Featured Observations

Spread the message, China Mobile’s cashing in

3…2…1 RINGGGGGGGGG! When the clock strikes midnight on the eve of Chinese New Year fireworks are not the only cacophonous sound in the air. Millions of people’s mobile phones start ringing simultaneously as their friends and family send them bulk text messages (aka SMS messages) filled with New Year’s wishes.

That is how the bulk text messaging phenomenon in China began. Nowadays, the use of this form of text messaging is not limited solely to major holidays. Young Chinese, especially college students and recent grads, use it as a means to let friends know they are thinking about one another. Sounds like a nice way to stay in touch, right? Wrong. Think about that friend you have who always sends you those chain emails full of stupid jokes. After the first one or two it gets to be more than a little annoying.

Bulk text messages are more like spamming your loved ones rather than expressing your care and concern. Most of the time other people, not the sender, have written the message content. Take a look at xf1.cn. The main purpose of this and similar websites is to provide users with prewritten text messages. The messages are classified into various categories like humorous, congratulatory and love. Friends search until they find an appropriate message and then forward it on as though it were written by them personally. Regardless, when a Chinese person receives a very well written text, he still cannot help but forward it on to all of his friends.

Mobile operators, specifically China Mobile, benefit the most from the bulk text messaging trend. With a roughly 68% market share and over 400 million customers, China Mobile is the leading mobile operator in all of China. Think of it this way:

-If Xiaoping, a subscriber of China Mobile, sends one text message then the mobile operator earns money.

-If Xiaoping sends the same text message to everyone in his phonebook, then the mobile operator earns money for each contact the message is sent to.

-Now let’s say the text message content is extremely well written and over 50% of Xiaoping’s friends then decide to send it on to all of their friends…

You get the picture. A well written text message can potentially lead to viral growth in SMS messages as they spread out among multiple circles of friends. The end result is that China Mobile earns a substantial portion of income from text messaging. I have even heard of China Mobile sponsoring text message writing competitions. The winner’s text message gets forwarded all throughout China, and China Mobile collects a handsome sum of money for providing its text messaging service.

Marketing For A Different Standard Of Beauty (Part II)

China’s cosmetic industry is currently maintaining annual sales revenue in excess of RMB 50 billion. This ranks China second place in Asia, and eighth place overall. Since 2001, the cosmetic industry has been in synch with China’s GDP figures growing at a rate of roughly 10 percent each year.

What types of cosmetics are people buying? How much are they paying for these products?

Take a look at the following chart:

Two important observations to make note of are:

1. Prices: The average Chinese college graduate working a full time white collar position may make between 3-4000RMB per month. Given housing, food and other monthly fixed expenses (not to mention many urban young professionals tend to send portions of their salary to parents living in other parts of the country), cosmetics purchases represent a significant portion of their income. Granted, not everyone is buying the 1850 RMB Dior Prestige, but even a couple bottles of 115 RMB L’Oreal Hydrafresh will take a toll on one’s budget.

2. Products: The vast majority of the products are for moisturizing and whitening purposes. The author of this article believes the prevalence of whitening products in China is because Chinese consumers want “to assert their belonging to an urban middle or upper class.” White skin is not about displaying ones level of society at this point in China’s development. As I mentioned in my last post, white skin has become a standard characteristic of the Chinese concept of beauty. White skin is an attribute that women (and many men) strive for, because that is the skin tone that is considered most attractive. This is the same reason why thousands of people in other countries are willing to spend enormous sums of money to go to tanning salons.

Observer ABC: A Lesson in Internet Language and Other Useful Phrases

Let’s make sense of this simulated MSN conversation between a Chinese boyfriend and girlfriend.

First, we need to learn the essential vocabulary:

A. Nanzihan 男子汉: is the essence of manliness. Someone who is considered a Nanzihan is typically strong, responsible and courageous.

B. 放鸽子 fang gezi: What you say to someone if you two already have plans, but the other party cancels without telling you.

