traditional Chinese courtyard doors

China’s tourist industry is booming, giving historic towns a new lease of life and a new revenue stream. But, as developers and entrepreneurs move in to create new tourist destinations out of these forgotten places, authenticity, history and some could argue, taste, suffers. This article and film is the story of one American couple who are trying to set a new example. Are they doing justice to the artistic and historical tradition of China or imposing Western ethnocentric ideas of what is appropriate on a nation who knows what it likes and wants more of the same?
This is also a good analogy for the dilemma brands and advertisers face in China. Should local preferences that run contrary to a perceived Western norm be respected as a valid local cultural preference or seen as a backward inclination that needs to be challenged? Making the wrong call could lose you consumer affinity on one hand or thought (and market) leadership on the other.

a still from our film, a Chinese student’s family photo in Dutch national costume

The West has been fascinated by China but what does China think of the West? Increased affluence and relaxed Chinese and international travel restrictions has opened up the West to millions of Chinese so how does this new exposure to occidental values affect the Chinese who study, holiday and work in the West? What impressions of the West do people return with and how does it reflect on life back at home? Is life that different? And if it is different, is better or worse? We talk to students in Delft about their experiences, watch the film here.

We’ve just finished our latest ready-to-buy film.

This time we ask the Billion Yuan question: what does ‘cool’ mean in China?
To find out we’ve been asking students,

hanging out in dorm rooms

and running through cities.

More details and a clip can be found on our films page.

These are some stills from one of our recent films made over Chinese New Year in Lower Teir China. The top tiers of China may be more blasé about the annual festivals but lower teir observances remain a traditional affair. Rituals to bring prosperity and fertility are central, centuries-old core motivators marketeers should take note of.

For those wanting to know more about the different sides of Chinese New Year we have 3 films available: Chinese New Year in Rural China, Train Home - the trials of traveling at New Year and Getting Ready, a look at the Reunion Dinner.

a hutong alley in Beijing. It’s no Harlem.

Radio 4’s Hip-Hop China-style gives you some insight into what happens when Chinese rappers get stuck into the form. Guns? Gangs? Beefs? no, raps about food, amongst other things. And why not? They aren’t racially marginalised kids growing up in ghettos, or inheritors of NWA,  they are middle-class Chinese only-children experimenting. Western marketeers could learn a valuable lesson here though: just because Chinese youth may share some fashions with their Western counterparts their values, motivations and aesthetics can be radically different. And that means Chinese hip-hoppers aren’t into aping gangsters, they are following Tawainese and Hong Kong pop-rap idols or writing conscious hip-hop about regional food differences.

Parents of freshmen sleep on mats on the floor of a gymnasium, inside a university campus in Wuhan, China, from Our World Now.

Our World Now, a collection of photographs from Reuters (Thames and Hudson) is out now and it’s a good resource for planners interested in global markets - a gallery of issues, lifestyles and the human condition to draw inspiration from.

A sample of the contents can be found here.

And why are the parents sleeping in the gym? Get in touch and I’ll tell you…

Edward Burtynsky’s Manufacturing #17 (2005)

Edward Burtynsky’s Manufacturing #15

Manufactured Landscapes is a fascinating film, following Edward Burtynsky as he photographs the industrial landscapes of China and Bangladesh. His monumental photographs of open cast mines, slag heaps, wrecking yards and factories are deliberately free of judgement, leaving us to decide if we are seeing a new form of beauty or the devastation of nature. As a planner or researcher interested in China his pictures also challenge us to think about the personal behind the industrial. In both the pictures and the documentary the workers look back at us, making the audience complicit in the scene - what does that make us feel as manufacturers, advertisers, researchers? How do the workers view their situation? Is this a good job in a safe factory that they are pleased to have or a inescapable drudge job? In one sequence, we see the action on the ground as Burtynsky sets up to take this photo:

Edward Burtynsky’s Manufacturing #18 (Cankun Factory, Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, China)

The workers filmed up close look bored, uncomfortable, vacant as their section head berates them for mistakes and slow work. What exactly are they thinking?
I think this is exactly how we see our work fitting in with traditional research on China. The statistics on China are startling, awe inspiring and belittling, just like Burtynky’s work but we, like the documentary makers in Manufactured Landscapes, try to put some human context and meaning into the picture.

See the trailer here.

a woman in Beijing, wearing a mask at a speed dating event

24 hours in pictures, from The Guardian, here. If you thought it was just another typical Easter weekend, have a look at what it meant to others around the world.

A rural Russian town, entirely inhabited by elderly women, everyone else has died or left.

Behind the emerging markets’ success stories are rural majorities yet untouched by the growing prosperity of urban areas. This urban/rural imbalance means young people leave the country to try their luck in towns and city, leaving the older and poorer members of the community struggling to survive. Two stories illustrate this, albeit with local flavours; the impact alcholism and underinvestment in Russia here (a guardian film report) and a the impact of sweeping changes and harsh climates in China here.

Wishing you a Prosperous and Happy Year of the Rat!
The rat year is meant to be a particularly good year for doing business so to ensure an good start to the Rat year download our auspicious wallpaper (right click on the image and choose save).