With Haibao (meaning "treasure of the sea"), the expo's mascot

First I’ll reiterate the obvious – don’t go on a weekend if it can be helped nor when the temperature is sweltering.  There are many situations where you’ll feel like cattle, herded through gates and lines, and being pushed up so close to the people around you that you can feel the guy behind you breathing down your neck.  No exaggeration.

This cattle maze is in anticipation of the line-ups to get into the expo grounds. We breezed through, but I shudder to think of it filled with people during a busy day:

I hope no one ever has to line up in this...

I managed to see the inside of the following pavilions:  Italy, Canada, Denmark, Kazakhstan, Australia, Belgium/EU, South Korea, Greece, Brazil, Switzerland.

In my very humble opinion, the ones out of that group worth waiting more than an hour for were:
Denmark: Probably my favourite pavilion out of the ones I saw.  It had the Little Mermaid statue from Denmark (yes, the real deal!)  and it achieved what the pavilions were set out to do – introduce the country and shine a positive light upon it, show its people and way of living, evoke desire to visit, and showcase the way it embraces sustainability and cares for the environment.  Denmark did all this, with a beautiful, clean-looking pavilion to boot.  I gained a good sense and feeling toward Denmark after seeing their pavilion.  Here are some pictures I took:

Denmark: Beautiful pavilion + The Little Mermaid

Base of Denmark - In true Danish fashion, you can ride a bike around the pavilion

South Korea: High-tech inside and visually interesting too.  They’ve got a fun show featuring a story/video/music video type of short movie that mixes real-life and animation, ending with a dance performance.

South Korea boasted some cool technology

Belgium (shared with EU): The outside of Belgium pavilion has stands selling Belgium fries, Belgium waffles and Belgium beer, so it’s a nice break.  Inside is a bit too information heavy (lots of boards with writing), though I did learn that the Smurfs had a Belgian creator, as did Tin Tin.  Apparently they also give out free Belgian chocolates, though we wasn’t lucky enough to be around when they were giving them out.  Worth going for the food outside (plus there’s no line-up to get into the food area), but may not be worth actually going in.

Tips:
- Get into the pavilion and get line bypass by going into the restaurants.  We did this for Greece.  There are select pavilions which have separate entrances for their restaurant.  Their restaurant is always linked to the rest of the pavilion.  So go in for a quick bite and then wander into the pavilion and save yourself 2+ hours waiting in line.
- Want to get out of the crowds?  The theme of the expo is “Better City, Better Life”, so do check out the sustainability and better living area – it’s away from the country pavilions and doesn’t have the high-profile draw of the country pavilions, so it’s quite quiet, but has some really neat buildings and designs that showcase green living.

The Pros:
-  The visual impact of the pavilion buildings do not disappoint.  Especially when they are lit up at night.

UK at sundown

Expo at night: Australia's on the right and Thailand in front

The Cons:
- All the culture and festivities are inside the pavilions.  Outside, while yes the pavilions look impressive, there is hardly any expo life (other than visitors) on the street.  Would it have been so hard to put some fun stuff outside the pavilions for all those who just aren’t quite in the mood to wait 3 hours in line?
- Massive line-ups!!!  I desperately wanted to get into Japan (heard it is awesome – it has a robot playing the violin!) but the line was a minimum of 4 hours.  So skipped that.
- Also really wanted to see China, but it’s probably next to impossible to get into it unless you’re willing to start lining up outside the expo gates at 4am.  Heard it’s worthwhile to see inside and that it’s actually quite interesting.  They hand out 40,000 tickets daily with an allotted time for visitation.  Some people scalp them, so you might be able to buy some if you’re lucky.
- There really aren’t as many performances as I had read that there would be.  In Canada’s pavilion, we asked when the next Cirque du Soleil would be and were told that they come out whenever they feel like it and there really isn’t a set schedule.  Right.  We tried hanging around for a bit and even tried killing time by ordering a poutine.  Alas, no Cirque. Thanks Canada.

Spelling out 'Canada' with the help of some friendly Americans. Yea, we're cool like that... :S

My personal thought is that China has indeed been able to showcase to the world how advanced they are and how well their economy is doing.  They do massive events extremely well and have the money to back it up (e.g. Beijing Olympics). However, one thing I’ve noticed is that somehow they lack some of the spirit and fun one would expect from major events.  It’s almost like they’re too organized at times!  Nonetheless, the expo is definitely something to check out and be prepared to be blown away by the sheer scope and scale of it.  More on the expo later, as I’m still collecting my thoughts and sorting through pictures.

