Ged Carroll

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.

  • BMW NEXTGen & things that made the week

    BMW NEXTGen event included a concept car the BMW Vision M Next. What I found most interesting about this is how BMW whilst looking forward with the i8 and the M Next; is still stuck with designs resembling the Giorgetto Giugiaro designed M1(E26) of the late 1970s. Don’t get me wrong, when I was a pre-teen my ideal car would have looked like the BASF sponsored M1 track car with the spiral paint work. It would have been nextgen for my pre-teen self, in the same way that the future also looked like a Star Trek communicator. Though our current smartphones would look nextgen to the original Star Trek set and prop designers.

    BMW M1 écurie BASF série PROCAR 1980

    Here’s what the M Next looks like (© Copyright BMW AG, München, Deutschland.)

    BMW M Next courtesy of BMW

    Which raise an interesting question. From a branding perspective does iconic legacy design make it harder to draw a line under one technology as you transition to another? We have various bias’ in our expectations, some of which BMW have tried to challenge with the sonic experience in their cars. I’d argue that they need to think about this outside the vehicles as well. From a safety perspective and because part of driving a BMW is being ‘seen’ to drive the marque.

    I think that there’s still work to be done by BMW and other manufacturers on getting their arms about the future of performance from a brand perspective, for a post-ICE (internal combustion engine) age.

    Abacus (a tech media publication from the South China Morning Post) has channeled the Pixel Boys to come up with a way of trying to make the Chinese tech sector make sense to foreigners. China Tech City | Abacus is well worth checking out.

    In an era when there is a chance that Jeremy Corbin could be a prime minster in waiting should a general election come along, And I speak with people who profess to be MacBook totting communists. I am surprised that Marxman haven’t seen a resurgence in popularity. I randomly came across this great interview of them by a French TV programme around about the time their first album broke.

    Hong Kong’s leaderless movement against the Chinese extradition law (or their CIA paymasters if you believe the Chinese government) have been doing some really nice creative to rally internal and international audiences to their cause. There were print ads that ran in the newspapers of many G20 countries and video content. Taking the politics to one side for a moment, just look at the craft in this video. At the time I have written this has been dubbed into:

    • Taiwanese variant of Chinese
    • Dutch
    • English
    • French
    • German
    • Bahasa Indonesia
    • Italian
    • Japanese
    • Nepali
    • Norwegian
    • Spanish
    • Swedish
    • Tagalog

    It makes Led By Donkeys look a poor effort in comparison.

    Bubble tea shops are opening around London outside of the usual China town locations. It’s success is in a sharp contrast to the likes of Jamies and Patisserie Valerie chains recent closures. Bubble tea actually came out of Taiwan in the late 1980s and London has been way behind in adopting the drink. Asian Boss tracked down the Taiwanese inventor of bubble tea Lin Hsiu Hui (of Chun Shui Tang) and the interview is great.

  • Flickr best social network experience + more

    Flickr best social network experience going / Boing Boing – I believe that flickr best social network experience at present, but I am not blind to the communities flaws

    An Oral History of Oakleys, the Most Badass Sunglasses of the 1990s | MEL Magazine – or how Luxottica made a great brand merely good. More related content here.

    The Ad Contrarian: The Stupidity Of Ignoring Older People | Ad Contrarian – interesting, it used to be that half the lifetime spend was done before the age of 35. Given that most marketing is short term programmes marketing to older people as well makes sense

    China Counterfeiters’ Hot Product in 2019? Peppa Pig Couture | Jing Daily – interesting China’s fake clothing people have been cranking out snide Peppa Pig wear; including dreaming up Burberry, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Off-White and Givenchy collaborations that haven’t happened! It’s wonderful and subversive at the same time

    They welcomed a robot into their family, now they’re mourning its death – The Verge – Williams understands that companies have bottom lines and that gadgets come and go, but Jibo was also designed to appeal to children, and those kids are now learning what it means to own a robot and have no control over its fate – pretty dark stuff. It sounds like the product succeeded with customers but was too pricey for what was required – A couple of things here; it wasn’t that long ago that we thought Japanese people were odd for having Shinto funeral ceremonies for their dead Aibos. Now we see similar behaviour playing out for Jibo. Secondly, unlike the first Aibo, Jibo is essentially a cloud personality, which begs the question when’s the move towards device based AI etc coming back as seeing your kids cry is too much?

