of Chinese brands purposely tried to sound for it. They gave their brands or products names that made no sense in Chinese.
00:20:58
But today, in almost every sector, from consumer goods to technology, from automobile to manufacturing, Western brands are facing.
00:21:07
Increasing competition from Chinese brand.
00:21:10
Quality wise, Chinese manufacturers have developed top notch production design capability as a result of being the world factory for over 20 years.
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Many brands have been leading the category worldwide.
00:21:25
DJI comes to mind that the drone maker.
00:21:30
Then Chinese brands taste in aesthetic and design is also improving rapidly.
00:21:35
A big reason is China's frequent communication with the world. In the past few years and a lot of students studying design in the West, returning to China and start to work on the homegrown brands, they really take the design and the brand story.
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To another level.
00:21:51
Another reason is about national pride and the Chinese way of lifestyle.
00:21:55
The economy is growing and living standard, improving plus encouraging governmental policy to boost national confidence. Hence the national brands trend that has evolved into a conscious movement.
00:22:11
Many consumers now prefer Chinese brands over Western brands as an affirmation of their identity.
00:22:17
That's very interesting. And can you maybe give some examples like are there any good Chinese brands that you would say are, you know quote unquote superior to foreign brands in their categories?
00:22:31
Sure. So apart from the DJI, the drone maker we talked about earlier, there is one that comes to.
00:22:38
Mind, the brand is called pidan. It's the Chinese word. So Pitan is the Chinese word for the notorious dish, the 1000 year old egg.
00:22:49
Well, which I like, but it's it's hard for many other Western friends.
00:22:56
Yes, I I can relate to that.
00:23:00
Petan is also a name of a tabby cat.
00:23:04
The owner of this cat, Pedan, also named his pet brand after it.
00:23:09
Peden's owner used to study design in France. He was disappointed by the poor designs of cat litter boxes, not only in China but worldwide. I believe he tried almost 200 cat litter boxes worldwide.
00:23:24
So. So he decided to design his own.
00:23:28
After three years, he presented the market, one of the most beautifully designed catalytic books.
00:23:35
The pure white hemisphere shape cat litter box looks nothing like a cat litter box, but like a premium lamp or a fancy home decoration, he poetically named it cat igloo in one red Dot design award, and from a business point of view, I guess this is it would be interesting to so many other brands.
00:23:57
Is that it sells.
00:23:58
At 30% above the average price.
00:24:02
So this is what Western brands are up against in China nowadays, A vibrant and creative group of consumers who are well connected, well travelled and well experienced. They can only be impressed by truly remarkable products and brands.
00:24:20
But this is not to say the advantage is completely gone of being.
00:24:23
A void brat.
00:24:25
But it depends. For example foreign brands still hold more allure in lower tier cities, where consumers are catching up on the modern lifestyle like we talked about earlier, China is very diverse market foreign brands still hold more allure in specific sectors like higher education, personal care.
00:24:46
Luxury etc. And foreign brands may still hold more allure if its brand or product has a strong niche.
00:24:56
When properly or communicated, Western brands can still win over Chinese consumers. The key to success here is to research thoroughly, plan meticulously, invest properly, and get yourself a.
00:25:09
Capable guiding hand.
00:25:10
I just googled the P Dan's litter box and it is a very cute litterbox. If anybody listening has a cat, Pedan, Pi Dan litter box, search for it online. It's a a very nicely designed litterbox.
00:25:29
It is, I would say the most beautifully designed cat litter box in the world, and according to the product reviews, it works perfectly as well.
00:25:38
That So what you're basically saying here is that you can still be a foreign brand. You can still have success in China, but you can't just rely on being a foreign brand to have success.
00:25:53
You've now got to recognise there are going to be local competitors and the strategies that you need to be.
00:26:00
Implementing need to be matching what's going on domestically, what's going on locally in China now.
00:26:09
This I guess is one of the frustrating things that I will often read about when it comes to the China market.
00:26:19
I'm not being biassed, I don't think in in in. We're about to say here, but I did also.
00:26:25
Read this as well so.
00:26:26
This is also something that I've read online. We've got personal experience with people.
00:26:30
Telling us this.
00:26:32
I have a Chinese speaker on the team. What else do I need an agency for?
00:26:40
Frank, I'm over to you.
00:26:44
Well, I think you and I are too familiar with these kind of comments in the past few years, right?
00:26:51
I think what?
00:26:51
The client here is actually saying is that many brands are content with the idea of localised content but not the strategy.
00:27:02
Do you remember the days when brands didn't even bother to localise their content, Jimmy?
00:27:07
I I do remember this. I we still get people saying to us you.
00:27:12
Know can I?
00:27:12
Just repost my content in English, it's it's still something that people say to us.
