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.

  • Swatch and Brexit + more

    Swatch and Brexit

    Swatch have been doing some interesting things around personalisation of watch design, but Swatch and Brexit feels like a leap too far. They’ve got a really nice user experience in the web interface, which makes this a disappointing post to make. I do wonder about who they think Swatch and Brexit is actually aimed at? What other fashion or luxury brand has looked to exploit Brexit like a tawdry souvenir seller?

    swatch brexit

    More Beyond campaign

    Cathay Pacific – Move Beyond campaign might have passed by without a mention for me for a number of reasons.

    • It doesn’t say anything new, but reaffirms the Cathay Pacific that I’ve known and loved to fly with
    • It’s very much a campaign designed to top up brand awareness and consideration for the airline which has taken some brand knocks at home and declining awareness abroad
    • It’s about brand purpose, which seems to be a hygiene factor at the moment. More on that from Mark Ritson. I am not sure that Cathay Pacific’s brand purpose passes Ritson’s test of being prepared to stick with the brand purpose, even when it costs money – like when they moved away from having the Mandarin Oriental handling lounge catering…

    Creatively its nice. A generic, safe looking brand film with catalogue corporate video backing track. I know Jack Scott shot it and some of the cinematography is nice (that word again), the colouring of the film is on point for money well spent. As an audience member it is pleasant enough to watch drift by, but not necessarily enough to spike a change

    In fact, if it wasn’t for the MTR (Hong Kong’s equivalent of London Underground and Overground) and Hong Kong International Airport outdoor advertising it would be utterly forgettable. One of the print posters has a couple of clothed men holding hands running on a beach. An ideal compromise between a socially conservative society and western virtue signalling.

    Cathay Pacific LGBT

    The poster wasn’t initially allowed to run on the MTR or in Hong Kong International. I heard some murmurings of China’s dark shadow casting a censoring hand on the posters – by westerners on social media. To be honest, they’d be more concerned about dealing with free speech, Falun Gong supporters, the Hong Kong independence movement rather than homosexuals being encouraged to walk on a beach in business smart suits.

    Instead the reality is more mundane. A minority of Hong Kongers: Taoists, Buddhists, the non-religious and Christians alike are a bit ‘mid western American’ about the gay community. There is an obvious tension between deeply-held beliefs, the longevity of the family through children and grandchildren. Thankfully, the LGBT community and straight supporters managed to have the ban reconsidered.

    William Chan Chinglish

    I am guessing that Chanel has insights to show that women buy its J12 watches, whether as a gift for someone else or themselves. William Chan is an interesting brand ambassador choice in this video. There is criticism in the YouTube comments on his pronunciation and ‘Chinglish’. It also feels a bit too ‘sweet’ to me. At least he’s a good boy who loves his Mum.

    Royyal Dog

    Asian Boss put together this great documentary on Royyal Dog – Korea’s top graffiti artist.

    Sony

    Lastly I found this amazing corporate film by Sony of their corporate history that I guess was shot in the early-to-mid-1970s. The manufacturing process, in particular test and measurement being so labour intensive is fascinating. The 5 inch micro-TV set is a beautiful piece of product design, as is the early Trinitron TV set. The hi-fi equipment is achingly beautiful. Well worth watching it from start-to-finish. More Sony content here.

  • Protect Hong Kong heritage + more

    Officials in unprecedented move to protect Hong Kong’s heritage by creating new system to save modern buildings from developers’ wrecking ball | South China Morning Post – potentially big move, it would be interesting to see how this goes down with the developers. Protect Hong Kong heritage as a concept has picked up momentum over past few years. A point of inflection was the demolition of Queen’s Pier in 2007 as part of land reclamation work in Central. The bigger issue is that the support to protect Hong Kong heritage would be seen by the mainland authorities as an inherently political movement looking to cling to old colonial ways. More on Hong Kong here.

    Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club upended the shaving industry — then conglomerates snapped them up – Axios – former Treasury secretary Larry Summers quotes on Twitter were very interesting. They reflect on a challenge that European tech start ups have faced for decades: “This article is as vivid an example as I have seen of the need for an overhaul of US antitrust. If this can be happening in shaving industry, problems may be pervasive even outside technology. The interesting question is how much of the problem is failed enforcement of existing law and how much is that existing law needs to be altered. I suspect the former. You do not have to have a broad new theory of antitrust to be appalled by these developments. They look terrible for consumer welfare.”

    Google may decide to charge for Google My Business listings – Search Engine Land – you have to wonder about this. Google for years beat up Yahoo!, Kelkoo etc over paid inclusion

    Analysis: Edelman ‘Undaunted’ Amid Perfect Storm | Holmes Report – interesting read, if a rather naive view of what ad agencies do now

    Planning tool: 100 Ideas On Tiny Budgets – Planning Dirty – something that I helped out on. Handy for planners (Google Slides)

    A Mysterious Hacker Group Is On a Supply Chain Hijacking Spree | WIRED – surprised that this hasn’t happened more often

    Opinion | Nike Told Me to Dream Crazy, Until I Wanted a Baby – The New York Times – of course Nike hates women, look at their manufacturing practices, this sponsorship story should be no surprise as it fits into a wider narrative. But they love female consumers who buy Nike