.

Hi everyone!

I’m proud to announce that the new Starcom China Blog site is now up and running.

http://www.starcomchinablog.com

I’ll be posting there from now on, so please bookmark the new site and check there from now on.

For those who have subscribed to this blog, I’m not sure if the subscriptions/new blog entry notification will carry over to the new blog, so you may have to re-subscribe.  Am trying to figure that out right now, but will post an entry about it once I have.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR; Gong Xi Fa Cai; Kung Hei Fat Choy!

This is going to be a great year of the Tiger – wishing you all health, love, happiness and prosperity!

Warmest regards,
Angie

Let’s talk about our Chinese Youth!

When it comes to purchasing power, Chinese youth wield a great chunk of it. Consider this: China’s Gen Y consists of over 200 million individuals between the ages of 15 – 25.

In fact, an astounding 420 million are 25 years old or under (a number that exceeds the entire population of the United States), and studies have repeatedly shown that these youth consume and / or directly influence 50% or more of the family expenditure in many major Chinese cities.

They are the first generation experiencing modern China, a vastly consumerist society in which many of the old lessons around modesty and conformity no longer apply. Unsurprisingly, both multinationals and local companies alike have woken up to this and are now trying to better understand just what makes these guys tick.

Indeed, a small sub-segment of today’s Chinese youth are themselves trying to rectify the dissonance they feel between who they are inside vs. what is expected of them from family/society by “breaking free” and embarking on their own path in the arts, music, or extreme sports for example. And whilst they remain the minority, what is not yet clear is how big these tribes will become or how much they will affect the wider youth mass.

… please read the rest of the article by clicking to Marketing‘s website here or here .

Now before I dive into that, a bit of trivia about Google (since we’re on the topic):
What was the ORIGINAL name for Google?
Guess!
Okay, you probably won’t be able to guess, but it was “BackRub”!!!
Are you cringing?  I’m cringing.
Especially since “google” has now become a verb.

Imagine this conversation:
Me: Sooo what are you doing?
You: Oh, nothing much.  I’m just backrubbing all my old college classmates and seeing what they’re up to now.
Me: Ewwwwwww.

<End Trivia>

So back to Google Extensions.  Now Google loves to make things easier for us (and more fun too!)  and now they’ve introduced extensions that you can install (easily with the click of one button) onto your computer.  Check it out here.
I’ve read a bunch.  There’s even an extension that enables you to pull a prank on a friend by turning the entire page upside-down!  So far, I’ve installed a translator and an image editor.

Let’s talk about the page translator.  Wow, incredible – especially since I do research on China and many pages are WRITTEN in Chinese!   So when on a Chinese site, all I need to do is click one button and the entire page will be translated into my language of choice.

Take renren.com for example (this is a Chinese social networking site).
This page looks like this:

After I use the nifty Google Translator Extension (located at the top of the page, as you can see), it looks like this:

Whooooa I can read it directly on my screen and I no longer have to open a separate translation page and put in the site URL and wait for the translation.  This is pretty darn convenient.

There are a whole bunch of other extensions I’m itching to install (am definitely going to install the upside-down prank extension hehe).

Stuff for Marketers to think about:

So it appears that online companies and sites are getting involved and building their own branded extensions, such as the Amazon Wish List, TIME, ESPN, eBay … my my, now here’s another something for brands to jump on board.

I suspect it will become akin to Apple iPhone applications, where brands were/are clamoring to produce great and useful applications for mobile users in order to have their name front and centre on iPhones everywhere.
Now, they get to produce useful extensions for personal computers everywhere.  Surely this will be the next big things for marketers. Amazon’s extension was only released beginning of January 2010, but already they have 52,649 users.

So, let the branded Google Extension battle begin!
(also, if you stumble across any really neat ones, please let me know!)

]]> http://starcomchina.wordpress.com/2010/01/27/since-sliced-bread/feed/ 0 Angie @ Starcom China googletranslate renren_ch renren_eng http://starcomchina.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/happiness-in-giving/ http://starcomchina.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/happiness-in-giving/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:11:54 +0000 starcomchina http://starcomchina.wordpress.com/?p=215 Continue reading →]]> This post is not China-specific, but relevant to all and everyone.  I read an article today from the New York Times titled “What Could You Live Without?”  Here’s a summary of it:

In 2006, a father was driving with his daughter and pulled up at a red light.  The car next to them was a brand new, shiny black Mercedes coupe.  On their other side was a homeless man begging for food.

