Showing posts with label entertainment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label entertainment. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Distribution: key for the entertainment industry - Jeffrey Towson

Jeffrey Towson
Tencent, Alibaba and Wanda are trying to gain dominance in the entertainment sector. Getting hold of the distribution is one of the key points the winner needs to get right, says Beida business professor Jeffrey Towson on his weblog.

Jeffrey Towson:
Today in China, we can see a lot of players scrambling for dominance in distribution on a changing landscape. This is the clearer path. Broadcast TV is a focus but few licenses are available and this is State controlled. There are certainly lots of DVDs on street corners and pirated downloads, but nobody really controls any of this. 
So much of the focus has been on achieving dominance in cinemas (thus far) – and the release windows for films within these cinemas. Wanda has taken this approach the most aggressively – including internationally with their purchases of AMC Theaters in the USA, Odeon-UCI in Europe and now Nordic Cinema Group in Scandinavia. Wanda Chairman Wang Jianlin has said his goal is to own 20% of the world’s movie screens. 
Outside of cinemas, much of the focus in China is now on online video and streaming. It’s an emerging area where Alibaba, Tencent and a few others are doing an aggressive push into a still grey regulatory area. Note: typically what happens is the regulations are eventually clarified and the market leaders are grandfathered in. But online video and streaming is really the area to watch in 2017.
Much more on Jeffrey Towson's weblog.

Jeffrey Towson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more strategy experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

How China´s media became a winner, against all odds - Tom Doctoroff

Tom Doctoroff
Tom Doctoroff
China´s media and entertainment industry has long been watched with pity: boring, curtailed by the Communist Party and part of moribund state-owned molochs. But China veteran Tom Doctoroff discovered this observation needs urgent correction and he tells in the Huffington Post how the industry became a winner.

Tom Doctoroff:
Despite financial and cultural headwinds, however, several factors merit optimism.
First, the Mainland market is both gigantic. As Oriental DreamWorks’ James Fong puts it, “In China, niche is mass.” After decades of limited diversion options, the new middle class, now 300 million strong, is clamoring for choice. The Communist Party seems more open to foreign investment in entertainment companies than “strategic” sectors such as health care, education and financial services.
Shanghai Disney’s Magical Kingdom, now in the middle of a soft launch, is already drawing huge crowds. Under the watchful eye of municipal cadres, the park has been designed with Chinese characteristics. Main Street USA and Space Mountain are out. The Wandering Moon Teahouse and a vast central garden aimed at older visitors, are in. In partnership with Li RuiGang, the well-connected former CEO of the Shanghai Media Group, Oriental DreamWorks will open the Dream Center, a five million square foot entertainment complex, on Shanghai’s South Bund. Attractions will include a Broadway musical theater, a stadium for concerts and sporting events, a Lego Discovery Center, several art galleries and a next-generation Apple store.
Second, China’s mass market is apolitical, unbothered by censorship regulations. Most folks are eager to take a break from the stresses of modern life and like light-hearted fare. Big hits such as Goodbye, Mr. Loser, Tiny Times, Lost in Thailand and Pancake Man are irreverent comedies that depict a regular guy striking it rich or getting the girl.
Third, a dynamic, expressive online creative community has blossomed. It is only a matter of time before internet celebrities become creative forces, both on- and offline.
Chinese story telling skills are evolving quickly. Web series such as Go Princess Go, Surprise S1 and Year Hare Affair are hugely popular. Writer Chai JiDan’s Heroin, China’s first gay-themed internet series, was so popular during 2016 Chinese New Year that it was quickly banned by SARFT, the government arm responsible for enforcing film, television and content regulations.
Tang Jia Shan Shao is the king of web novel. (In 2014, he received royalties of more than RMB 50 million.) He harnesses the immediacy and speed of the online universe. Although he bases his novel on classical stories, he creates fresh characters, coins new words and provides continuous updates for fans addicted to his work. Mr. Tang is not alone. Digital platforms such as Douban - a quintessentially Chinese fusion of Amazon, IMDB and Facebook - allow artists of all stripes to congregate as a virtual community and attract a mass following.
Fourth, e-commerce presents opportunities to experiment with new monetization models. Online shopping is instant for consumers and cheap for companies. Content-hungry consumers do not drive to DVD stores to buy a Toy Story video game or the Frozen sound track. The ubiquity of mobile phones eliminates set up costs and lowers incremental cost per unit sold. Marketers also anticipate convergence of online and offline properties. IP-based content, easier to enforce online than offline, will drive offline merchandising, and vice versa.
China’s infatuation with digital transactions is difficult to overstate. In 2016, the country is projected to spend $911 billion dollars online, or almost 20% of total retail sales. The United States will spend only $384 billion. Meanwhile, per capita in China income is only 14% of America’s.
More in the Huffington Post.