    A History of Competition: The Impact of Antitrust on Hong Kong’s Telecommunications Markets | Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal – I’ve only got part way through this but interesting reading for anyone working on clients in the Hong Kong mobile provider market (PDF)

    K-pop’s rise in China is fueling fears of a masculinity crisis | Quartz – I suspect that a lot of this is government agenda driven. A bit like the notion of ‘leftover women’. ‘Masculine’ hiphop culture also poses a problem

    SoundCloud » Share new music on SoundCloud directly to Instagram Stories – this makes a lot of sense when you think about how music marketing has become much more data centric and meme driven. Old Town Road: The Best Entertainment Case Study of 2019 Lil Nas X being the poster child of this

  • Kraft mothers day marketing + more

    Kraft Mothers Day marketing

    Kraft’s marketing has left a lot to be desired in the past couple of years partly due to the way the brand has implemented ZBB, but the Kraft Mothers day campaign running in the US is genius. It is a brave campaign that could fail due to wokeness or social conservatism. And they still went ahead and did it anyway. More FMCG related content here.

    Feedi RSS search engine

    Feedi Search Engine – part of the importance of media literacy is finding quality sources and anything that encourages adoption of RSS readers has the potential to be a good thing. If you need a good RSS reader, I can recommend Newblur which I have been using for a number of years. The reason why I like it is that you can train it to surface content of interest over time. It doesn’t machine learning to guesstimate it, but you have to make active decisions, which I think is a healthier balance.

    Game of Thrones collaboration

    MGM Resorts International – Winter Is Coming – MGM and HBO did a great tie-in to celebrate the start of the final Game of Thrones season. It is well worthwhile clicking on the link and going through their case study to see what MGM Resorts did.

    ZTE’s cyberpunk Nubia Alpha smart watch

    ZTE’s Nubia Alpha smart watch looks like something out of a cyber-punk novel. I love what ZTE have tried to do with the aesthetic. The key challenge is what looks like a shockingly bad user experience based on this video unboxing and preview. Wearables are a relatively new space and fair play to ZTE for attempting something this ambitious.

    WePresent

    WePresent – lovely creative brand building work by wetransfer. It is great the way WeTransfer consistently support fantastic creative. It is also a really amazing 404 error message page.

  • Reel-to-reel technology + more

    Return of reel-to-reel as musicians reject digital for better sound of dated technology – reel-to-reel tape recorders never really went away. They provide a super saturated effect to everything that they record. The bigger issue is perishable spare parts, servicing and future manufacturing of reel-to-reel tape machines. Ballfinger have attempted to make new machines, but existing manufacturers like Studer, Denon, Revox and Otari have long stopped making machines.

    TODAYonline | Exclusive: Tesla expects global shortage of electric vehicle battery minerals -sources – what about the environment? One of the reasons why I’ve been skeptical of Tesla’s approach to power for years. Its the reason why the likes of BMW and Toyota have looked at super-capacitors and hydrogen power – both internal combustion engines and fuel cells. It is interesting that Hyundai have been looking at hydrogen fuel cells for lorries. Toyota has hydrogen fuel cell powered cars.

    Nike’s Beijing 99 basketball tournament – It is hard to explain how popular basketball in China as a sport. Interest in the game is way beyond Europe. Basketball courts suit built up cities with a smaller area required than for a football pitch. The NBA has a large following in China. The local league has an extensive following as well.

    Chinese players that make the NBA draft are celebrated in China as well, even if they aren’t Chinese citizens, like American Taiwanese star Jeremy Lin.

    Chinese players like based on an ancient military ranking system with 99 shirts individually designed to be claimed. Nike cleverly melds Chinese interest and pride in their culture with their love of basketball.

    NIKE – Beijing 99 Teaser Film from M Skibiak on Vimeo.

    More on Nike here.

    Facebook Is Finding Problems With Artificial Intelligence Too – WIRED – (paywall)

    Disintegration – Great interview of the keyboardist on The Cure’s Distintergration which covers studio boredom well

  • Peepy and Mother Lee + more things

    Peepy and Mother Lee take influence to the next level. These Thai influencers are on point with style that crosses gender boundaries and is atemporal in nature. I am surprised the Peepy and Mother Lee don’t get more publicity outside Thailand. I am also surprised that they haven’t become the muse of a prominent fashion house or two.

    They look like precisely the kind of people someone like Vivienne Westwood would embrace as a muse. More on luxury here.

    Yet another way of landing the same Burger King message: Burger King’s flame-grilled glasses are too hot to handle | Creativepool. Having worked on FMCG brand, I know how hard it is to continually land the same messages in different ways that won’t generate groans from the client base. These are brands that people have known for decades, it’s hard to say the same thing in different ways that don’t jade audiences.

    This Adobe marketing gimmick was going around a lot of the people that I know – Creative Types – the characters are nicely drawn, but I don’t know how accurate they are. I suspect something even less accurate than the MBTI. This was clever because people want to find out more about themselves, its an itch that they can’t help but scratch. In return Adobe builds their marketing email list.

    Great economic analysis on China from the DLD Conference earlier this year

    Tristan Harris is getting a lot of traction for his message in wonkish circles and I don’t see big technology firms having their ducks in a row to deal with the outcome. I suspect that some of the problem might be what I describe as a wilful autism. 20 years ago, Silicon Valley was a place with utopian outlook, the unforeseen outcomes happened when the internet reached a societal critical mass.