Reviving Chinese New Year in China — and what it means for the future of all things foreign
Is Chinese New Year in need of a revival? The experts seem to think so. Here’s the reason, taken from a Xinhua News article titled “Protect Chinese New Year” becomes a common idea in Chinese society: This suggested idea of “Protect Chinese New Year” came about because these years Gao Youpeng [a professor at Henan […]
Christmas becomes the third biggest consumer spending holiday in China
Christmas may not be an indigenous holiday to China — but retailers had a VERY merry one this year. Merry enough to merit dubbing Christmas the third largest consumer shopping season in China. Here’s the story published in Sohu (partially translated by yours truly): Christmas Day is not an official holiday in China. Yet this […]
Will you be my “zui aide” sweetheart…on Christmas: why Christmas is a romantic holiday in China and what it means for marketing and communications
Love is in the air…the lighted streets are decked with couples unabashedly linking arms and eyes…ah, romance… [Insert sound of record scratching] Wait a minute! Aren’t we getting ahead of our holidays here? Valentine’s Day isn’t for another two months. Au contrair, zui aide. This isn’t Valentine’s Day I’m talking about…it’s Christmas…in China. Here’s what […]
Interview with Chip Coakley, chairman and CEO of PGL Global: the challenges involved with marketing in China and doing business in China
Jocelyn: Good morning, this is the Wu Way Update for December the first, and we’re having a conversation with Chip Coakley, who is the chairman and CEO of PGL Global, which is a firm that helps mid-size companies with their outsourcing as well as offshoring. And we’re talking this morning about the challenges involved with […]
Why Avon sells whitening cleansers in China: culture matters
You’ll find live frogs and turtles at Wal-Mart. “refreshing tea” toothpaste from Crest, and a whole line of whitening products from Avon…in China. Frogs and turtles may not be on your menu; heck, tea might not be the first thing that comes to mind as “refreshing”. But it’s another story for the Chinese — and […]
AC Nielsen President/CEO claims Chinese are “brand sluts”
In an interview with the People’s Daily, Steve M. Schmidt, the President and CEO of AC Nielsen, claims that Chinese tend to be a little more fickle when it comes to their brands — or as Marian Salzman of the Economic Times might say, they are brand sluts. Schmidt states: Chinese consumers are very brand […]
Pay attention to your tech-savvy audience in China — or perish
Microsoft is getting sued…so is a search engine…in China. That’s right — China. These are not a couple of blips on the corporate radar in the litigious-happy Western World, but a show of discontent from a country that more than 25 years ago couldn’t have given a bowl of rice about what consumers thought. In […]
Marketing to execs and bosses in China’s hinterlands: don’t let the scenery fool you
Recently I ran across a company that went to the inner provinces of China…they were hoping to sell a B2B concept to executives and managers in their field. The sight was disconcerting to them: an infrastructure that appeared underdeveloped compared to the US; austere buildings and facilities. So they made an assumption — maybe these […]