00:27:17
Now somehow I need to give some credit to the brands that who are wanting to localise the content. Well, irony aside, I know many brands may see localising content for China as a big step. Sometimes the only step towards.
00:27:33
The Chinese market.
00:27:34
And many would say that's.
00:27:37
But here is the thing. While I'm 100% up for localization, many a time brands are just using localization as a fancy word for translation.
00:27:50
We've seen a lot of friends coming to us with a simple solution to their Chinese marketing in mind.
00:27:57
That is, here is our social media content plan or website in English. Please translate it.
00:28:04
In a slightly better scenario, some clients would ask us to tweak the design a little bit, like to swap the models in their key visuals with Asian models or change the colour to red to symbolise good fortune in China.
00:28:17
But that's only treating the symptoms, not the root causes. As we say in Chinese.
00:28:23
So are you saying here that brands don't need to revise their content?
00:28:30
Ohh no, don't get me wrong, I think these are important but every time the team receives such a brief which sigh in silence because this is a typical, you know, putting the cart before the horse kind of situation.
00:28:45
Copies or designs are by nature the end.
00:28:48
Product of a strategy.
00:28:50
From a communication point of view, before the localization of specific post or design, it's much more important to localise the strategy.
00:28:59
A good post is the result of a good content strategy, a good content strategy is direct result of a sound communication strategy.
00:29:09
A sound communication strategy is borne out of a solid brand strategy.
00:29:14
All these are interlinked and they have a massive impact on each other and ultimately the brand in general.
00:29:22
It's important because if a post is the thing the brand says, then the content strategy is what should and need a brand to say.
00:29:32
And then the brand strategy is who the brand is.
00:29:35
Only when all these are clearly figured out and aligned can brand truly benefit from the marketing and communication in China.
00:29:44
It's the only way to secure a long term growth in the Chinese market.
00:29:49
It has a lot longer shelf life than just opposed or visual.
00:29:54
I'll give one real life example. So there is a global logistic company, right? Our client who's one of the largest in North America and they help businesses ship goods across the world.
00:30:07
There are core service is custom clearance.
00:30:10
The majority of their revenue is generated through helping businesses clear the US and the Canadian customs, compliantly and quickly.
00:30:18
They are very.
00:30:19
Well known in this area.
00:30:21
But the brand has more to offer.
00:30:23
They are also experts in global freight forwarding and business consulting, for example.
00:30:29
So naturally, they take up a strategy that is created around the idea of more than custom clearance because its business strategy is to diversify its service portfolio from custom clearance.
00:30:43
When they decided to launch their service in China, they came to us for marketing advice.
00:30:49
Our research shows that the brand has very limited awareness in China. Even their long time existing customers don't fully understand their brand.
00:31:00
So it will only confuse the Chinese market if we simply adopt the statement more than custom clearance before the market even knows about well, there are custom clearance capability which is largely defined by what you do and do best.
00:31:18
So we started working with them by localising their brand strategy and crafted a well-rounded brand narrative that's based on the brand's biggest strength for the Chinese market.
00:31:30
The new strategy not only guides its social media communication, but also its business practises as a whole, including their sales strategy.
00:31:39
So I think brands need to take the localization a step further.
00:31:45
To look at the core and positioning of the brand rather than just the words and images when.
00:31:49
They approach the Chinese market.
00:31:51
Like what we talked about earlier, China is a very big market and a very different market. Many times you need to adapt to the entire set of strategy to meet its reality.
00:32:03
I think there were some great points here, Frank and one of the things that you touched on earlier was just translating the content for social platforms, right or just translating content, I guess in general.
00:32:18
And I know that, you know not to talk about other agencies for a moment, but I know that there are other agencies out there that do what we do and they offer different tiered services when it comes to content creation.
00:32:32
And one of the services that they offer is just pure translation. So the.
00:32:36
Client provides something.
00:32:37
And then they will just go ahead and translated, which is something.
00:32:40
That we've never done.
00:32:41
Because we realise that there is so much.
00:32:44
More that has to be.
00:32:45
And for a successful strategy that goes beyond just simply translating content and is why we don't even offer that as a service, we don't have translating social media content as a service. We have content creation and that's you know the approach that is the right approach to be taking.
00:33:06
And it's the approach that as you've mentioned of Mistress strategic standpoint is going to be the one that drives you know future success, right.
00:33:14
Yes, absolutely translating can solve your temporary problem.
00:33:20
That is, for example, an empty space on social media, but later on the.
00:33:26
Lack of strategic localization will come back and bite you.
00:33:32
This has been fascinating, Frank. Thank you for joining us today and helping answer.
00:33:37
Some of the.
00:33:38
Questions and misconceptions that we found around the Internet.
00:33:44
Thank you, Jimmy. It's been a pleasure.
00:33:52
Next up are the China.
00:33:53
News stories that you need to know about.
