Commercialising Love with Chinese Qixi Festival
China is notorious for its festivals, which are increasingly morphing into “themed shopping occasions.” When it comes to love, there are six official days on the calendar which fit the mould of the...
View ArticleGolden Week Travel in China: A Barometer for Consumer Confidence
Tomorrow is the night that Chinese believe the full moon is at its brightest, shining on farmers for the mid-Autumn harvest. To celebrate, many of China’s 1.4 billion people will have hung lanterns and...
View Article40 Years of Shenzhen: The Fastest City Ascent in World History
Beijing and Shanghai may be the first cities that most people associate with China, yet no city embodies the meteoric rise and confidence of modern China quite like Shenzhen in the south. Pre-China...
View ArticleThe Symbol of China’s Global Tech Leadership Ambitions
Throughout the ages people have engaged in commerce to exchange goods and services for payment. Yet it wasn’t until around 1,100 BC when China introduced the first standardised currency. The money was...
View ArticleBreaking Traditional Mindsets to Connect with Chinese Consumers
Last time we looked, the end users in the bra category were almost always female. That’s why we were scratching our head, like many others, when we saw last week’s promotion from Chinese bra brand...
View ArticleLessons from H&M’s Fall in China
Back in early 2018, a marketer working with Mercedes-Benz in the West included a Dalai Lama quote on their blocked-in-China Instagram account. There was an uproar in China and the car company issued an...
View ArticleThe Rise of Community Group Buying in China
Imagine you’re a consumer living in Changsha city. You have been buying more fresh produce since the pandemic raised your consciousness about the importance of eating healthy and the resulting...
View ArticleOnline Delivery in China is Nothing Short of Gobsmacking!
The 618 mid-year shopping festival is now in full swing and is breaking more records, which seems to happen with every subsequent online shopping festival these days in China. Yet one of the...
View ArticleDissecting the Data from 2021 Singles’ Day
Singles’ Day wrapped up last week, clocking a whopping $139 billion worth of goods sold just on Alibaba and JD platforms. The two platform’s combined year-on-year growth of 15.5% growth was much lower...
View ArticleHow KFC Was Too Successful Marketing in China
Every brand wants their campaigns to be runaway successes in China. Yet, like many marketing peculiarities in China, you need to be careful that they aren’t too successful as KFC recently discovered....
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