Instant mobile messaging, social networks and China.

Since Kaiser Kuo was referring to a note I wrote for the Facebooks users and since not all of you are on Facebook yet, please find it here ...

Link: Facebook | My Notes.

China Leads the US in Digital Self-Expression

Luckily there are some journalists here in Shanghai turned into bloggers, turned into business men who read a massive amount of online press-releases. Fons Tuinstra is one of them. Even on a warm and sunny weekend he is digesting a lot and takes the time to write about it. . This time it's really a gem that hopefully influences the willingness of marketing directors to start using the web more than they do now. The study he refers to is even done by JWT ( one of the 4A's here too) and discovers what lots of people already felt here. If you don't take the time to read the China Leads the US in Digital Self-Expression
you probably miss facts and figures that will help you to change your mind.
One of the mistakes though in the article is that there are 137 mio internetusers in China whereas the most recent figure is 172 mio.
I'm also wondering why - at least in the press release- there's no mentioning about how Chinese internetusers relate to brands by using the web. Did JWT not ask these questions or have they not been reported. If they have some data on this topic it  would be nice to compare them with the results of our study.

Chinese trust the Internet above ALL information sources, including MSM

Thomas Crampton:
"Chinese trust the Internet over mainstream media and all sources of information according to a study done by Harris Interactive for Edelman. Why? Imagine this has a lot to do with censorship. Also note that Chinese trust Foreign Media more than Local Media. In what may be a related finding, the Chinese claim to be the region’s most avid writers and consumers of blogs. A nuance on Chinese enthusiasm for Blogs, I have been told that much of the Internet discussion takes place in bulletin boards that provide a modicum of anonymity, rather than actual blogs." Chinese trust the Internet above ALL information sources, including MSM.

My Radio Interview with Christine Lu.

She's all the way back in the US but has an ubelievable sensitive finger on the pulse on everything going on in China. Listen if you want to ...  Doing Business In China: China Business Information Podcasts News Trade Shows Consulting China: 中国 - i-merge, Boondoggle Survey On Recommendation Behavior of China's Internet Users.

The changing face of advertising in China ...as seen by Ashok Sethi.

Reading this article early this morning, I wondered when China Daily will ask some of the Chinese interactive leaders to write about advertising. The author of this one is a TNS big shot in Asia Pacific. A researcher. The article gives a superficial overview of what he thinks to be the changing face, but he clearly is not aware of the landslide going on:  advertising is not "changing face", but "losing face". You can continue to call it a change, but that's a suicidal euphemism. It's also not a phenomenon which is uniquely Chinese, but intensely global.

But nevertheless I want to share with you the most funny part of his article in which he comments on the discovery that Chinese consumers are human beings. A great discovery indeed. Read it here. The changing face of advertising in China: "It was earlier thought that Chinese consumer is a simple soul and can't understand the subtlety of soft and clever advertising. Direct communication of the benefits in unambiguous terms was considered the safest route of communication. As a result, while advertising in many other markets is as much entertainment as brand communication and attempts to engage the consumer through subtle creative devices, in China it is often a direct onslaught with the core benefit - often repeated several times within the same advertisement. However, research in China shows this direct approach does not have to be the one that an advertiser needs to embrace to succeed. Emotional advertising works and so does humor, endorsement or any of the other genres of advertising practiced elsewhere."

A Word of Mouth lesson from China. By CIC.

What CIC is doing here in China is not only relevant for China or in this case for the car industry but for the whole marketing world. They report very frequently about this shift going on from dumb & passive consumers to interactive and hyperactive influencers who stimulate the debate, set the agenda ....give recommendations and in the end probably influence sales more than any cold medium has done in the past. Human beings are warm media. They can be trusted. Sometimes. Download the report here: CIC: the China Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) research and consulting firm covering blogs and BBS (online message boards).

Mont Blanc Splashes Some Cash In Shanghai

Link: Mont Blanc Splashes Some Cash In Shanghai | All Roads Lead To China.

" ......where this gets mind boggling is that it turns out they are paying 11USD/ meter/day.  that is 11 USD … PER METER… PER DAY. Now, at 800 - 1000 meters of space, that adds up to a whopping amount of rent every month that I would guess is over 250,000USD a month … "

The Recommendation Phenomenon in China.

Yesterday I published the results of the i-merge/boondoggle research on media - usage and brand recommendation among Chinese internet users. A few hours later Kaiser Kuo (the MasterMindedModerator of Ogilvy Beijing) posted some remarks on "his" Ogilvy blog and Sam Flemming (Measuring the Immeasurable) of CIC-data replied in long and in large. With these two heavyweights firmly on board we hopefully can speed up here in China.

Prof Dr Reichheld himself (I was his first follower :) will also be in Shanghai tomorrow. I sent him our results too and hopefully we can shake hands with him. That's what he promised me in his reply. Maybe he should stay longer in China and help us to convert more marketers. Read Kaiser's and Sam's interventions here: The Recommendation Phenomenon in China.

Chinese companies should go global.

The CEO of Haier is an alternate member of the 17th CPC Central Committee. Indeed the party is open to some rich entrepreneurs. The CEO was thrilled during the recently held Congress because president Hu encouraged openly China's big companies to go global. The Haier boss said that just working for foreign companies as an OEM should not be a long-term strategy. In his mind - and he's probably damned right - "there will be only two types of firms in every industry in the future: Enterprises with global brands, and those working for them". The last ones ...  would only just be able to make ends meet. That's why Haier (and many more of the yet unknown brands) will grow into a world-famous brands.

Link: Haier CEO: Party congress report encourages companies to go global.

Marc van der Chijs' sharp pen.

Marc is a very sharp observer of things happening in China. Also things that go wrong. Unlike many others he never shuts up when really bad things happen to him. His recent experience with China Eastern again proves what a long way the service industry has still to go before they will make the Chinese consumers (and Marc) happy. Link: Marc van der Chijs' Shanghaied Weblog: China Eastern flight cancellation.