00:34:04
LVMH has announced double digit growth in the first quarter in China.
00:34:12
The CFO, Jean Jacques, I can't pronounce the surname. Jean Jacques guiliani. I've probably messed that up. Please, no one cancel me for that. So that he is very optimistic about the China market. This.
00:34:26
The luxury sector's recovery is further encouraged by the meeting between LVMH chairman Ernest CEO and Chinas Ministry of Commerce. Business in luxury is looking good for China.
00:34:44
Secondly, Mini Cooper was quoted a public firestorm during the Shanghai Auto Show in April when.
00:34:52
Its staff was.
00:34:53
Videoed offering ice cream to foreigners whilst refusing to give it to Chinese visitors.
00:35:01
Now, Mini Cooper did come out with a statement for this and said that they were holding some ice creams back for members of BMW.
00:35:11
Who were going to?
00:35:12
Be visiting their stand at a later time during the show, but the optics here are not great at.
00:35:21
All and the.
00:35:22
Group's crisis.
00:35:23
Management was met with ridicule from Chinese netizens.
00:35:31
Thanks for listening to this episode of Inside China. I hope you enjoyed learning about some of the most common misconceptions about marketing in China. As Frank mentioned, China is a very diverse market with different cultures, dialects, and lifestyles.
00:35:49
It's important for brands to do their research and tailor their marketing strategies to each region in China.
00:35:58
The most important thing is to be creative and experiment with different marketing strategies. There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to marketing in China.
00:36:12
I'll be back later this month to talk about sustainability marketing in China. And yes, you heard that right. A double whammy this month, two podcast episodes to keep you all very, very entertained and up to date on the happenings in China.
00:36:31
Thanks for listening, 谢谢大家.
00:36:34
A special thanks to Frank. Ye, and Zhun.
00:36:39
For his music.
00:00:08
Hey, I'm Jimmy Robinson. And you're listening to insight China, a China Marketing podcast brought to you by ping pong digital. In each episode of insight.
00:00:20
China, we give you our deep dive insights into a different area of the Chinese market, followed by a quick lowdown on the biggest Chinese news stories you need to know.
00:00:30
Catch new episodes on all major.
00:00:32
Podcast platforms every month.
00:00:36
Today is a special episode where I'm joined by our head of Strategy, Frank, and we are going to have an in-depth chat about some of the most common misconceptions about marketing in China.
00:00:54
Frank has over 8 years of experience helping international brands enter and grow in China and Chinese brands to reach an international consumer base.
00:01:05
Frank, do you want to say hi to our audience?
00:01:08
Thanks, Jimmy. It is a pleasure to join you on this episode.
00:01:11
As we know, China is quickly recovering from COVID and here are some stats. Chinas consumer economy showed strong signs of resurgence in the first quarter of 2023 with retail sales rising 10.6%. This was the biggest jump in almost two years.
00:01:32
And almost double the forecasted rate.
00:01:36
This is extremely positive considering the post COVID iconic slowdown is still vividly felt in a lot of countries worldwide.
00:01:45
Many international brands are strengthening their connexion with Chinese market. It's a great time to invest in China for sustained growth.
00:01:54
For example, we're seeing Chinese tourists returning to Southeast Asian and European destinations immediately following the relaxation of the travel restrictions earlier this year.
00:02:06
The number of international flights is increasing rapidly and fares are dropping. Many of the popular destinations are also preparing themselves for the return of Chinese tourists.
00:02:19
Higher education is another sector to keep an eye on. China is already the largest origin country of international students in many major countries, but the growth rate is growing faster still and a lot of pent up demand during the COVID period is being released.
00:02:37
There is no.
00:02:38
Doubt that China will continue to be one of the largest markets for consumer goods.
00:02:44
It has been the largest market for consumer electronics since 2013 and it's projected to account for 60% of the entire consumer goods market growth, including luxury products, according to Morgan Stanley. On top of these industries, 1 sector is quickly gaining traction.
00:03:04
And that is the EV industry, the electric vehicle industry in China that benefits from a strong government push as well as international investment including Tesla's Shanghai Super Factory and now exerts itself as a leading force in the.
00:03:21
World in fact, 15 out of the top 25 best selling EV brands are Chinese.
00:03:29
But even though China has been in the spotlight of the global economy since 2010, there are still many misconceptions about how to effectively market brands and products to Chinese consumers.
00:03:44
We stowed through the Internet from Twitter to Reddit, TikTok, Web articles, as well as product reviews to put together some popular misconceptions about how to effectively market brands and products to China.
00:04:01
I'm going to pose some of these questions statements and General China feels to Frank and get some expert insights for you all and hopefully burst some myths along the way.
00:04:15
So Frank, first up, China is a homogeneous big market.
00:04:22
Yeah, this is probably the most classic misconception about China. And as you know, we get it a lot from our clients. Many of them were.
