Putting the Smile back on Service in China

January 14th, 2012 Posted in China Trends
Jan, 14 2012
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My expectations in terms of service have probably been recalibrated in the years since I first moved to China. I’ve been disappointed many times. No doubt it will be a long road towards improving overall service quality, but generally the efforts to promote better awareness of service standards are to be commended – particularly during the Beijing Olympics and Shanghai EXPO. I often wonder what types of expectations Chinese consumers truly have towards service, and two recent experiences got me thinking more about the service culture in China. Read the rest of this entry »

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China’s Marketers can help themselves by helping their consumers to ‘beat the system’

January 8th, 2012 Posted in BTL Promotions, China Trends, Digital
Jan, 08 2012
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Everyone loves a bargain and none more so than the Chinese. I’ll often hear my neighbours comparing the price of their freshly bought vegetables from the nearby wet  market as they make small talk in the elevator, and at work the conversation among colleagues often turns to how to get the best price for something. This all adds up to a well ingrained ’system beating’ mentality, with regards to getting the best price.

I read a great post about ‘System Beaters’, on Joel Rubinson’s market research blog. The post highlights how deals are increasingly guiding our path to purchase, especially in the advent of social media in its various facets, and I feel that this observation is particularly meaningful here in China. Read the rest of this entry »

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Prepare for Message Overload at Spring Festival

January 23rd, 2011 Posted in Advertising, China Trends
Jan, 23 2011
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So here we are in 2011, and after an abysmal total of three blog posts during 2010, I clearly must do better! It’s not as if there’s any shortage of things to write about, I have a long list of potential topics but an increasingly short amount of time, as I try and fit this project around work.

As we approach Chinese New Year (or Spring Festival) and the forthcoming year of the rabbit, the next few weeks are always a fascinating time to observe marketing overload here in China. Many FMCG brands see a huge spike in sales at this time, and campaigns are created especially to tap into to that special Chinese Spring Festival feeling.

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Engage and Measure – Building Brands with Social Media in China

July 25th, 2010 Posted in Branding, China Trends, Digital
Jul, 25 2010
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The Rise and Rise of Social Media in China

It’s approaching my fifth anniversary of living here in China, so I thought I’d use this milestone to write about what I have seen in the development of social media marketing in my time here. It’s a unique and powerful area for all brand owners in China that has grown so fast over recent years, yet still seems to pose something of challenge in terms of the best way to 1) engage social media users with brands and; 2) measure the impact of that engagement. The timing of this post coincides with the release of the OgilvyOne ‘Connected’ report that was made available last week. It provides an excellent summary of how social media has quickly become mainstream in China and what this means for brands. Read the rest of this entry »

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The China Marketing Lab Manifesto

March 25th, 2010 Posted in Advertising, BTL Promotions, Branding, China Trends, Digital, Market Research, Public Relations
Mar, 25 2010
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Welcome to China Marketing Lab! In this my first post I hope to explain exactly what it is I wish to achieve with this new blog, and from which angle I will be attacking this tricky subject matter. Click on about for more info about me, but to cut a long story short, I am hoping this blog will give me an outlet to share my thoughts on some of the interesting trends I am seeing as a marketing professional working in China. I should state now that I consider myself to be a market researcher first, and therefore this blog will detail the thoughts and observations of a market research practitioner plying his trade in the Middle Kingdom. I do not consider myself to be an expert on China.   Read the rest of this entry »

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