    Dolce & Gabbana’s Expanded Sizing “Proves They’re Really about Selling Clothing,” Not Just Leveraging it — The Fashion Law – Dolce & Gabbana has announced that it will increase its sizing to include garments that will range up to size 54 in Italy, the approximate equivalent of a stateside size 18? You bet it is. The move by the Milan-based brand to extend its sizing – which went into force with its currently available pre-fall collection – “makes it one of the most inclusive designer brands for women,” according to The Independent’s Olivia Petter, a far cry from most high fashion brands, which Fashionista’s deputy editor Tyler McCall says “stop much closer to a size 10 [or] below that even.” – I think its a smart move given their problems in China

    The crisis in creative effectiveness | WARC – There has been a serious declining trend in the effectiveness of creatively awarded campaigns over the last ten years. The most recent IPA/WARC Rankings data, explored in the new Crisis of Creative Effectiveness report, confirms this continuing decline; creatively awarded campaigns are now less effective than they have ever been in the entire 24-year run of data and are now no more effective than non-awarded campaigns. We have arrived in an era where award-winning creativity typically brings little or no effectiveness advantage.

    Top 1000 Brands | Intelligence | Campaign Asia – for China

    Study Shows Big Rise in Teen Vaping This Year – The New York Times and Juul faces House investigation over teen e-cigarette use – this is going to get regulated sooner rather than later and the whole Philip Morris International ‘dialogue’ campaign is going to leave some creative agencies holding the reputation equivalent of a live hand grenade

  • Mercedes 300D & things that made last week

    This video on the 1970s and 1980s Mercedes 300D is instructive in terms of the amount of work that was put into industrial design. What would now be called user experience in a more digital world. The Mercedes 300D was a workhorse of European taxi fleets during the 1970s and 1980s. They became a popular car in the developing world because they were so robust and there are still vintage car owners now who love them because of their design and engineering. When I close my eyes and think of Mercedes, this is the era that encapsulated the essence of Mercedes for me.

    Japan had a culture of non-fiction informational manga as well as the stuff that we’re used to seeing in the west. I’d not seen it done in anime before but ti works really well. Here is a short film made by the people that brought you Sailor Moon in the mid 1970s. It explains some of the incidents that form the base of UFO sightings and subsequent UFO conspiracy theories popular during the cold war.

    https://youtu.be/5k0Yz-iVxdY

    The social side of online computer games. Gaming like chat rooms and social before it brings together like-minded people. My cousin moved to Canada but keeps up with friends from college and home in Ireland over online gaming quests. But these people aren’t merely maintaining existing connections, but building new ones. What also becomes apparent is how detached many people are from their communities. Not just in major cities like London, but also small towns in Wales. More consumer behaviour related content here.

    Amazon is bringing Garth Ennis’ The Boys to the small screen. Karl Urban is a lean but less imposing Butcher and Wee Hughie ISN’T played by Simon Pegg….

    South China Morning Post’s Abacus channels The Pixel Boys to try and bring China’s tech giants to life for westerners: China Tech City | Abacus 

  • Politics of history + more things

    The Politics of History: Why Anniversaries Matter in China | Macro Polo – great reading

    Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds | The New Yorker – interesting reading material about China and the US. Read this in concert with the Macro Polo article on the politics of history

    On the Mac Pro, the G4 Cube and Their Shared Vent Design – 512 Pixels – interesting breakdown on details. I expect the difference is down to the explosion in CNC capability unleashed by the iPhone