00:04:32
Many of them, when they first approached us, speak of China as if it's just an afterthought, like, oh, we've got this amazing brand and we have done everything possible for the western market.
00:04:43
But since our products also sells in China, so can you put together a simple marketing plan for us?
00:04:49
But when we ask.
00:04:51
But when we ask how much China market accounts for their global sales, they'd say something like 30% to 40% of their revenue.
00:05:00
When you have a.
00:05:01
Market that's generating 30% to 40% of your revenue or of strategic importance to your brand.
00:05:08
It can't be more.
00:05:09
Wrong to not take it seriously.
00:05:12
One thing every brand aim for China should be aware of is.
00:05:17
That it's the second largest economy in the world and it's a million light years. Far from being homogeneous.
00:05:24
In fact, Chinas many provinces have higher GDP than some conventional developed countries in Europe. Here are a few examples.
00:05:36
First Guangdong province in South China and Jiangsu province in the Yangtze River delta are both the size of Italy in terms of GDP.
00:05:46
Another province in the Yangtze River Delta Jinjiang is of similar size of Netherlands, even Shandong province, in the relatively less developed north has the economic size on par with Spain.
00:06:00
And some of the Chinese cities can match up with European countries like Shanghai and Beijing are both close to the GDP size of Switzerland.
00:06:10
What brands need to realise is that, like Europe, consumers of each region is so different from another in so many ways.
00:06:17
They speak different dialects. They have vastly different aesthetic tastes they have.
00:06:23
Very different cultural practises and lifestyle.
00:06:27
Taking my hometown Chengdu as an example, many of you may know Chengdu as the city of Pandas or spicy hot pots, which which are true. But what matters to brands is it's a unique lifestyle.
00:06:41
Chengdu is famous for a slow, temple relaxed vibe for its colourful nightlife and vibrant youth culture, uncommon in Shanghai or Beijing.
00:06:51
There's less stress in there. People don't favour rat racing against each other. Yes, people may not make as much money as people in Shanghai or Shenzhen, but they are also happier in what they have. That's why Chengdu has got a nickname, chens, to them. People are.
00:07:10
Chungs the dam.
00:07:12
People are comparing it to Amsterdam because it shares that sort of chill.
00:07:17
This is also why, although Chengdu users don't make the most money, but they always rank amongst the highest when it comes to the willingness of spending money.
00:07:28
This is just one example of how different the Chinese market is.
00:07:32
So, Frank, what should brands do to take advantage of this?
00:07:38
To be honest, many brands now have already developed a more nuanced understanding of China, but still many kinds we see.
00:07:47
Have what we.
00:07:47
Call a Shanghai fallacy, that is, equating every Chinese city to Shanghai.
00:07:53
I think the first step for brands to truly succeed in China is to keep an open mind.
00:07:59
Stop making assumptions about China and listen to your Chinese stuff. Your Chinese agencies, and most importantly, your Chinese customers.
00:08:08
For so many times when we started a new project with a new client, we'd ask them a simple question.
00:08:15
Have you ever spoken with your customers in China?
00:08:19
And the result.
00:08:19
Is shocking. Most of the brands, including some brands who have been trading in China for years and have been bringing a lot of revenues every year, have never spoken with a single Chinese customer or distributor.
00:08:33
It was possible for brand to succeed in China this way. In the past 10 years.
00:08:37
Maybe as the market was less developed and the competition was relatively less intense.
00:08:44
You need to change your mindset and strategy for sustainable growth in China in the next year.
00:08:50
That's fascinating. And it's also crazy to think about the fact that a brand would enter into a market.
00:08:58
Having never spoken to a single potential customer of theirs, crazy. OK, second misconception.
00:09:08
China's marketing is all about WeChat. I hope this isn't the case, Frank, but is this still something that's widely believed?
00:09:19
Yes, unfortunately yes. And I can understand where everyone is coming from with this idea, because WeChat is the app that gets talked about a lot, especially lately.
00:09:29
Elon Musk, for example, has made his admiration for WeChat publicly known and has vowed to make Twitter the next WeChat. The reasons for WeChat to become almost the poster boy.
00:09:40
For Chinese social media are simple, large user base and versatility.
00:09:47
First, Wechat's official record of number of users stands at over 1.2 billion. As of today, China's total population is 1.4 billion, and that means almost everyone in China has a WeChat account.
00:10:02
It's important to note that we chance growth success is not completely from zero.
00:10:08
Its predecessor QQ, also created by Tencent, was already hugely popular in the first decade of the 2000s, and Tencent launched an amazingly successful mass user migration.
00:10:20
Q is an mission style, instant message and desktop app. Just FYI.
00:10:25
QQ is still operational today and is used by over 500 million users, but it's hardly heard of or referred to by non Chinese marketers.