The young daughter was distraught.  If the man with the Mercedes drove a slightly less nice car, the homeless man could have a meal, she insisted.  She continued to pester this point to her parents until her exasperated mom said: “What do you want US to do about it?  Sell our house?!”

Yes!  Said the daughter.

And after much begging (from the daughter) and careful consideration (from the parents), they sold their luxurious house and donated HALF of the proceeds ($800,000 USD) to the Hunger Project, a charity dedicated to tackling world poverty, to sponsor health, microfinancing, food and other programs for 40 villages in Ghana.

The father goes on to say that instead of feeling the loss of their big house, a smaller space actually brought the family together as there was less space to retreat, creating a more family-friendly environment.

At a time like this, with the destruction in Haiti overwhelming, this article was like a breath of fresh air – inspiring.

The article also pointed out the additional benefit that being altruistic brought on: Happiness.

According to Dr. Jorge Moll of the National Institutes of Health, when a research subject was encouraged to think of giving money to a charity, parts of the brain lit up that are normally associated with selfish pleasures like eating or sex.

Which, to put it in the simplest of terms… being altruistic makes you happy  :)
I found this to be extremely interesting; that it is actually difficult for humans to be truly selfless, for even when doing selfless acts like giving to charity, it actually makes the person feel good! – for to be truly selfless, one should receive no reward for their actions.

Happiness is a complex emotion and there have been countless studies dedicated to it.  Studies have found there to be no happiness bias.  Men are not happier than women, beautiful people are not happier than ugly people, nor are rich people compared to those of more modest means.  Young people are not happier either, nor are people living in sunny climates.

What it is are relationships.  Human interactions.  Feeling like you are making a difference in the lives of others.  Finding a positive meaning and purpose to life.  And what better than to help a worthwhile cause, even from halfway across the world and even if only from the comforts of your living room.

Please open your heart to Haiti … and continue to do so, now and in the future, to all those in the world in need of help.  You’re not only doing it for them but, if we’re honest, we’re doing it for ourselves too.  For their happiness, and for our own.

CARE is doing great things right now.  Check them out here

A study conducted by the University of Glasgow suggests that people from different cultures read facial expressions differently.  Using eye movement trackers, they noticed that East Asian participants in the study focused mostly on the eyes, whereas those from the West scanned the whole face.  The East Asian participants were more likely to read “fear” as “surprise” and “disgust” as “anger”.

When you think about it even in internet-terms, emoticons are indeed different in the Western world versus in Asia.  Take for example…

Happiness
In the West, the happy face would look like this –>  :-)
But in Asia, the happy face looks like this –> (^_^)

There’s such a marked difference between the two.  In the Asian version, the eyes are up and squinting happily… and one can tell that this means happiness, despite the neutral mouth.  Versus the Western version where the eyes are neutral, but the mouth is the main focus.

Take a look at these other examples:

Sadness
In the West –>  :-(
In Asia, the eyes are tearing –> (;_;) or (T_T)
(both the above depict tears falling from the eyes)

Surprise or shock
In the West –>  :-o
In Asia –> (o.o)

Perhaps this innate focus on the eyes is why these Chinese youth are paying so much attention to them and are trying to make them as big and as expressive as possible.  Perhaps it is also why the Japanese created anime characters with eyes that take up almost half their faces, but coupled with the tinniest, simplest of mouths… (see below!)

In any case (and as I’m sure you already know) it is just good to be aware, when conducting business overseas, or just interacting with others from different countries, that the differences in cultural interaction can be extremely subtle and that what you may perceive as one expression or emotion may not actually be so.

See the girl below… just a little bit scary-looking if you ask me.

Turns out that it is all the rage to have big anime-like eyes… and this can be achieved though contact lenses that are heavily tinted beyond the normal rim of your eye to create the appearance of bigger eyes.  Chinese teens are now able to choose from a variety of different colours (to match their outfits!).  Even an all-black eye is popular, as it makes the wearer look like a doll (sort of like the girl above, I suppose.  Is it just me, or do you find her a bit creepy too?)

Check out this site for more pictures of the offerings.  Ooor for you adventurous anime-loving types, check out this site to place an order!

Really does make a difference doesn’t it?

