I started to think about brand collaborations in Hong Kong. On of the more unusual aspects of marketing in Hong Kong is the amount of co-marketing brand collaboration deals done and the unusual nature of these tie-ups. For instance last year I saw high-end Japanese streetwear brand Neighborhood have it’s brand on Coke Zero cans and worked on a ‘midnight rider’ influence programme.
This was used by Coke Zero to promote nighttime cycling. (It would be cooler and Hong Kong looks spectacular at night.) It also fits in with Neighborhood having been influenced by motorcycle culture. The programme was more Schwinn meets Easy Rider than Rapha style pelotons.
Meanwhile McDonalds is usually better known for tie-ins with Sanrio character franchises. However, now it is running a promotion with Chinese personal care brand Walsh. Think of Walsh as similar to Cussons in the UK. With certain breakfast dishes, consumers get a bottle of body wash free. Beyond encouraging product trial I don’t get the brand collaborations like this which seem to happen regularly in Hong Kong.
Here is the TV advert being run to support the promotion. And no, I can’t really make that much sense of the synergies either, but it seems to work. More on marketing here.
Category: china | 中國 | 중국 | 中華
Ni hao – this category features any blog posts that relate to the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese communist party, Chinese citizens, consumer behaviour, business, and Chinese business abroad.
It is likely the post will also in other categories too. For example a post about Tong Ren Tang might end up in the business section as well. Inevitably everything is inherently political in nature. At the moment, I don’t take suggestions for subject areas or comments on content for this category, it just isn’t worth the hassle.
Why have posts on China? I have been involved in projects there and had Chinese clients. China has some interesting things happening in art, advertising, architecture, design and manufacturing. I have managed to experience some great and not so great aspects of the country and its businesses.
Opinions have been managed by the omnipresent party and this has affected consumer behaviour. Lotte was boycotted and harassed out of the country. Toyota and Honda cars occasionally go through damage by consumer action during particularly high tensions with Japan.
I put stuff here to allow readers to make up their own minds about the PRC. The size of the place makes things complicated and the only constants are change, death, taxes and the party. Things get even more complicated on the global stage.
The unique nature of the Chinese internet and sheltered business sectors means that interesting Galapagos syndrome type things happen.
I have separate sections for Taiwan and Hong Kong, for posts that are specific to them.
-
Brand collaborations in Hong Kong
-
Carbon nanotubes & other news
Carbon nanotubes
IBM betting carbon nanotubes can restore Moore’s Law by 2020 | ExtremeTech – interesting, IBM research has been at the leading edge of a lot of semiconductor manufacturing techniques including:
- Copper interconnects
- RISC architecture design
- Multi-core design
- Strained silicon substrates
Carbon nanotubes may join particularly as there is so much speculation about the state and future of IBM’s chip business as management moves towards a software and services based future. Is IBM preparing to sell the chip manufacturing business to the highest bidder?
Business
Amazon China chief replaced with another expat | WantChinaTimes – the back story is that Amazon has about 2 per cent of the e-commerce market in China
Design
Waterproof CD player with vocal removal function | AkihabaraNews – interesting thinking about context. Japan is still a big physical media market (they still have Tower Records) and people love to sing in the shower
Economics
HK’s retail sales fell in May | RTHK – its all about valuable gifts: watches, bags etc dropping by 25%
Ideas
The Future of the Workforce May Be Part-Time, Says Google CEO Larry Page | Re/code – utopian spin on zero-hour contracts?
Korea
S Korea to break away from Windows by 2020 | WantChinaTimes – interesting move: Windows 8 partly to blame, I suspect also the security decisions made around Active X made Koreans think twice before attaching themselves to Microsoft
Online
An Online Shift in China Muffles an Open Forum – NYTimes.com – “This is a new phase for social media in China,” said Hu Yong, a journalism professor at Peking University. “It is the decline of the first large-scale forum for information in China and the rise of something more narrowly focused.” – the authors have positioned this as a Chinese -specific move yet it is mirrored in the west with the rise of Whatsapp, Telegram and other OTT messenger services
Google bans porn from its ad network | CNBC – Google obviously doesn’t need the revenue, which bodes well for ongoing quarterly number going forwards
UK’s Porn Filter Triggers Widespread Internet Censorship | TorrentFreak – The results of ORG’s new tool show that what started as a “porn filter” has turned into something much bigger. Under the guise of “protecting the children” tens of thousands of sites are now caught up in overbroad filters, which is a worrying development to say the least – interesting that some are blocking the Open Rights Group and open source software sites
Thanks To “Right To Be Forgotten,” Google Now Censors The Press In The EU | Marketingland – once you take the 1st amendment driven angst viewpoint out of this, its a great summary of things by Danny Sullivan
Tencent Opening Up API for Wechat Login — China Internet Watch – expect WeChat’s app constellation to mushroom outside the Tencent family. More on WeChat here.