00:10:35
Second reason for WeChat success is obviously it's versatility.
00:10:40
This is what Elon Musk was talking about when he referred to WeChat as the everything.
00:10:46
I think everyone knows what I mean. You can use WeChat to do literally everything, make payments, book, hotels, rent cars etc etc.
00:10:56
During COVID, China CDC designated WeChat and Alipay as the only two official platforms as the host of personal health QR codes for everyone in China.
00:11:07
This has in turn further increased its adoption rate.
00:11:10
WeChat is also the first to truly immovable first social.
00:11:14
App. It was one of the first apps to be released as Mobile only.
00:11:19
Its desktop versions are released much later and a lot more buggier compared to.
00:11:24
Its mobile apps.
00:11:27
This has helped to position itself in a very advantageous position, even in the already unique digital landscape in China.
00:11:36
But while WeChat is important, we have moved far beyond the point where digital marketing in China is all about WeChat.
00:11:43
China's digital landscape has progressed so quickly and the sophistication is nothing less compared to that of the rest of the world.
00:11:52
And there is an app for pretty much everything. People who follow our work will know that we talk a lot about other platforms.
00:12:00
For example, there is Weibo, a Twitter like microblogging platform with a strong focus on news and entertainment. There is Tik Tok's twin sister doing same UX and similar UI, the vertical scrolling.
00:12:14
For time 2.
00:12:15
We and one.
00:12:17
Doll is the standard practise for almost every brand and organisation. Planning digital marketing in China.
00:12:22
Wait, Frank, what is 2? We and one dog. What does that mean?
00:12:28
Yeah, this is a. This is a abbreviation for the two platforms WeChat and Weibo, and that one Doe is doing.
00:12:39
Ah, got it.
00:12:41
In recent years, little Red Book, another popular.
00:12:48
And in recent years, the literate book emerged as an alternative to the WeChat Weibo dowing mix, especially for consumer goods and lifestyle brands.
00:12:57
Over 70% of the users of literate book are young female in top tier cities.
00:13:04
Then you have Billy.
00:13:05
Billy the long form video platform that to an extent can be compared to YouTube, but with an edge in youth culture kaisho a doing competitor with a massive user base in lower tier cities and countryside.
00:13:21
The knowledge sharing platform like Quora and Doban for everything artsy and literary, from books to films to TV shows, etc.
00:13:31
So these are just some.
00:13:33
Big ones in each of their categories.
00:13:35
You still have dozens smaller apps and digital communities that cater to specific audience groups.
00:13:42
All these are just within the territory of social media.
00:13:46
There are a lot.
00:13:47
Other digital territories to take advantage of. If a brand is to make the most of the Chinese market.
00:13:54
China's well developed e-commerce sector for one.
00:13:58
Almost all Chinese e-commerce marketplaces have integrated social media threads and digital marketing functions. Taobao, JD, Pinto odour, you name it, or have built in search engine marketing, remarketing, live streaming and paid display ad systems. There are a lot of other digital marketing tactics that brands.
00:14:18
And take advantage of.
00:14:20
Like podcast paid knowledge, communities, audio books, newsletters, digital OH, that is to say, the.
00:14:29
Out of home.
00:14:30
Advertising spaces, like in the elevators and O2O integrations at point of sales, for example.
00:14:39
I guess my point is that in today's China, brands should not only broaden its focus from WeChat, but also should consider a wide mix of communication tools and channels in order to communicate with an increasingly sophisticated audience.
00:14:54
There is certainly a lot more to China than just. WeChat is basically what you're saying here, and brands need to start recognising just how diverse the digital landscape actually is in China. In order to effectively reach, target and communicate to their desired target audiences, right?
00:15:14
An interesting statement I found on Twitter. The cost of doing business in China is increasing.
00:15:26
Frank, talk about this for a moment.
00:15:29
Well, on the surface, yes, many brands are just realising that $5000 doesn't get you far, especially with more social platforms to choose from and increase the competition from other brands.
00:15:43
And it's easy to understand when more people are interested in something. Something gets more expensive. It's the same with.
00:15:50
China, after almost 20 years of quick development, China has become this well sought after land of opportunity and it's only normal for the prices to go up.
00:16:01
Plus, we're in a time of post COVID economic cycle of inflation. Everything is more expensive and to an extent a little crazier than before.
00:16:11
But this doesn't mean that brands should stop looking at the Chinese market.
00:16:16
On the contrary, China still presents the biggest opportunity today. Yes, China's growth is slowing down a little, but that's only by China standard.
00:16:26
The 5% to 6% growth rate is still many times compared to let's say to the UK.
00:16:35
As we can see, many industries are still relying on China to provide momentum for growth.
00:16:42
What this means is that there is still big opportunities and big returns to be made if friends can invest and invest properly.