Here’s one more pic for the road =)

I did some searches into this and learned about a whole group of youth called Fei Zhu Liu, which when translated means “non-mainstream”.  I suppose this movement started off as small groups of Chinese youth discontent with the status quo and wanting to stand out.  However, the more I observed and read about them, the more it appears that this has slowly inched towards mainstream. Will this counter-culture movement need to become more extreme in order for the hardcore FZL’s (the term is abbreviated when discussed online) to continue to stand out?

After a frenzied and valiant search for an official definition of FZL (there really isn’t an official one), scouring madly though message boards and forums and blogs, I have learned that FZL’s are a mix of of Hime, Ulzzang and Scene.

Don’t worry if you don’t understand the above definition whatsoever.  That’s what I’m here for!

Definition-Time!

Hime: The Japanese word for princess or a lady of higher birth.
Ulzzang: Is a Korean phrase for “best” & “face”.  The basic meaning is to describe people who look good – naturally or with the use of programs such as Photoshop or Haduri.
Haduri:  Haduri is a Korean software/webcam program that lets the user take pictures of themselves and modify these pictures with special effects to make them look better/cuter.
Scene: This is a culture made mostly of teenagers and can be compared to the “emo” culture,  a culture derived to reject the “norm”.   Scene kids may listen to alternative, Indie or more underground music.  In general, they tend to look “tough” and “hardcore”, with dark clothes, heavy eye-makeup, choppy hair, tight jeans.

I had no idea what any of these words meant either!  But now that I know, it’s so interesting!
AND I might have to check out that Haduri software they all appear to be using to take/modify their glamour shots.  If I ever figure out how it works, I’ll post up some pics =)

Here are more shots of Chinese FZL kids:

It has been awhile hasn’t it?  I’ve been a bit negligent in my blogging, as I was in Beijing and Shanghai over the holidays. Yes – it was frigid.  Even 3 layers of pants and 6 tops (+ a coat, scarf, hat, and mitts) couldn’t keep out the bitter cold.  I guess I have been spoiled by HK’s mild weather.

Part of my travelling duty was to observe.  The culture, the youth, the trends… to hang out in places youth hang.  To spot out new things they wear, fun places they go, things they eat… to be one of them, talk with them, dance with them, sing with them… yea, it’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it!

It was a lot of fun and eye-opening.  Throughout the month of January, I’ll be placing greater focus on blogging about China’s youth and discussing my observations and thoughts.  Feel free to jump in and ask questions, or to leave comments about your own observations.  If you’d like to contact me directly, please do so at angie.chan@hk.starcommedia.com.

Today, the trend I’d like to chat about is … boardgames.

It is at this point in which my North American readers are raising an eyebrow and thinking: ‘What?!  I’ve been playing boardgames since I could walk!’

It is true that boardgames is old news everywhere else in the world, but in China, the craze is only now beginning.

In Shanghai, I attended the ’2009 Eastern China Boardgame Convention’, held in a warehouse type space on Hua Yuan Lu.  Inside, there were game upon game set up with young players crowded in groups around each table.  Some were crowding to see and to get in on the action, while others were trying to stay warm (there was no heat in the great big warehouse and it was cccold!)

I was able to speak with the event organizer, Tate Wu, who was patient enough to give me a whole rundown on the boardgaming industry in China.

Gamers congregate in cafes, akin to internet cafes.  They are able to rent boardgames per hour, while also ordering food and beverages.  It is fascinating that only 2 years ago, there were a scant 5 boardgame cafes in China. Today, there are over 600.

The average ages of boardgame players in China is 20 years old.  This is incredibly young compared to 30 in Taiwan and 40 in Europe.  Boardgame cafes usually attract a mix of males and females, usually friends, but there are many who go with an open mind to meet other boardgame aficionados and to make new friends.  According to a boardgame blog, the most popular boardgames in China today include Settlers of Catan, Killers of Three Kingdoms, Monopoly and Carcassonne.

Boardgames had never before been popular in China, as there are several key reasons it is difficult for youth to play at home:

• The one child policy (and therefore, no siblings to play with!)
• Small house sizes deter inviting people over.
• Costly – especially because the majority of games are imported, as China did not produce their own games (though they have since started to enter the boardgame industry with Chinese-designed and produced boardgames).

The single child  insight is especially interesting and not something people from other countries with siblings would even think about.  This also explains China’s immense online gaming craze for fantasy and situational games such as World of Warcraft, as online games can played alone (though there is a great deal of player-to-player interaction online).