Tom Doctoroff is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch fons.tuinstra@china-speakers-bureau.comor fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking more more media experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

Monday, August 03, 2015

Strategies to survive the anti-corruption drive - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf
Rupert Hoogewerf
The anti-corruption campaign by President Xi Jinping has hit entertainment and the gift industry hard over the past years, tells Hurun Rich List founder Rupert Hoogewerf in the Financial Review and details the fallout.  “We have seen the emergence of the so-called affordable luxury brands like Coach or Michael Kors."

The Financial Review:
Rupert Hoogewerf, publisher of the Hurun Report, which chronicles the lives and spending patterns of China’s wealthy and is best known for its annual rich list, estimates the money doled out for gifts has fallen 30 per cent over the past two years. “The biggest impact of the corruption crackdown has been on the gifting and entertainment industry,” he says. 
As officials reined in their travel and spending, star-rated hotels across the country began to suffer. After reporting a combined profit for 2012 of 5 billion yuan, hotels saw their income tumble into negative territory just a year later, with a 2.1 billion yuan loss, according to the China Tourism Academy. Remarkably, some hotels even sought to lose a star so they could meet the strict new accommodation guidelines of government departments.... 
Companies are already responding. Casinos, luxury goods retailers, hotels and restaurants are all shaping their business strategies around a new type of consumer, the “premium mass-market” one. “We have seen the emergence of the so-called affordable luxury brands like Coach or Michael Kors,” says Hoogewerf. “These brands have seen huge growth.” 
Those at the higher end are also adapting. Earlier this year, Chanel surprised the Chinese market, reducing prices by more than 20 per cent on three of its most popular bags. It became the first big luxury brand to standardise prices between Europe and Asia, citing a weak euro, which had exacerbated the already sizeable price difference for those markets. The Chanel move was quickly followed by Gucci and watchmakers Patek Philippe and Tag Heuer. None of them used the word “discount”. For Gucci it was about running down old stock, while the others used words like “price-equalisation”.
More in the Financial Review.

Rupert Hoogewerf is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Are you interested in more stories by Rupert Hoogewerf? Do check out this list.  

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Entertainment will be leading wealth creation - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert HoogewerfHurun by Fantake via Flickr
Now real estate and the retail industry might be calling the shots, in ten years time entertainment will be leading in wealth creation, said Hurun or Rupert Hoogewerf at the presentation of the first Hurun rich list for the entertainment industry, according to the People's Daily.
The Tencent Company, which is headed by Ma Huateng, topped the 2010 Hurun Rich List of the Entertainment Industry. Ma's personal fortune is around 23 billion yuan. The NetEase Company, headed by Ding Lei, ranked second on the list, and Ding's personal fortune totals around 14.5 billion yuan. 
Third place was held by the Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited (SNDA). The company is headed by Chen Tianqiao, whose personal fortune is around 10.5 billion yuan.
Because the instant messaging tools of the Tencent Company captured the Chinese market early on, their market value has reached up to 233.5 billion yuan. According to Hurun, the bulk of Tencent’s profit comes from young Chinese netizens...
The online gaming industry creates the most magnates in the entertainment industry. There were 20 people from the online gaming industry on the list. Rupert Hoogewerf, publisher of the Hurun Rich List and principal investigator, also indicated that the entertainment industry should create the most wealth of any industry within 10 years.
The standard for the Hurun Rich List of the Entertainment Industry is that those on the list should have at least 1 billion yuan and the average wealth was 4.53 billion yuan. For the Hurun Rich List 2010, the threshold was 600 million yuan.
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Rupert Hoogewerf is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.