An “eco-friendly” concept is being introduced by fashion brand Me&City (a brand launched by Metersbonwe to target Chinese consumers at a higher end). The line claims to be made from recyclable material – right down to the label!
picture from Huawei
Hai Di Lao, a national Sichuan-style hotpot chain restaurant will cooperate with Huawei to develop a system that allows diners to share a virtual meal with friends and family off-site. Huawei, one of the world’s leading technology companies, will apply its Telepresence Solution to enable Hai Di Lao diners to eat while enjoying face-to-face communication with friends and family across regions and countries. (more information on TechWeb)
The slogan spread online: “there is no expectation that cannot be fulfilled by Hai Di Lao” (translated by Shanghai Daily). The restaurant chain is doing its best to live up to the claim offering excellent in-store dining and even hotpot delivery service. Hai Di Lao already has a stellar reputation for customer service, earned by catering to customers’ every need (i.e. baby cribs, shoe shines, and top-selling books). Now, it is looking to build on its service standards and become known as a technology innovator. Diners are able to submit their orders via WIFI on iPads that are available on each table.
Read the rest of this entry »
New ads have been launched to promote the Adidas Fitness Academy in Shanghai. Commuters are encouraged on the subway platform: “You spend 152 minutes a month waiting on the platform; why not run in place instead of wasting time”. (our translation)
July 1st, Air China launched its first “micro-flight” from Beijing to Xi’an, which was an exclusive flight that was only available for purchases via Air China’s platform on Sina.
Participants registered for a Sina Weibo and went to http://weihangban.sina.com.cn/airchina/ to purchase a seat. To activate the offer, at least 150 seats needed to be purchased on one flight. Over 5,000 participants applied for this activity. Not only could netizens decided when and where to flight, they also were able to determine who would take them there (voting for the cabin crew) and what they would eat on the flight.
Air China’s simple cooperation may not be enough to show the brand’s love for Sina Weibo. A plane owned by Tianjin Airline was recently named “Sina Weibo.”
We have noticed a lot going on with soda packaging thee days. Neocha Edge produced a new can design for Sprite and the global McDonald’s limited edition clear colored Coca Cola glasses in the shape of cans . But with the good also comes the bad.
Giant beverage brands Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Mater Kong simultaneously launched moves to change their packaging for summer. Consumers are left with bottles slimmed from 600ml to 500ml, sold at the same price point as before. The 3 companies, however, failed to get consumers on board with the revised products.
Coca-Cola played it safe by saying that it’s a global move and that increasing costs is a factor in the change. In contrast, Pepsi claimed that the packaging change is to meet consumers’ preference for smaller bottles after a 18-month market research in the country.
Netizens don’t buy it however; many expressed on forums and microblogs that Pepsi’s explanation is unacceptable, challenging Pepsi’s market research. Some extreme netizens said: “We can assume from Pepsi’s words that consumers get what they want. Then why don’t they offer drinks for free as that’s exactly what we want?!” Others predicted in a humorous way, “We may soon have 10ml oral solution version cola!”
In the past two decades, P&G’s Safeguard has worked to develop a brand image aligned with helping Chinese mothers take care of their families’ health. Now, to welcome its 20th Anniversary in China, Safeguard has launched a “Thanks, Mom” campaign online to celebrate, showing their love for China’s mothers for Mother’s Day.
This campaign consists of four key parts: making online love postcards, uploading original videos to express gratitude to moms, making wishes for their moms to receive something special (these are all available on Safeguard’s promotional website and its Renren homepage); the brand also has set up a campaign on Sina Weibo allowing sons and daughters to tweet love messages to their moms.
A new Group Purchase category is now available on Baidu Feng Yun Bang,a list updated in almost real-time at http://top.baidu.com. The list reveals the top keywords used in historical searches for the day and the week and — for some categories — even, the month. When browsing the page, visitors can see the top ten group purchase websites and a scrolling window detailing purchases made by shoppers’ gender, generation (70s, 80s, 90s, etc.) and location.
According to Baidu Feng Yun Bang, on April 29th female searchers favored Jumei (www.jumei.com), the first cosmetics-focused group purchase site. The site also reveals generational differences; 90s include Jumei as one of their top ten favorite sites while post-70s and post-80s do not.
Location-wise, netizens from tier one cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, have almost the same site preferences. While, shoppers in lower tier cities in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangxi, Fujian, Hunan and Inner Mongolia have more diverse preferences. Province-based sites like Luobotuan (www.luobotuan.com, offering group purchase services only in Zhejiang) and city-based sites like 0731 (www.0731.com.cn, only in Changsha) are favored by lower tier city consumers.
Sign up here for our latest special reports and Chinese consumer insight
 |  |  |  |  |  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Bergstrom Group is an insights and trends consultancy helping marketers understand and connect with Chinese consumers. Through thoughtful research, rich narratives and actionable insights, we are helping to tell the story of new China.
