How to reach China's youth? Guide to reach China's youth online and spread virally over Weibo, RenRen,Baidu, forums and other Chinese social networks. -- www.MitchellBlatt.com for more
Visit my website at http://mitchellblatt.com for more information or email me at mhblatt@gmail.com.
4. "Little Emperors": A Self-focused Generation
of Chinese Youth
• Born after economic and political liberalization
• Under the one-child policy
• "Spoiled" by their parents
• More individualistic
• Ideas and personality shaped by openness of society
5. Brand-conscious
• Luxury goods sales expected to double from 2010 to 2015
to make up 20% of world share (McKinley & Company)
• Western athletic brands highly valued
• Nike, Adidas, Kappa, and others
6. Brand-conscious: Materialism in Pop Culture
• "I'd rather be crying in the back of a BMW than happy on the
back of a bike." - contestant on popular dating show
• "Men without money are trash." - woman scolding her boyfriend in
popular 2011 viral video
“Men without money are trash!” Clip from the video of a woman scolding her
boyfriend on the subway
7. Value-driven
• Inflationary worries
• Bidding-style websites like Taobao.com popular
• Group-buy websites increasingly popular
• Counterfeit brand sales proliferate
RenRen’s Group Buy service has increased by over 500% in revenue since 2009. (Red Tech Advisors)
9. Skeptical: Cultural Critics
• Popular bloggers and authors like Han Han and Murong Xuecun
• Han Han:
High-school dropout
Became best-selling author and blogger
Novels focus on the underbelly of society
2011 novel follows a prostitute
Recent blog topics include freedom, democracy and revolution
Race-car driver
• Murong Xuecun: Han Han 韩寒
Writes lurid novels
Posts uncensored versions online
Recent non-fiction book exposed a pyramid scheme
• Critical bloggers on weibos
• Uncensored novels published at Rongshuxia.com
10. Westernized
• Interest in Western culture and
Western brands
• Rock n roll festivals across China:
Midi Music Festival, Strawberry Festival
Bands: Carsick Cars, Queen Sea Big
Shark, Brain Failure, Pinkberry
• Hip-hop and club music inside
Chinese bars:
Jay Chou, MC Hot Dog influenced by hip-hop
• NBA popular:
China accounted for 30% of NBA.com
page views during 2010 Finals (
Boston Globe)
11. Where and How to Reach the Youth
• The Great Power of Social Media
• Internet Memes and Pop Culture
• Internet Bar
• Weibos (microblogs)
• Forums
• Examples of Memes
• RenRen
12. The Great Power of Social Media
• By mid 2010, netizens were spending over 50% of their
time on social media websites.
Data via DCCI
13. Internet Memes and Pop Culture
• Memes and catchphrases made popular online are
repeated in daily life and live on for years after their
inception.
• Examples included in slides:
• "Whether or not you believe it, I believe it." (from slide on
skepticism)
• "Jia Junpeng, your mother is calling for you to return home
to eat dinner.” (internet bar slide)
• Guo Meimei (weibo)
• "Brother isn't smoking a cigarette, what he's smoking is
loneliness.” (forums)
• Ordinary, artistic and idiotic youth photos (forums)
14. Internet Bar
• "Jia Junpeng, your mother is calling you to return home and
eat dinner." - post on Baidu World of Warcraft forums in
2009 that garnered 100's of thousands of comments
Jia Junpeng actually isn't a real person
But he is a popular persona among the youth
An example of how much time some youths spend in internet bars
• Online gaming industry accounted for $3.6 billion
in 2009
Expected to grow by 155% from 2009 to 2014 to $9.2 billion
(Niko Partners)
Arcade also popular
15. Internet Bar: Reaching Jia Junpeng
• Create minigames to integrate with campaigns
Award-winning Campaigns at Spikes Asia 2011 involved games
Coca-Cola “Live Positive” (wwwins Isobar Shanghai) and Fanta “Big Orange Squeeze” (Ogilvy Shanghai) campaigns won awards for integrating games.
• Utilize in-game advertising in role player games
• Work with gaming websites
to customize ads for games
Budweiser Bar integrated into
RenRen Party game.
16. Weibos
• Like Twitter, China’s microblogging services
• Two major Weibos: Sina Weibo and Tencent (QQ) Weibo
• Over 300 million users of weibos
• China’s Weibos have more functions than Twitter:
Share photos and videos more easily
Comment on sent messages
Post surveys
140 Chinese characters allows for much longer messages than
140 English characters (More like 140 words in Chinese)
17. Weibos: Exposing Corruption, Lies and the
Greed of Guo Meimei
• 20-year old Guo Meimei
• Posted photos on Sina Weibo posing
with cars and fancy clothing brands
• Bragged that she bought it with "Red
Cross" money
• Spread quickly, GMM vilified
• Archetype of materialism, corruption
• Also an archetype of style...