    Why PMI is doubling down on wooing Cannes | Marketing | Campaign Asia – feels like snake oil, disappointed to see Cindy Gallop participating in this, given her role in steering the moral compass of the ad industry

    Report: Chinese spend nearly 5 hours on entertainment apps daily | TechCrunch – Chinese internet users now spend an average of 4.7 hours on their handsets a day just for entertainment purposes, according to new data (in Chinese) collected by research firm QuestMobile. The number is up from the 4.1-hour average from a year ago. By ‘entertainment’, QuestMobile is counting services like e-reading, music streaming, online karaoke, video streaming, mobile gaming, live streaming, and of course, short videos that are taking the world by storm. The total screen time could be much higher given the country now prefers taking QR code payments instead of cash, not to mention eyeball time contributed by children using smartphones to do their homework and housewives searching for the best deals on ecommerce platforms

    Why Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles | Motor Authority – really interesting from a UX perspective, I was surprised car companies hadn’t got to this conclusion faster

    100 Radical Innovation Breakthroughs for the future | European Commission – where the EU is likely to be placing big bets, a good read, better than the latest Mary Meaker analysis (PDF)

    “Six Stories of GORE-TEX Products Vol. 2”: ACRONYM | GORE-TEX Brand – interesting interview tie Errolson Hugh

    Huawei Testing Russia’s Aurora OS As Complete Android Replacement, Report Claims – this makes more sense than Huawei’s home brewed OS

    242 Year Old Birkenstock is Not Interested in Being on Fashion’s “Trendy Punch List” — The Fashion Law – Birkenstock also turned down a collaboration with Supreme, which could very well be the buzziest streetwear brand in the world, with its bouncer-flanked stores and incessantly sold-out wares. “It was never about function for them, just logos,” Klaus Baumann, Birkenstock’s chief sales officer, speaking about Supreme, which regularly draws long lines of consumers outside of its store every week on Thursday when it “drops” new products, including collaborations. “These were not product people.” Birkenstock’s management is seemingly unimpressed by such antics.  Not mincing words Baumann states, “If I put a bouncer outside our doors on Saturday and regulate letting people in, I too could have a queue outside.” – more on luxury here.

    HOW TO PISS OFF A CREATIVE – BBH – epic

  • Digital Rx + more things

    Digital Rx – JWT Intelligence – Digital Rx covers a wide range of services from telemedicine to AI mediated diagnosis and everything in between. Pharmaceutical companies are looking a digital companion app functionality to help keep patient adherence high. I only hope that they’re not as much of a car crash as the first lot of apps like Babylon Health

    China’s new creatives – JWT Intelligence – This new wave of consumers recognizes China’s rising economic status and thus possesses an acute sense of national pride; no longer are they reliant on Western fashion brands and influence to define how they express themselves as individuals. Yet the world is small, and despite crackdowns on international cultural imports like hip-hop and K-pop, there are echoes in China of what defines Gen Z tastes abroad in the streetwear, beauty, art, luxury and online landscapes. This is channeled through a powerful new creative lens

    High-art airports – JWT Intelligence – air travel need to lift its image after the TSA experience post 9/11 and discount airlines dragged it into the gutter

    Making Connections: 53 Teenagers Suggest Creative Ways to Link School Curriculum to the World of 2019 – The New York Times – great reading (paywall)

    Empire.Kred | Grow your Social Audience – gaming Facebook likes to drive engagement numbers. Not great for marketers but might benefit media companies on Facebook in terms of impact on reach

    Disgraced Korean Air Heiress Regains Executive Job – The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition): Daily News from Korea – Business > Business – surprised that they’ve pushed this through so fast

    Japan’s Hometown Tax | Kalzumeus Software – one of the best examples of cultural insight led marketing campaigns

    Agencies must redress decoupling damage | WARC – creative opportunities are lost without media thinking and media thinking needs to incorporate context that is so important for creative. Media also needs to fix basic hygiene issues

    Code Red | Logic Magazine – the nature of Chinese innovation versus US innovation