很棒

Many analysts argue that Chinese consumers are extremely price-sensitive and only want to buy the cheapest products available. This has led to price cutting in the China market by the likes of Dell and other multinationals. Many are trying to match the prices of domestic Chinese companies like Lenovo that are providing “good enough” products at discount prices.

However, multinationals should actually take the opposite tack when positioning their brands in China. They should position themselves as premium to domestic Chinese companies and emphasize their quality and safety. It is impossible for them to compete solely on price, and it is a shortsighted strategy that will erode long-term profitability and brand image.

Interactive music video… intriguing

Last year, Nike spent just 33 percent of its $678 million United States advertising budget on ads with television networks and other traditional media companies. That’s down from 55 percent 10 years ago, according to the trade publication Advertising Age.

“We’re not in the business of keeping the media companies alive,” Mr. Edwards says he tells many media executives. “We’re in the business of connecting with consumers.”

Mr. Edwards may be more blunt than most. But many large marketers are taking huge chunks of money out of their budgets for traditional media and using the funds to develop new, more direct interactions with consumers — not only on the Internet, but also through in-person events.

Behind the shift is a fundamental change in Nike’s view of the role of advertising. No longer are ads primarily meant to grab a person’s attention while they’re trying to do something else — like reading an article. Nike executives say that much of the company’s future advertising spending will take the form of services for consumers, like workout advice, online communities and local sports competitions.

Today, many Nike ads are shown only on the Internet. Wayne Rooney, the British soccer player, is currently featured in a series of online videos for Nike. In 2005, Nike placed a 2-minute, 46-second clip of the Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho online, instead of on TV. The video has had more than 17 million views on YouTube and became so well known that some television networks like Sky Sports and the BBC showed it in their news coverage — free.

“We don’t automatically think about television anymore,” said Joaquin Hidalgo, vice president for global brand marketing at Nike. “There was a time when brands like Nike could tell kids through the medium of television what was cool, what was in, what was not in, because that was the only window they had into the world. That has completely changed now.”

Interactive’s share of total ad spend is forecast to increase from 8 percent in 2007 to 18 percent in 2012.

The increases will be “driven by marketers who will leverage a distribution of channels rather than pour new spends into a single place,” projects the report.

“This maturing perspective on interactive channels coupled with technology advances will lead to a customer-centric future in which interactive technologies actually infuse all marketing efforts,” according to the report.

“As firms continue to make customer centricity a higher priority, they will recognize that maintaining separate marketing teams to manage different sets of channels that all target the same customers makes no sense,” said Forrester Principal Analyst Shar VanBoskirk.

Ruthless Ruth gave me a good beatdown…

An MIT grad student has developed a Facebook app focused on “keeping it real.”

Described as “an antisocial utility that disconnects you to the so-called friends around you,” Kevin Matulef’s Enemybook is a new app that lets people list enemies below friends on their profiles, according to the Boston Globe.

The satiristic app is intended to suggest the people who add each other aren’t necessarily “friends,” and that social networking may have a side that isn’t wholly collaborative.

Another app parodying superficial e-friendships is Snubster, which allows members to put offending persons “On Notice” and give them an opportunity to redeem themselves. If they fail, they can be listed as “Dead to Me” by the offended.

Exciting idea, but burning all that fuel just to fly a bunch of rich people into space can’t be good for the environment.

SHANGHAI—PepsiCo has launched an ad campaign in China alongside new packaging and marketing alliances with companies like China Merchant Bank and the Italian clothing brand, Kappa, to celebrate the winners of the second Pepsi Creative Challenge.

Like last year’s competition, in which consumers helped Pepsi develop a TV commercial starring Asian superstar Jay Chou, this year’s contest challenged Pepsi consumers online in one of the world’s biggest internet markets. China has more than 140 million web surfers and is expected to reach 200 to 250 million within five years.

In its latest online competition, Pepsi invited consumers to submit personal photos to a Pepsi web site, Pepsi.163.com, where they could also vote on other people’s pictures. Eighty-four photos in total were selected to run on four regional cans, while 21 of them will also appear on cans that will be distributed nationally within China.

