Winning in China Marketing

Do you still remember that Lionel Messi had a penalty kick saved and Iceland held on for a 1-1 draw against Argentina at the World Cup? Yes, of course you can recall this exciting moment. But, can you also recall the brand behind the soccer gate? Is it a Chinese brand?  And what was the logo on the team shirt of Cristiano Ronaldo , adidas or nike ? Not surprisingly, you can’t remember it.  You just can’t see the logos even though they are so obvious in front of your eyes. We call this phenomenon “ inattentional blindness ”. Inattentional Blindness: Looking without Seeing Research shows that we rarely see what we are looking at unless our attention is directed to it.  (Mack A., & Rock, 1998) Think about it. Everyday, you are walking the same route to office, have you ever noticed if anything has been changed on the street?  Skoda Fabia has created an interesting attention test (it’s actually an ad). Watch the ...

People all like to think of themselves as in control of their decisions and behavior.   We believe that we should know why we do what we do.   In fact, we always make a decision unconsciously, and then we either use a conscious argument to support that decision or we just act on that decision without even being aware of what’s happening.   “98% of what the brain does is outside of conscious awareness.” —Michael S. Gazzaniga In traditional marketing, we conduct market research in an attempt to figure out what customers want and how they think.   Based on their responses, we develop our products and marketing strategies to sell.   However, conventional research depends on the assumption that people can accurately report their values, needs, and motivations - it’s indeed not very true and even misleading.   Why Neuromarketing Is So Important? I’m doing marketing for many years and it’s my job to know and understand customers. ...

In short video market, two major market leaders, Kuaishou and Douyin, have already reached 100-million user milestone in China. Douyin is growing drastically and catching up with Kuaishou in recent half year.   In my previous article, I have shared some thoughts about Douyin for marketers after attending its marketing conference in Shanghai. Douyin Reaches 100 Million Daily Video Views. 4 Tips for Marketing on #Douyin Penguin Intelligence (Tencent Research) just releases a comprehensive user study for Douyin and Kuaishou today   (in Chinese).  The research is conducted by interviewing 1080 Kuaishou users and 1104 Douyin users, while 630 users have both apps. This report is important for marketers to understand the short video battlefield and to help you evaluate more objectively, especially if you are going to use short video for your future content marketing. Here I’ve picked up the 10 most important findings that marketers should know: ...

Short music video Douyin has quickly become soaring popularity among the Generation Z consumers in China.   Even for 70s and 80s, they also start to play Douyin.   Frankly, I’m not a Douyin user and I’ve just downloaded the app last week.   But as a marketer, we need to keep in touch with the latest trend and understand why people love it so much.   Douyin Annual Marketing Conference was just kicked off in Shanghai recently to demonstrate how brands work with Douyin.   As introduced, many big brands from different industries including adidas neo, Pepsi, Tommy Hilfiger, Toyota, Audi, Under Armour, Jeep, Ctrip and Pizza Hut have already run campaigns on Douyin.   Adidas neo is the Top 1 brand page in Douyin with astonishing result: 1.2 million fans, 150 million video views and 2.8 million engagement . Some people ask whether they should also consider Douyin as a marketing tool for their products.   Marketers are already frust...