The same and different
Marketing in China is a game of knowing and winning people’s hearts, much like everywhere else in the world. What is not the same is everything else about the job.

Professional and personal
I moved to Beijing from New York in 2006 on a professional and personal mission to understand what motivates Chinese people. As strategic planner for Saatchi & Saatchi I was responsible for customer insights and creative strategy. As a Greek-born Greek-Chinese who had never stepped foot in Asia, half my genes danced around in delight.

Go to the jungle, Zorba, not the zoo
Saatchi’s approach to gleaning consumer insights was, appropriately, more Zorba than pen pusher. Assumptions about people made behind a desk tend to fall well short of insight – Nowhere was this clearer than in China. Our motto was “If you want to learn how a lion hunts, don’t go to the zoo. You have to go to the jungle.”

A large number of dreams
Many go to China for the numbers, and they (the 1.3 billion people and other numbers) are indeed staggering. Behind the numbers though, buying priorities are driven by Chinese people’s particular circumstances, dreams and desires of the day.

The young dream biggest of all
Chinese youth dream big. I was struck by a prevailing attitude that anything is possible. While their actual standard of living, access to the rest of the world and right to vote all fall short of those in other countries I lived in (US, Switzerland, UK, Greece); relative to their parents, their opportunities appear vast. The youth of China are eager and confident explorers of the unknown. They also make decisions for their parents, from where to buy property to how to decorate the house.

Nice to meet you, IKEA couch
Chinese people’s relationship with consumer brands is unique in part because of their comparatively recent exposure. As a result on the one hand people are more open to advertising, more excited by the latest “new” that brands promise, and on the other the biggest pitfall for marketers is to assume that showing up is good enough. IKEA is a good example of a company that has moved past who they are in other countries to accommodate future customers who come to spend the day on their couches.

A shift toward leaders who know China well
In the 90’s and early 00’s, multinationals in China were likely helmed by foreigners who may or may not have been learning Chinese. Today’s business leaders in China are more likely to be fluent and very culturally tuned in. They may be Chinese from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, USA, UK, Australia, etc., born and bred in the mainland, or simply foreigners who have lived and breathed Chinese culture from up close for a decade or more.

Opinion scarcity, still
China’s educational and political systems do not nurture opinions. Opinions can cause social unrest, but they are also essential for creativity and innovation. While there is recognition that this is a challenge for China’s development, change takes time. So foreign-educated middle managers are in high demand in China. Culturally, objections rarely get voiced openly in the workplace. Inaction, meaning not carrying out agreed upon task, is worth a thousand words, though, among a dedicated and hardworking workforce.

Copy today create tomorrow
Businesses worry that copycat products in China devalue luxury brands. For what I could tell, luxury is such a strong religion in China these days, that copycats don’t lessen the shine of original brands as much as one would think. Copying is a great way in for the practical-minded. It is also a testament to what people aspire towards.

Digitally there, ethically different
When google made a move to leave China I felt they were making a mistake. China’s local search engine Baidu in many ways wins over google because of the local insight they incorporate in their product.

Women hold up half the sky
Mao Zedong’s famous proclamation that “Women Hold Up Half the Sky” may have only led to women doing manual labour and also all the housework, but the remnants of this embedded attitude today may help explain why women are a force to be reckoned with in the Chinese workforce.

A marketer’s playground
Choice, variety, and access to the best are still novel and exciting concepts that prevail in product introductions and communications priorities in China. Marketers experiment with flavours and product forms in China with a flair seldom witnessed in the more mature markets of the west. I still miss Quaker’s instant drinks from my days in Beijing. The Chinese market is also a place where a brand can reposition itself. Oil of Olay is successfully sold only in department stores in China.

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