C. 哥们儿 gemenr: What men in Beijing typically call their good male friends

D. 喝高了 he gao le: to drink a lot to a point of excitement…

E. PLMM
PL=Internet language for pretty:piaoliang:漂亮
MM=meimei:美眉 Internet language for a pretty girl

F. 给我跪搓板儿 gei wo gui cuo banr: Literally means “make you kneel on a washboard for me.” i.e. this guy does not want to go home anytime soon.

G. 5555: Internet language. The Chinese for 5 is 五(wu). A number of wu’s linked together sounds similar to a moaning sob, thus 5555 represents crying.

Now you’re ready for the translation:

PLMM: 你竟敢放我鸽子！！！昨晚上又和你那几个哥们儿喝高了吧？
How dare you cancel on me with out telling me!!! Let me guess, last night you went out with those friends of yours and got real drunk, right?

Nanzihan: …

PLMM:等着吧，回家以后给我跪搓板儿～
Just wait, when you get home I will make you kneel on a washboard~

Nanzihan: ☹ 555555555…
Nanzihan: ☹ woo woo woo…

If you are interested in learning more about Chinese Internet language and blog culture look no further than CIC’s China IWOM blog. Stay tuned for more Observer ABC…

Marketing For A Different Standard Of Beauty (Part I)

高圆圆(Gao Yuanyuan) Chinese actress/model

About two years ago, when I first arrived in Taiwan, I had the following conversation with a female Taiwanese colleague:

Me: “What did you do yesterday after work?”
Colleague: “I played basketball with my sister and lost so I had to buy her a douhua.” (Douhua is a light sweet soupy tofu snack that can be found all over Taiwan and in parts of mainland China).
“Do you know that the more white things you eat the whiter your skin will be? You shouldn’t eat black-colored foods because they will make your skin dark.”

While I was not about to take her opinion as representative of an overall consensus, I did begin to consciously observe advertisements in the Chinese media and I often spoke with Chinese friends about their idea of “beauty.”

What I found is the ideal beautiful Chinese woman:
1.    Is very slender
2.    Has wide circular eyes
3.    Has perfectly white skin.

As an American I found the third characteristic particularly intriguing. I grew up in a culture that strives for the perfect dark “healthy” tan. The second summertime hits in New England everyone grabs their tanning oil and goes straight to the beach. In China it’s the complete opposite. On sunny days women lather themselves with layers of sunscreen and walk around with umbrellas. It is one case where in the pursuit of beauty, women are actually protecting themselves against serious sun-related health issues.

But let’s get back to the relationship between food and skin tone and, more importantly, why this post relates to business in China. Companies use this image of the perfect beautiful woman to market their products. They try to trick Chinese consumers into believing that their product will make their skin as white as the woman on the package. Take Lulu for example. All of my female Chinese friends and coworkers drink Lulu brand almond milk. They are convinced that for each can of the silky white almond milk they drink, their skin will turn that much more white and beautiful. Check out the woman on the Lulu can in the image below:

I also found the following online conversation about Lulu almond milk on a Baidu message board:

A) MM常喝露露杏仁露真的对皮肤好吗？
I often drink Lulu, is it really good for my skin?
(MM=Chinese internet slang for a beautiful girl)
B) 经常喝会对皮肤好的~不要喝太多应该不会胖的~
Yes, drinking Lulu is good for your skin, but don’t drink too much or you’ll put on weight~

In fact when I typed the term “white skin” into Baidu Zhidao (a question answer forum similar to Yahoo Answers) I came up with about 20 pages of results, of women asking various questions about how to make their skin as white as possible.

There is a massive market for skin whitening products and beauty services in China which we will discuss further in this ongoing series of posts.

Quick Observation: China’s White-Collar Workers Have A New Place To Play

With 7.5 million users after only 5 months, you need to KEEP AN EYE ON kaixin001.com (known in China as Kai Xin Wang). This online social network is beginning to challenge Xiaonei with a heavy focus on the adult white-collar worker market segment. Whenever I catch a sneak peak of my Chinese colleagues’ computers during a slow period I see several of them updating their Kai Xin Wang profiles. For a more detailed look into Kai Xin Wang, check out this article in TechCrunch.