Guo Meimei featured in an ad on RenRen:
"GMM's new sports car revealed: This
car should turn a lot of heads."
18. Sina Weibo Dominates
• Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo market leaders
• Sina Weibo owns over 50% of user share
• Over 80% of time share
DCCI (via littleredbook.cn)
• Well-crafted viral campaigns can spread quickest on
Sina Weibo
19. Weibo Beats SNS for Frequency
• Weibo users log into their weibos more often than
users of social networking sites log into their social
networking accounts.
Data sourced from DCCI
20. Forums: Where Memes are Made
• Over 117 million forum users in China
• Top forums: Mop, Tianya, Sina BBS, Baidu BBS
• Mop.com has been called the 4chan of China
• Memes spread from forums to daily life
21. "Brother isn't smoking a cigarette, what he is
smoking is loneliness."
• Originated on Mop.com BBS
• Photos of lonely-looking people eating, smoking or
drinking captioned
• Phrase used in real life as a joke about loneliness
• Used as a snowclone: "What brother is xxx-ing isn't xxx,
it's xxx."
"What brother is eating isn't noodles, it's loneliness.”
"What Jia Junpeng's mother is calling isn't Jia Junpeng, it's
loneliness."
“What brother is smoking isn’t
a cigarette, it is loneliness.”
22. Ordinary, Artistic and Idiotic Meme
• Photo series started spreading in November 2011
• 3 photos, of “ordinary youth,” “artistic youth,” and “idiotic
youth”
• Now used for everything, not just youth
Ordinary, Artistic and Idiotic Jack Sparrow
Ordinary, Artistic and Idiotic Cellist
Images from Baidu BBS posts.
23. Possible Advertising Taglines
• Playstation: Jia Junpeng's mom: "Ever since we got
Playstation, Jia Junpeng has never been late for dinner."
• Old Spice: "Whether or not she believes, you will believe."
• Budweiser: "Brother isn't drinking Budweiser, he's drinking
good times."
Going the Ordinary-Artistic-Idiot route…
Image compilation created by Mitchell Blatt
24. RenRen and Kaixin
• Facebook-style social networks
• RenRen more popular, particularly among youth
• RenRen reported 110 million registered users by the end
of 2010
• 31 million monthly active users in March, 2011
• (SEC filings)
• Kaixin reported 75 million users by the end of 2009
• Older, white collar compared to RenRen
• Both networks include games
25. RenRen vs. Kaixin
• RenRen is the college and high-school social network while
Kaixin is somewhat older, presumably with more wealth.
• You can see differences in the networks by comparing the
most popular brand pages at each.
Data via Little Red Book
26. RenRen vs. Kaixin
• RenRen • Kaixin
• Apparel: #2 Adidas Dwight Howard • Apparel: #7 Kappa
line, #10 Adidas
• Computer: #1 Dell • Computer: #6 Lenova
• Beer: #5 Budweiser • Beer: #16 Carlsberg
• Cosmetics: #15 Watsons (drug store) • Cosmetics: #11 Dove, #17 L'Oreal
• Top Three: Dell, Adidas, Nokia • Top Three: VW, MINI, BMW
More American brands. More “everyday” More European or domestic brands,
brands (ie Budweiser, Watsons, top three). high-class brands, beauty brands, and
expensive car brands in the top three.
27. Summary
• Youth shaped by increased openness
• Western style is cool
• Brands are important, but at affordable prices
• Marketing information must address concerns clearly,
honestly
• Social media dominates traditional media
• Crossover between online and offline culture
28. My Cultural Expertise
• Spent time in bars, karaoke, concerts, travelling and
making friends with China's youth
• Travelled through 15 provinces: Zhejiang, Jiangsu,
Shanghai, Fujian, Shaanxi, Qinghai, Sichuan, Hunan,
Guanxi, Guizhou, Yunnan, Guangdong, Hainan, Xinjiang
and Beijing
• Worked at a bar for two nights in Dali, Yunnan province
• Contributing blogger to ChinaHush.com
• International Travel Writer for Examiner.com Indianapolis
29. Contact Me
• E-mail me at mhblatt@gmail.com
• Visit my homepage at http://www.mitchellblatt.com
• Download my resume at
http://mitchellblatt.com/index/?p=35