Marketing
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News*GOLD
Table of Contents
(1—7)
- Niche?
- East/West
- Wang
- Streets
- Direct Marketing
- Linked Resources
- MyQuiz
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- Peasant. ''Are you from the rice fields or the dry areas?'', this is the simple request to locate a person's distinctive character inside the Chinese mainland. You say rice and probably are thinking of Chinese main food destined to the whole people and not particularly to the peasant. No one of the European businesses exporting to China would engage in reaching the legendary peasant as market segment because according to legend they have been wholly fighting to survive against the hunger, the earthquake, the scarcity, the war and the... 100,000 demons from the Demon Mountain.
- Workers. They are trying to live the good life by producing the millions and millions of cheap products invading the Western countries and labeled as made in PRC. As consumer group they are not interested in buying European goods because these are sold at too high prices for them and in too small quantities for all the heads of the Chinese workers. The workers are feeding the mainstream in China, but they are shopping only according with the Asian way and mood and passion. Like the Tenshu Army they are living in a little space and waiting for the Dragon Warrior who will be freeing them all from both planned economy and weakness of yuan.
- Bourgeoisie. The estimated amount of wealthy people in China is 13 million, but they are supposed to grow up to 70 million within 2020. This is the only and one niche the (Italian) businesses are interested in. For instance, the rich Chinese will be informed on the Italian style and design and food through a promotional campaign classified as propedeutical during the next years. As the No.1 advertising company in fast-growing Internet, mobile, and poster/panel markets, Focus Media Holding will benefit from the pushing strategy of Western brands to China's best niches.
- Capitalists. It's not clear if this group consists of the readers of The Capital by Karl Marx. Or if they are the advocates for the capital punishment that in China is largely practised. But basically the capitalists are Taiwanese or all Chinese living in a same island, thus under isolation. Or maybe the capitalists are the selected human beings imported from the West thanks to the invisible hands ruling the global economy... These are very sensitive to the so called exploding markets whose best model is exactly China!
- Q: How many people are traveling to China for tourism? (A: About 130 million visitors in 2008).
- Q: What is the minus of the Chinese products exported to Europe? (A: The phrase 'made in PRC', misunderstood by the most).
- Q: When a woman says to his man: 'I go to the Chinese store', what message do she really send? (A: Don't worry, I'm going to spend no more than 15 euro for a brand new 48-piece service for the kitchen. Thank me, man...).
- Q: Why are the products made in PRC so colorful? (A: Because their prime target is built on the pre-school aged children with their own income).
- Q: What is the river symbolizing China? (A: Yangtze).
- Q: Who is the greatest kung-fu teacher in all of China? (A: Master Shifu).
- Q: Who was the Nobel-prize winning writer long lived in China? (A: Pearl Buck).
- Q: What are tsao, tuen, zen, zu meaning? (A: Cooking methods).
- Q: What is the saying 'All but the feathers' referring to? (A: Chicken).
- Q: Which are the four web sites absolutely to know? (A: www.china-lutong.com, www.blogcn.com, www.sina.com, www.xinhuanet.com).
| I. Niche?
There's not a China but Four China! You don't undersand the marketing to China if you don't know the history of the China flag... From that flag one actually gets much information on the purposes of Western businesses while they are going to deal with Chinese suppliers or buyers... Read on! The China flag contains a large yellow star and has a red background in honor of communism. The four smaller stars represent the four classes of Chinese society, i.e. the peasant, the workers, the bourgeoisie, and the capitalists. The national flag was adopted in 1949 and first flown in Tienanmen Square on October 1st --the day of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The rectangular flag has a red field with five golden-yellow stars (each with five points) in the upper left corner. The star on the left is larger than the other four. The red color of the flag symbolizes revolution. The large star symbolizes the Communist Party and the smaller stars represent the people of China... A. Lesson in selling. The secret of the Secret Ingredient Soup? Service with a smile! B. Lesson in living. There's no accident... PS. To discover the invisible China, visit www.invisiblechina.com