00:16:52
By investing properly, I don't mean brands necessarily need to spend millions of dollars or pounds. Well, it'd be nice if you.
00:17:00
Can, but if you.
00:17:02
But if you are on the budget as is with most of the brands, there are still a lot of ways to crack the Chinese market. For example, if you can have a deeper understanding of the market.
00:17:14
And the audience, you can take advantage of the myriad of vertical apps and consumer communities.
00:17:20
A very good example is new British sportswear brand gym shark. A client of ours.
00:17:27
Their approach is simple, yet extremely effective.
00:17:31
As a sportswear brand, its entry point to the Chinese market is not the general sporting population, not the regular gym goers even, but it targeted a tiny community of bodybuilders and strength trainers. They engaged with the community of personal trainers even before they set up an official sales channel.
00:17:51
Which tapped into the public's FOMO minds.
00:17:55
Last year, when I was in Shanghai, I visited quite a few gyms. To my surprise, there were.
00:18:01
Always a few personal trainers wearing gym shark at.
00:18:03
Each of them.
00:18:04
It's a smart tactic that they adopted, right? They're basically positioning their products to the local experts within a specific field.
00:18:15
And as you know, fans could see they're their favourite trainers or whoever wearing this stuff. It feels very professional, right? And then you want to kind of, you know.
00:18:25
Engage in that. Be involved in that. Have that kind of like product as well. It's a a genius way to kind of go about it.
00:18:34
Yes. And it's important to note that this community is very affluent because gym or going to gyms in China are currently a symbol of lifestyles.
00:18:46
Right. It's still a luxury purchase essentially. So you've got to have some capital there. So it's not necessarily the case that the cost of just doing business in China is increasing. We've seen increases across the board.
00:19:00
What you would have been investing in China 10 years ago, obviously just through basic inflation is going to cost a lot more in today's marketplace.
00:19:09
And with the increase in competition and you know?
00:19:14
The the diverse.
00:19:15
Platforms. Now you've obviously got to be looking at putting the right kind of budget behind the right kinds of platforms.
00:19:22
In order to have success in the market, so not necessarily a case if it's just getting more expensive, I think it's more a case here that you need to be doing the right things at the beginning in order to get better results because the strategies of 10 years ago just don't apply anymore.
00:19:40
Now, one question that we picked out of Reddit was this. I thought all foreign brands by default had an advantage when entering China because Chinese people value foreign products. Frank.
00:19:59
What are your thoughts on this statement?
00:20:02
I can see where this kind of belief, that being foreign, guarantees success for a brand is coming from. It's based on the three assumptions.
00:20:14
One foreign products are innately better in quality.
00:20:18
Two foreign brands are innately better in branding and three western lifestyle is innately superior to Chinese lifestyle.
00:20:30
This may be true like 20 years ago, but now this is just arrogant and ignorant for brand to think like this.
00:20:40
It's true that.
00:20:40
There was a time when the word foreign meant high end or premium or simply good.
00:20:48
When I was a child, a lot of Chinese brands purposely tried to sound for it. They gave their brands or products names that made no sense in Chinese.
00:20:58
But today, in almost every sector, from consumer goods to technology, from automobile to manufacturing, Western brands are facing.
00:21:07
Increasing competition from Chinese brand.
00:21:10
Quality wise, Chinese manufacturers have developed top notch production design capability as a result of being the world factory for over 20 years.
00:21:22
Many brands have been leading the category worldwide.
00:21:25
DJI comes to mind that the drone maker.
00:21:30
Then Chinese brands taste in aesthetic and design is also improving rapidly.
00:21:35
A big reason is China's frequent communication with the world. In the past few years and a lot of students studying design in the West, returning to China and start to work on the homegrown brands, they really take the design and the brand story.
00:21:50
To another level.
00:21:51
Another reason is about national pride and the Chinese way of lifestyle.
00:21:55
The economy is growing and living standard, improving plus encouraging governmental policy to boost national confidence. Hence the national brands trend that has evolved into a conscious movement.
00:22:11
Many consumers now prefer Chinese brands over Western brands as an affirmation of their identity.
00:22:17
That's very interesting. And can you maybe give some examples like are there any good Chinese brands that you would say are, you know quote unquote superior to foreign brands in their categories?
00:22:31
Sure. So apart from the DJI, the drone maker we talked about earlier, there is one that comes to.
00:22:38
Mind, the brand is called pidan. It's the Chinese word. So Pitan is the Chinese word for the notorious dish, the 1000 year old egg.
00:22:49
Well, which I like, but it's it's hard for many other Western friends.
00:22:56
Yes, I I can relate to that.
00:23:00
Petan is also a name of a tabby cat.
00:23:04
The owner of this cat, Pedan, also named his pet brand after it.