There are many marketing implications for this exciting trend.  Boardgames in China are still relatively underground and is not associated with any kind of brand sponsorship.   For example, Li Ning had jumped aboard the outdoor fitness and running trend when they sponsored the Lining Evening Fun Run in Beijing last summer.  They created an entire experience including free concerts by popular local bands along the way, contests, games, cool giveaways, shoe demonstrations and running tips and tricks, turning a several kilometer run into a huge social event for youth – especially since it was held in the evening, giving it a cool and edgy vibe.

It is still a relatively new trend, but with such strong (and growing) enthusiasm for boardgames, it will be interesting to keep an eye on it’s growth and on whether marketers will be able to tap into this trend in a way that is relevant to youth.

Those who know me will know that when I like something, I’m pretty outspoken about it.  I love Coke Zero and I probably have one every day.  I love Subway sandwiches (and I probably have one of those every day too!)  I love books.  I love hoodies (you know those zippy sweatshirts).  I love Google.  My boss would call me a “Brand Siren”, one of those super-influencers who “siren” their brand love to others.  We’ve done a whole bunch of fascinating studies on Chinese Brand Sirens – who they talk to, what they talk about, how they get their information across to others.  Really neat stuff.  I’ll save that for a rainy day blog entry because I can go on forever about how cool Brand Sirens are.

So back to Google and why their innovation always leaves me in awe.

As you are all aware, Google reinvented free webmail with Gmail.  Launched to the general public only in 2007 (though their beta version came out in ’04), most people can’t imagine email without it (or maybe that’s just me!)  They were the first to introduce the “Search” option within the account and the easy-to-read email threads.  They have since added in other cool options via Google Labs.  Google chat, drag and drop features, “undo” feature (as they said, for those intoxicated “drunk emailing” nights.  You know you’re technology-driven when you graduate from drunk dialing to drunk emailing!), Google mobile, themes, etc etc.

Now, they’ve got Google Wave, which allows for easy file, information sharing with others.  I’m testing out the Beta version right and and so far, I can see many uses for it.  Although one thing it’s lacking is a shared calendar option, so fingers crossed they read the email of suggestions I sent in and creates one!

Okay that’s all already old stuff.  Google is launching a whole slew of new tools that will strengthen it’s online search relevance.  We all know the power of social media, with familiar names like Facebook and Twitter.  Those turning a blind eye to social media are, well, blind to it’s power and influence.  But Google, the clever kids they are, have embraced social media and are incorporating it into their search function.  So no longer will there only be websites and articles in the results, but real time Tweets, MySpace, and Facebook updates.  Why is this important?  Well, one reason people Tweet is because they like hearing news first.  They get instant breaking news stories from their wide network of contacts instead of waiting for news to hit traditional media or make it onto traditional searches.  Now, Google users will also get the newest stories immediately as they appear.  Neat-0.

See image below, where you can see “breaking news” found from Twitter:

“Google Googles”
So real-time searches is one of the newbies Google is introducing.  The other one is an innovation that involves an augmented reality application.  Remember augmented reality?  I blogged about it earlier – click here for a refresher.

Called Google Googles, this functions on their Android mobile-operating system platform and what I liken it to is a turbo-Wikipedia.  So instead of typing in your search query in Wikipedia and getting the info, all you have to do is take a PICTURE of  your search query and those rascals at Google will tell you what it is by identifying it using vision algorithms (yeah, I don’t know how that works either) and matching it up against an index containing a billion images, and give you all you need to know.  You can do this with books, wine labels, products, pieces of artwork… I guess the sky really is the limit (e.g. take picture of sky… Google goes: Blue, clouds, temperature for today is 27 degrees, wind resistance is…)
But imagine taking a photo of a cool piece of art I see and Google telling me what it is.  It’s kind of like Apple’s iPhone application that identifies songs and artists by “hearing” it (see, I thought THAT was cool when it came out), or Benjamin Moore’s mobile application where you can take a picture of any colour and they will tell you which paint number that is, or make it if there is no such shade in their system.

And you know this is only the beginning for those guys over in Mountain View, Cali.  I sound like a love-sick puppy, but I hafta say… I’m kinda excited to see what they’ll come up with next.

]]> http://starcomchina.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/new-stuff-from-google/feed/ 0 Angie @ Starcom China google search