II. East/West. My name is ChenHua, and I'm writing on behalf of the China-Lutong mechanical company. Located in the south east of China, we specialize in hydraulic heads for the VE distributor pump. We can supply standard, good quality units at a very competitive price. The following types are available: [etc.] If you are interested in our products, please contact me. Thank you for your interest in our company. Sales & purchasing director. (Example of e-mail spamming) China is third in the ranking of countries where spam e-mail is generated to the maximum of quantity. The difference to the Russian or American model stands in the clear form of the information. Who is writing is probably the real sales director while usually e-mail spam is difficult to be referred to a true person when it comes from elsewhere... China's approach to the business on-line could appear something naive, but the permission marketing is a great chance for such a wide and large country. Do you like to get evidence? Easymail Interactive, a provider of permission e-mail marketing services, has inked a strategic alliance with Madeforchina, a response-marketing agency based in Beijing, China. Easymail Interactive will be the exclusive marketer to U.S.-based companies of Madeforchina's opt-in e-mail consumer database. The six-month exclusive agreement provides Easymail Interactive with the ability to market via e-mail to more than seven million Mainland Chinese consumers who have requested e-mails in various consumer categories, including automotive, computer hardware, software, cellular phones, education, entertainment, fashion, travel and music. This press release was going on over the Internet six years ago while multi-national companies were seeking to establish their brands and testing promotions with Chinese audiences in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing (www.2008.com). Since the day of that magnificent event --500,000 foreign visitors vs. 700,000 local volunteers-- is China becoming a friendly partner for Western companies? Like nobody's business! So I collect here ten questions anyone has to answer correctly if her wants to assert to know China perfectly. I don't want to put you in trouble so I prefer to write down the right response after every question placed in order of importance:
III. Wang. ''Mister Wang, I suppose...''. There are 93 million Chinese whose surname is Wang. That is seven-point-fifteen percent of the general population. An extra large Wangs family almost 5 times greater than the total presence of muslims in China. (It's difficult to believe if best known Chinese names here are Yang Fudong, Tang Wei, Cao Guowen, Shu Pei Qin, Fang Xingdong... respectively artist, actress, manager, model, blogger). What is more difficult to guess on Mr. Wang is what his religious beliefs would be because China is a not clearly defined country as for the religion. Even tough the export of Bibles made in PRC hits impressive turnover. Let's approach the numbers -> 41.5% are not religious -> 27.5% followers of local beliefs -> 8.5% are Buddhist -> 8.4% Christians -> 8.2% Atheists -> 4.3% Animists -> 1.5% Muslims. At this stage, don't ask me what group belong the pilgrims coming to the monastery of the Divine Light, Sichuan province. They seek to touch by hand the sign of happiness cut into a wall... they have to draw near to that center with shut eyes! The limits are clearly the strict rules of expressing their own opinion if not even Chinese bloggers can digit on their messages the banned Falun Gong religious movement. In China Internet users are 230 million and 30,000 computer technicians are monitoring and censoring the Web every day. What if the next religion would be the marketing? What if Chinese people would already sell everything at every space and corner of your neighborhood? Is Wang close to you? Still, if you want to change your name into a Chinese one, learn from Wu Ming at www.wumingfoundation.com.
IV. Streets. Western managers willing to talk to the core business of a country! So this marketing review wants to address them to the streets where Chinese people are like to live and buy without wasting their collective time! Probably you don't know Chang'an Boulevard but it is the main street in Beijing. The street is cutting the city from East to West. Chang'on Boulevard is starting from a rural village, goes on through the business district, on to Tienanmen Place and the political city center, then comes on to the outskirts until to the Capital Iron Company, a symbol of the socialist heavy industry. Ai Weiwei, founder of the avant-garde group STAR and founder of China Art Archives and Warehouse, has filmed this long street step by step producing an interesting over 10-hour product shown at the Asian Dub Photography exhibition in Italy. To know more about the author, visit www.aiweiwei.com As for Shangai, I would remeber the always crowded Sichuan Road North where is located the commercial centre '21st Century Sports City'. There Chinese people surprisingly meet one of the European most loved and popular football teams... A 100-meter square exhibition aiming to the one and only black and blue dragon known by Chinese fans! Maxi posters, pictures and furnitures reproducing the football stadium and the history as long as a century...
V. Direct Marketing. The DIRECT MARKETING glossary is available on DMLR in a 3-document edition (PDF) you can browse here or easily download onto your desktop. It consists of 19 pages as a whole, 311 paragraphs/terms, 236 Kb, 7450 words, 44772 types! Select and print the three parts of the glossary in English from PDF::Menu. Sure the Internet has been changing the traditional snail-mail based direct marketing. And yet the Internet marketing is a consequence of the old direct marketing somehow. Many terms you'll find inside the DM glossary are suiting for the e-mail marketing too...
VI. Linked Resources. Finally, this is an active link to sustainability news for China.
VII. MyQuiz. What is 'chopsticks marketing'? Fine, chopsticks are simply the distinctive pair of table utensils used by Chinese. As for the total response, read it on The Penguin Dictionary of Marketing. |
Roberto Dondi --word processing, HTML and the ropes.