00:23:09
Peden's owner used to study design in France. He was disappointed by the poor designs of cat litter boxes, not only in China but worldwide. I believe he tried almost 200 cat litter boxes worldwide.
00:23:24
So. So he decided to design his own.
00:23:28
After three years, he presented the market, one of the most beautifully designed catalytic books.
00:23:35
The pure white hemisphere shape cat litter box looks nothing like a cat litter box, but like a premium lamp or a fancy home decoration, he poetically named it cat igloo in one red Dot design award, and from a business point of view, I guess this is it would be interesting to so many other brands.
00:23:57
Is that it sells.
00:23:58
At 30% above the average price.
00:24:02
So this is what Western brands are up against in China nowadays, A vibrant and creative group of consumers who are well connected, well travelled and well experienced. They can only be impressed by truly remarkable products and brands.
00:24:20
But this is not to say the advantage is completely gone of being.
00:24:23
A void brat.
00:24:25
But it depends. For example foreign brands still hold more allure in lower tier cities, where consumers are catching up on the modern lifestyle like we talked about earlier, China is very diverse market foreign brands still hold more allure in specific sectors like higher education, personal care.
00:24:46
Luxury etc. And foreign brands may still hold more allure if its brand or product has a strong niche.
00:24:56
When properly or communicated, Western brands can still win over Chinese consumers. The key to success here is to research thoroughly, plan meticulously, invest properly, and get yourself a.
00:25:09
Capable guiding hand.
00:25:10
I just googled the P Dan's litter box and it is a very cute litterbox. If anybody listening has a cat, Pedan, Pi Dan litter box, search for it online. It's a a very nicely designed litterbox.
00:25:29
It is, I would say the most beautifully designed cat litter box in the world, and according to the product reviews, it works perfectly as well.
00:25:38
That So what you're basically saying here is that you can still be a foreign brand. You can still have success in China, but you can't just rely on being a foreign brand to have success.
00:25:53
You've now got to recognise there are going to be local competitors and the strategies that you need to be.
00:26:00
Implementing need to be matching what's going on domestically, what's going on locally in China now.
00:26:09
This I guess is one of the frustrating things that I will often read about when it comes to the China market.
00:26:19
I'm not being biassed, I don't think in in in. We're about to say here, but I did also.
00:26:25
Read this as well so.
00:26:26
This is also something that I've read online. We've got personal experience with people.
00:26:30
Telling us this.
00:26:32
I have a Chinese speaker on the team. What else do I need an agency for?
00:26:40
Frank, I'm over to you.
00:26:44
Well, I think you and I are too familiar with these kind of comments in the past few years, right?
00:26:51
I think what?
00:26:51
The client here is actually saying is that many brands are content with the idea of localised content but not the strategy.
00:27:02
Do you remember the days when brands didn't even bother to localise their content, Jimmy?
00:27:07
I I do remember this. I we still get people saying to us you.
00:27:12
Know can I?
00:27:12
Just repost my content in English, it's it's still something that people say to us.
00:27:17
Now somehow I need to give some credit to the brands that who are wanting to localise the content. Well, irony aside, I know many brands may see localising content for China as a big step. Sometimes the only step towards.
00:27:33
The Chinese market.
00:27:34
And many would say that's.
00:27:37
But here is the thing. While I'm 100% up for localization, many a time brands are just using localization as a fancy word for translation.
00:27:50
We've seen a lot of friends coming to us with a simple solution to their Chinese marketing in mind.
00:27:57
That is, here is our social media content plan or website in English. Please translate it.
00:28:04
In a slightly better scenario, some clients would ask us to tweak the design a little bit, like to swap the models in their key visuals with Asian models or change the colour to red to symbolise good fortune in China.
00:28:17
But that's only treating the symptoms, not the root causes. As we say in Chinese.
00:28:23
So are you saying here that brands don't need to revise their content?
00:28:30
Ohh no, don't get me wrong, I think these are important but every time the team receives such a brief which sigh in silence because this is a typical, you know, putting the cart before the horse kind of situation.
00:28:45
Copies or designs are by nature the end.
00:28:48
Product of a strategy.
00:28:50
From a communication point of view, before the localization of specific post or design, it's much more important to localise the strategy.
00:28:59
A good post is the result of a good content strategy, a good content strategy is direct result of a sound communication strategy.
00:29:09
A sound communication strategy is borne out of a solid brand strategy.
00:29:14
All these are interlinked and they have a massive impact on each other and ultimately the brand in general.
00:29:22
It's important because if a post is the thing the brand says, then the content strategy is what should and need a brand to say.
00:29:32
And then the brand strategy is who the brand is.
00:29:35
Only when all these are clearly figured out and aligned can brand truly benefit from the marketing and communication in China.
00:29:44
It's the only way to secure a long term growth in the Chinese market.