Security
3 Real Security Risks Threatening Your Smart TV Entertainment | Make Use Of – make mine a dumb TV
Technology
CHART OF THE DAY: Apple Is Invading The Enterprise – Business Insider – there is also a credibility issue, go to a developer conference and there is a sea of silver lids, this will knock on into the enterprise
Telecoms
I, Cringely The Secret of Google X – I, Cringely – I think untethered balloons aren’t a smart move either
-
Auditing in China & other news
Auditing Chinese companies
Democracy and auditing | China Accounting Blog – given that auditing big four are under pressure in China, this might have been an effort to curry favour. But the auditing firms have screwed themselves over in Hong Kong and other countries with this move in China. I could imagine that in the years to come, the lack of transparent auditing will hurt Chinese companies listing on other stock exchanges.
Consumer behaviour
The Rising Importance of Single Person Households Globally | Euromonitor International – interesting data points, I am waiting for food packaging to better represent this demographic
Do Screens Make Us Stupider? Time for a Rethink of Reading | Discover Magazine – the challenge is that books might be written for a reason around learning, but are published to make money, unless there can be a special cognitive edition that makes even more money…
[1406.2293] Gossip: Identifying Central Individuals in a Social Network – market research as a network analysis tool
Economics
Banks in China make as much profit as those in the US, Europe, and Japan combined | Quartz – by comparison the European banking system is a minnow and has horrendous losses
FCMG
Confectionery Trends and Innovations at the 2014 Convenience U CARWACS Show in Toronto – Euromonitor International – focus on sharing occasions is a marketing agency opportunity
P&G’s Always celebrates the “Like a Girl” way of doing things | PopSop – interesting bit of culture hacking
Legal
APAC has highest software piracy rate – combination of being gadget driven and piracy is easy. More related content here.
Luxury
WeChat + Vivienne Tam = International Model Search 2014!| WeChat – interesting campaign for mass affluence brand. Tam is also trying to encourage usage of WeChat amongst English language customers, so I suspect that this is partly funded by Tencent.
Marketing
mirador – interesting application for analytics
Study: Social Media is Not a Trusted Media Source for PR Pros | Convince & Convert – interesting-ish piece I guess
Online
Ikea built a website inside Instagram | The Verge – gimmicky idea that would work as a one-off
Facebook tinkered with users’ feeds for a massive psychology experiment · The A.V. Club – and people will be surprised why? Good TV consumer product advertising is all about inducing anxiety with current states and promising some sort of emotional reward on purchase
Software
QuickOffice Will Be Discontinued | Google System – bad news for mobile workers
Technology
An Online Course For FPGA And CPLD Development | Hackaday – Reddit as an old time free university – but without the hippy politics
Xiaomi founder Lin Bin reveals global ambition | Marketing Interactive – no real surprise, but interesting how they will expand the web services side of the Xiaomi experiences
Wireless
Huawei’s Honor 6 cannibalizes sales of its Ascend P7 | WantChinaTimes – poor product management or a larger sign of the smartphone as a commodity?
-
Umeng & other things this week
Umeng
Umeng have put together a great presentation on consumer behaviour and mobile in China’s tier 3 cities. Most of what you read focuses on tier one and tier two cities in China. Umeng provides insight into large yet untapped markets just below the biggest most-developed cities in China. The tier three cities that Umeng covers are the cities were China does much of its manufacturing now as places like Shenzhen and Shanghai have become too expensive
Fukushima Happy
This beautifully shot version of Pharrell Williams Happy done by the people of Fukushima prefecture showing everyday Japanese life and shot by Fuji TV.
I particularly like the lucho libre masks and the winking Shibu shot. There is also a great outtakes / making of video
Red Fuse x Colgate-Palmolive Myanmar
Red Fuse Hong Kong’s work with Colgate-Palmolive in Myanmar to educate children about oral health (and sell more toothpaste) was a Cannes Lion winner and an inspired way of rethinking how packaging was used. The mobile toll-free number was particularly interesting given how nascent mobile phone usage is in Myanmar. There isn’t much of an online component as internet penetration is low and concentrated in richer urban areas of the country.
Richard Feynman – The Character of Physical Law – 5 –The Distinction of Past and Future lecturing at Cornell University. Feynman was a great physicist but he was greater at making physics accessible to a wider range of people through his lectures and writing. Take a lunch time to enjoy this video
Guardians of the Galaxy
Yet another new trailer for the Guardians of The Galaxy, we get to see Rocket‘s character slightly more developed in this version and he seems brilliant in a Spaghetti Western anti-hero kind of way, if Eli Wallach (God rest his soul) had been a wise-cracking raccoon bandit.
-
Thoughtful China & other things
Thoughtful China
As ever, the guys at Thoughtful China have come up with some quality content. In this episode David Wolf talks about how Chinese brands are looking to go global. It’s brands but not as you know them
Beauty
Beauty products brand Kiehl’s outreach to men could school a lot of luxury brands. Just check out this mini-film which highlights the use of space age materials in its products with a small spacecraft sent to the edge of space
Culture
The Asia Society posted this presentation by MTV World General Manager and Senior Vice President Nusrat Durrani on cross-pollination of popular culture. While New York was considered to be a global city, Durrani was surprised by its cultural isolation and introspection compared to other parts of the world.
Japan
Lastly, Sanrio’s Hello Kitty celebrated her 40th birthday in a collaboration with Bandai to create a Hello Kitty Chogokin mecha
More marketing related content here.