Roaringwild
ROARINGWILD ONLINE STORE – Roaringwild is a Shenzhen-based streetwear brand. Roaringwild is part of a wider domestic streetwear eco-system including Shanghai label Colorbaner. Although it is streetwear, it is a world away from the collage and naturalistic handwriting style. Instead it takes a minimal futuristic approach. There are references Roaringwild pieces to Dieter Rams iconic calculator design and aspects of it reminded me of Number13 and The Designers Republic. Roaringwild reflects an urban youth interpreting their smartphone driven world and western influences from hip hop cultures love of streetwear.
Business
BlueFocus acquires majority stake in We Are Social – Campaign Asia – China building out effective marketing communications conglomerate. Congrats to the guys at We Are Social
Arianespace orders rockets | RTHK – at least Europe is keeping up it’s presence in space
GM Cashes Out as Peugeot Chases China Deal – interesting move when China becomes the pre-eminent partner for European automakers
Beijing to expand OTC market to qualified SMEs|WantChinaTimes.com – this is really interesting as it provides a larger amount of investment opportunities for Chinese consumers. It isn’t without risk, but expect it to take off
Consumer behaviour
Why Our Online Persona Is Needier Than Our Real One – Corporate Intelligence – WSJ
BBC Online Briefing: Understanding Audiences at the BBC looking at multi-screen usage
Havas Worldwide Prosumer Reports
China may actually be the most materialistic country in the world
MediaPost Publications Gen X, Gen Y Value Brand Friendships 12/16/2013
Millennials’ Digital Behavior – comScore, Inc
Generational Marketing Guides – The Millennials Infographic Breaks Down Gen Y (GALLERY)
The Millennial Consumer: Debunking Stereotypes | Boston Consulting Group – PDF document
Meet the BRIC Millennials | JWT Intelligence
Telefonica – Global Millennial Survey – PDF document
Data point: Erosion of anonymity has consumers on alert | JWT Intelligence
Design
小米路由器 MIWIFI——小米官网 – there is something about the Xaomi router being presented as a kit that I like
Economics
Price matters, but behind other factors in Deal Seeker analysis [VIDEO] | Marketing Forward
26 charts that surprised me in 2013 – Quartz – Europe on for a at least one lost economic decade
The US economy may never be the same after the Great Recession – have western economies lost their ability to grow quickly? My guess is yes until they change their structure to one that works
U.S. Worker Output Rises at Best Pace in 4 Years
Samsung – Uneasy in the Lead – NYTimes.com – Samsung’s sales are equal to about one-quarter of South Korea’s economic output. Samsung Electronics, the flagship, posted $190 billion in sales last year — about the same sales as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook combined.
China linked to carbon-intensive energy future | Wall St Cheat Sheet
FMCG
A reviled Chinese baby formula company is rebranding with organic noodles
Red Bull to sell in mainland – makes sense given the brand presence Red Bull has already in Formula 1 etc
How PepsiCo Dreams Up New Products in China | AdAge China – include a hard to replicate aspect to the product
Japan
Japanese Mobile Market — a Brief History | PixelBits
Luxury
Luxury labels shift focus from Hong Kong to Shanghai|WantChinaTimes.com
Russian consumers eschew bling | WARC
Las Vegas Sands drops Madrid plans – Las Vegas Sands asking for the resort to be exempted from Spanish rules on smoking – interesting the way they were concerned about instability in EU regulation and the smoking argument indicates a possible desire to get Asian consumers
Marketing
The evolution of the customer lifecycle | Experian Marketing Forward
APAC mobile advertisers go their own way: News from warc.com – more about awareness less about online or offline conversion
The Challenges and Opportunities of CRM in 2014 – Smart Insights Digital Marketing Advice
Media
Critics and viewers fear for the future of Hong Kong’s golden TV tradition | South China Morning Post – travel and cookery programmed infotainment are considered to be low quality cheap content in place of quality dramas
Jetstar Hong Kong unveils animated series | Marketing Interactive
Online
Facebook self-censorship: What happens to the posts you don’t publish? – Facebook still records the data
Amazon Web Services Announces Upcoming China Region for its Cloud Computing Platform – WSJ.com
Retailing
Sina Weibo’s Rapid Expansion in E-Commerce | L2’s The Daily
Accenture | Seamless Retail for Millennial Consumers Getting it Right – PDF document
How Retailers Using Facebook’s Custom Audiences Can Track Offline Sales
Security
Judge Leon explains why the NSA uses everyone’s metadata
Archaic but widely used crypto cipher allows NSA to decode most cell calls | Ars Technica – and shows how much still happens over GSM rather than UMTS, let alone LTE all around the world
Software
Elevator Pitch: IDG’s Phil Sanderson bets on gaming despite Zynga debacle – SiliconValley.com – Before 2008, there were only six merger-and-acquisition exits in gaming above $200 million. But since 2008, there have been 19 M&A exits and valuations above that level, with a median valuation of $500 million
Telecoms
Digital Evangelist: Will the real BT stand up? – Ian on BT
Web of no web
Internet of Things: Six Key Characteristics | Blog | design mind
Flush with cash, Oculus plans ambitious new VR headset | The Verge
Wireless
EE to invest £275m on voice calls and VoLTE trials in 2014- The Inquirer – is this a catch-up or a factor for differentiation?