00:29:49
It has a lot longer shelf life than just opposed or visual.
00:29:54
I'll give one real life example. So there is a global logistic company, right? Our client who's one of the largest in North America and they help businesses ship goods across the world.
00:30:07
There are core service is custom clearance.
00:30:10
The majority of their revenue is generated through helping businesses clear the US and the Canadian customs, compliantly and quickly.
00:30:18
They are very.
00:30:19
Well known in this area.
00:30:21
But the brand has more to offer.
00:30:23
They are also experts in global freight forwarding and business consulting, for example.
00:30:29
So naturally, they take up a strategy that is created around the idea of more than custom clearance because its business strategy is to diversify its service portfolio from custom clearance.
00:30:43
When they decided to launch their service in China, they came to us for marketing advice.
00:30:49
Our research shows that the brand has very limited awareness in China. Even their long time existing customers don't fully understand their brand.
00:31:00
So it will only confuse the Chinese market if we simply adopt the statement more than custom clearance before the market even knows about well, there are custom clearance capability which is largely defined by what you do and do best.
00:31:18
So we started working with them by localising their brand strategy and crafted a well-rounded brand narrative that's based on the brand's biggest strength for the Chinese market.
00:31:30
The new strategy not only guides its social media communication, but also its business practises as a whole, including their sales strategy.
00:31:39
So I think brands need to take the localization a step further.
00:31:45
To look at the core and positioning of the brand rather than just the words and images when.
00:31:49
They approach the Chinese market.
00:31:51
Like what we talked about earlier, China is a very big market and a very different market. Many times you need to adapt to the entire set of strategy to meet its reality.
00:32:03
I think there were some great points here, Frank and one of the things that you touched on earlier was just translating the content for social platforms, right or just translating content, I guess in general.
00:32:18
And I know that, you know not to talk about other agencies for a moment, but I know that there are other agencies out there that do what we do and they offer different tiered services when it comes to content creation.
00:32:32
And one of the services that they offer is just pure translation. So the.
00:32:36
Client provides something.
00:32:37
And then they will just go ahead and translated, which is something.
00:32:40
That we've never done.
00:32:41
Because we realise that there is so much.
00:32:44
More that has to be.
00:32:45
And for a successful strategy that goes beyond just simply translating content and is why we don't even offer that as a service, we don't have translating social media content as a service. We have content creation and that's you know the approach that is the right approach to be taking.
00:33:06
And it's the approach that as you've mentioned of Mistress strategic standpoint is going to be the one that drives you know future success, right.
00:33:14
Yes, absolutely translating can solve your temporary problem.
00:33:20
That is, for example, an empty space on social media, but later on the.
00:33:26
Lack of strategic localization will come back and bite you.
00:33:32
This has been fascinating, Frank. Thank you for joining us today and helping answer.
00:33:37
Some of the.
00:33:38
Questions and misconceptions that we found around the Internet.
00:33:44
Thank you, Jimmy. It's been a pleasure.
00:33:52
Next up are the China.
00:33:53
News stories that you need to know about.
00:34:04
LVMH has announced double digit growth in the first quarter in China.
00:34:12
The CFO, Jean Jacques, I can't pronounce the surname. Jean Jacques guiliani. I've probably messed that up. Please, no one cancel me for that. So that he is very optimistic about the China market. This.
00:34:26
The luxury sector's recovery is further encouraged by the meeting between LVMH chairman Ernest CEO and Chinas Ministry of Commerce. Business in luxury is looking good for China.
00:34:44
Secondly, Mini Cooper was quoted a public firestorm during the Shanghai Auto Show in April when.
00:34:52
Its staff was.
00:34:53
Videoed offering ice cream to foreigners whilst refusing to give it to Chinese visitors.
00:35:01
Now, Mini Cooper did come out with a statement for this and said that they were holding some ice creams back for members of BMW.
00:35:11
Who were going to?
00:35:12
Be visiting their stand at a later time during the show, but the optics here are not great at.
00:35:21
All and the.
00:35:22
Group's crisis.
00:35:23
Management was met with ridicule from Chinese netizens.
00:35:31
Thanks for listening to this episode of Inside China. I hope you enjoyed learning about some of the most common misconceptions about marketing in China. As Frank mentioned, China is a very diverse market with different cultures, dialects, and lifestyles.
00:35:49
It's important for brands to do their research and tailor their marketing strategies to each region in China.
00:35:58
The most important thing is to be creative and experiment with different marketing strategies. There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to marketing in China.
00:36:12
I'll be back later this month to talk about sustainability marketing in China. And yes, you heard that right. A double whammy this month, two podcast episodes to keep you all very, very entertained and up to date on the happenings in China.
00:36:31
Thanks for listening, 谢谢大家.
00:36:34
A special thanks to Frank. Ye, and Zhun.
00:36:39
For his music.