The promotion was timed to coincide with the global rollout of new Pepsi packaging. In China, Pepsi is introducing five cans with different themes—travel, SMS messaging, internet-related emoticons, a graffiti-splashed festival can and one that features faces of consumers, which is tied to the new promotion.

The new packaging is related to Pepsi’s global tagline, which was changed from “Dare for more” to simply “More.” The advertising campaign to promote the contest and the new can was created by BBDO Worldwide, Shanghai, and features Chinese actor Louis Koo, the current star of Pepsi brand ads. It will run through the end of the year. The interactive agency Agenda and NetEase, one of China’s main portals, also assisted with the campaign.

The U.S. food and beverage marketer added one cheeky twist to raise the profile of the new cans in the mainland. It has temporarily changed the color of its cans from Pepsi’s traditional blue color to red, one of the most popular colors in Chinese culture, as well as the traditional color of cans produced by Pepsi’s chief rival, Coca-Cola.

“We’re using packaging as a media, and letting consumers pick cans based on their character,” said Leo Tsoi, Shanghai-based marketing director for Pepsi’s beverage business unity in China. “Blue has been our color but we want to make Pepsi different, and consumers in China think the red cans are cool. It’s very different and shows the passion of Pepsi to support China and ‘Team China,’” in the lead-up to the Olympic Games in Beijing, a period during which nationalism is swelling among Chinese.

Pepsi has proven once again that the web is a powerful tool for reaching its core target market, young, urban Chinese. The winners of the competition, announced last week in Beijing, were chosen from almost 2.5 million submissions uploaded to the Pepsi China web site during a six-week period. Since the program launched in early June, the site has had over 25 million unique visitors and received nearly 144 million votes.

“These numbers are only the tip of an iceberg because the most exciting stories are the community that we are reaching and also the profile of the candidates,” said Mr. Tsoi. “The participants are really from all walks of life including celebrities, a two-time World of Warcraft game champion, babies and net stars.”

The competition created an online community as the leading contenders became net celebrities within China. Most of the entrants already had blogs and the publicity surrounding the Pepsi competition further drove the popularity of their sites. The blog community site, Quan Zi, gained more than 100,000 readers because of the contest. One winner chosen by Chinese surfers is a Buddhist monk with a blog, which Pepsi execs cheerfully acknowledged was a dare by their consumers.

“It could have been a bit difficult politically to put a monk on a Pepsi can in China,” conceded Mr. Tsoi, as was the image of a Chinese soldier, also a blogger.

Pepsi has enlisted partners to help promote its new packaging, including China Merchant Bank, which has issued a series of colorful, Pepsi-themed Visa credit cards issued by the bank. Since they were launched in April 2007, over 700,000 cards have been issued.

Pepsi also teamed up in advertising and events with Kappa, an Italian youth clothing brand, by creating a sports fashion series inspired by Pepsi’s new packaging graphics. The clothes were sold in Kappa stores and also distributed as prizes. The soft drink marketer also partnered with Edison Chen, a Chinese-Canadian actor who has gained fame among China’s hip set as founder of a multimedia company, Clot Media Division.

After spending a few months in beta, growing online talent community OurStage has officially launched. An online American Idol without the biting criticism, the site serves as a portal for musicians and filmmakers looking to attract industry exposure. Songs and films are put in a series of four one-on-one competitions, with winners selected through a democratic voting process, open to anyone, that determines who proceeds to the final competition at the end of the month. Competition winners receive $100, and grand prize winners who float to the top of their respective categories each receive $5,000 cash prizes.
In conjunction with its official launch, OurStage also recently introduced Artist Access, a mentor program for the site’s top-ranking artists to receive advice from, and even get the opportunity to work with, big name musicians and filmmakers, such as John Legend, John Cameron Mitchell and David Burke. While MySpace Music will likely continue to be the premier venue for aspiring artists looking for exposure, OurStage’s financial incentives and industry connections may lure in some of the same users. 

A website by TBWA Sweden preaching “drink in moderation” because look how alcohol completely f&*ks up your body! Pretty well executed, except the ending just loops back to the beginning.