02.05
This is the final story in a series of posts about 2010’s top five brand stories in China. This is one of my favorites—I think the revival of some of these old Shanghai and Chinese brands has a lot of growth potential over the next 5 years, and it’s really fun to watch.
My next post will summarize all the stories and the trends they represent. A complete version of this article is available in last December’s issue of Labbrand’s LABReport.
Shuang Mei (双妹) Returns as Shanghai VIVE
What Happened
State-owned Shanghai Jahwa Group is China’s largest cosmetics company and owner of Herborist, a natural-ingredient cosmetics line that has recently exported products to Europe and the USA. This past summer, the group re-launched one of its own iconic legacy brands, previously known as Shuang Mei (双妹). The brand has a new name, Shanghai VIVE, but everything else about it looks old, nostalgic, retro.
continue reading…
09.27
About eight months ago I moved to Shanghai. It’s my first time living outside the United States as an adult, and as a consumer it sometimes feels like being reborn. Don’t get me wrong—Shanghai is a modern, diverse city, so it’s not so hard to find familiar Western brands here. But because of the ubiquity and lower cost of local brands (or at least less familiar ones), I’m constantly in the position of making decisions about brands with which I have no history—not the brands I grew up with and saw my parents using as a child—not the ones for which I remember a famous ad campaign from the 80s or can hum a jingle on cue.
(And as a side note, sometimes even the most familiar brands are somehow unfamiliar here.)
Of course it’s impossible to remove all the preconceived notions that influence a purchase decision, but in some ways I feel like a subject in an experiment: How do we form opinions and develop biases about things that are new to us? And it’s not just that they’re unfamiliar…the written language barrier also blocks access to otherwise simply communicated messages. Since moving here I’ve twice bought yogurt thinking it was milk. (Hey, show an American a white-and-blue, one-quart cardboard carton at the supermarket, and it’s milk. Talk about a strong semiotic code. Now I do a shake-test just to be sure.) Sometimes I can’t even read the name of the salty packaged snack I’m buying, much less the ingredients list, nutritional information, or where it’s manufactured, not to mention any romance copy about how crunchy or flavorful it is.
If this was an experiment, what could we learn from it? It’s hard to say how applicable the results would be to any other situation. Most adult consumers are literate. They watch local TV and read local periodicals. The fact is, I’m not even in the target market for the majority of the products I’m buying. Regardless, I do feel I’m learning about my own consumption habits from a new perspective and therefore gaining some insights that could be generalized to other consumers. For example:
continue reading…
03.03
In my last post I wrote about the strategist’s role of finding the compelling idea within an organization and stripping away the rest, and made an admittedly highfalutin’ comparison to Michelangelo’s statement that the sculptor’s task is to find the statue hidden inside every block of marble.
No one’s saying brand strategy or corporate ID design is competing with Renaissance art, but the truth is that the link between brand strategy and art/design is more than a metaphor. As design thinking gains more momentum in the business world,
continue reading…
08.03
At last Thursday’s sit-down with Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. Joseph Crowley, Mr. Obama drank a Bud Light. At first, this seems like an obvious choice—American legacy, fewer calories than Budweiser (supporting the preventative aspects of his healthcare plan), and fights his image as an arugula-eating snob. But then I remembered that Anheuser-Busch was acquired by InBev, a Belgian company (not traded on U.S. markets), around this time last year. Wouldn’t you think the president would help stimulate our economy a little by drinking a real U.S. beer? Here are some recommendations for next time. Let me know if you have other ideas…
continue reading…
03.25
I know this is isn’t a recent development, but am I the only one that’s totally freaked out by the new Sierra Mist package design? As if it wasn’t enough to blur the edges of “Mist,” creating a ghost-like effect, they had to go and put those creepy tree branches in the background. Are they trying to scare me? Because, rather than bringing to mind thirst-quenching satisfaction, this just makes me think of The Blair Witch Project. But maybe I’m just easily scared.
"I gave you BACK...THE MAP."
continue reading…
