How brands can deal with the new e-commerce landscape in 2023 – Ashley Dudarenok

 

Ashley Dudarenok

China’s e-commerce landscape is changing fast and branding expert Ashley Dudarenok explains how brands can deal with the new big five: Alibaba, JD, Pinduoduo, Douyin, WeChat, for Technode. Here are her top-5 tips.

Ashley Dudarenok:

1. Adopting an overall e-commerce strategy and repositioning flagship stores on Douyin and Pinduoduo

E-commerce platforms need to adopt a comprehensive layout and reposition their flagship stores on Douyin and Pinduoduo. Douyin is focusing on developing its digital shelf e-commerce, while Pinduoduo is leveraging its advantage in high-frequency consumer goods categories to become a comprehensive platform that meets diverse needs. For brands, as the digital shelf e-commerce landscape becomes evenly matched, Douyin/Pinduoduo flagship stores will play an equally important role as their Tmall/JD flagship stores.

2. Building a stronger cross-platform synergy and seizing the opportunity to enhance bargaining power with e-commerce platforms

As e-commerce platforms become increasingly mature, the overlap of their consumer groups will inevitably continue to increase, making it more difficult to expand user increment. However, it is a good opportunity for brands to increase their bargaining chip with e-commerce platforms in terms of traffic, product promotion, and consumer data transparency. Stronger cross-platform collaboration between brand and e-commerce platforms is worth exploring on both sides, especially in category differentiation, pricing, and promotion.

3. Reducing the reliance on livestream e-commerce influencers and strengthening content co-creation

The role of e-commerce live streaming, especially influencer live streaming, in “transactions” will be further weakened. Most influencers may find that selling standard or common products are losing their appeal to the public. Influencer live streaming will reach a critical crossroads, and influencers will need to attract consumers through better content. Currently, “selling-only” influencers who lack content will lose their competitiveness and gradually be phased out. Patterns may emerge where common goods are sold more through digital shelf e-commerce and influencers will focus on more niche products with strong digital content potential like trendy goods.

4. Developing innovative supply chain solutions

Innovative supply chain solutions such as direct sourcing and supply chain financing can help brands reduce costs and improve efficiency. Brands need to optimize their organizational structure, develop cross-platform e-commerce capabilities, accumulate universal key capabilities to support multi-platform development, and lay a foundation for other e-commerce models with future development potential, such as instant retail.

5. Improving consumer experience through data analytics and personalized marketing

Brands need to use data analytics and personalized marketing to improve the consumer experience. It can help brands better understand consumer behavior and preferences, and provide tailored products and services to meet their needs. With the convergence of platform models, the profit levels of brand flagship stores on various platforms are expected to gradually converge. In order to improve efficiency, brands need to optimize their organizational structure, develop cross-platform e-commerce capabilities, accumulate universal key capabilities to support multi-platform development, and lay a foundation for other e-commerce models with future development potential, such as instant retail.

More in Technode.

Ashley Dudarenok is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

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Change in China, AI, social media and business – Ashley Dudarenok

 

Ashley Dudarenok (right)

Marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok discusses change in China and her career in the world’s fastest-moving economy with Greg Mustreader.

Ashley Dudarenok is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

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

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You do not need to be on all 60+ social media platforms in China – Ashley Dudarenok

 

Ashley Dudarenok

Entering the China market means you have to be extremely active on social media, says marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok, although you do not need to be on all 60+ media platforms, she adds.

Ashley Dudarenok is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference to explain what social media platform you do need, do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

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

How China’s social media differ from the West – Arnold Ma

Arnold Ma

Marketing expert Arnold Ma of Qumin joins a panel explaining why social media in China fundamentally differ from those in the West, and (later) why China will lead the future path for new social media innovations in the rest of the world.

Arnold Ma is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

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In China social media and e-commerce are merging into one – Ashley Dudarenok

 

Ashley Dudarenok

The main difference with the rest of the world is that in China social media and e-commerce merged into platforms, says China marketing guru Ashley Dudarenok. When you want to dive into China, you have to pick your platform and realize they are different from what you are used to, she adds. Most likely you have to pick one of them.

Ashley Dudarenok is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

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

How Cartier won China on social media – Arnold Ma

 

Arnold Ma

Luxury brand Cartier has been able to win over also the younger generations consumers in China by smart use of the country’s social media. Marketing expert Arnold Ma explains in the Jing Daily how Cartier paved its way to success.

Arnold Ma:

Cartier is an old hand in the Chinese market, having launched there in 1992. However, it has only recently embraced social media — and, more importantly, third-generation social media — in the country. This strategy can be seen in its Make Your Own Path campaign, which was released late last year to promote the brand’s new PASHA DE Cartier watches.

While luxury brands almost always try to give off an heir of exclusivity, Cartier invited everyone on Douyin to participate in its user-generated content campaign. The premise was simple: show off your dance moves in a video, apply Cartier’s special filter to it, and post it under the campaign hashtag. This simple-yet-effective campaign brought in 1.1 billion views and inspired thousands of users to boogie! Cartier even upped the ante by launching a livestreamed clubbing event by partnering with a hip-hop dance crew and the famous trap artist DJ Anti-General at a Shanghai club.

The fun, refreshing campaign smartly tapped into China’s creative consumers, club-going youth, livestream lovers, and social media content creators. Cartier also invited celebrities to participate in the campaign. As a result, the platform’s algorithm boosted the campaign widely on user feeds and generated considerable organic support.

Luxury brands: come down from your pedestal

As demonstrated by Cartier, luxury brands have to be more experimental in China to resonate with younger audiences. Brands that are creative and innovative on third-generation platforms will be rewarded by Chinese consumers via both engagement and sales. As such, now is the right time for luxury brands to be more democratic and embrace China’s newest era of social media.

Arnold Ma is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

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

How Tiktok paves the way for third gen social media - Arnold Ma

Arnold Ma

Third-generation social media are getting ready to emerge, and marketing specialist Arnold Ma explains how Tiktok - Douyin in China - is leading the way away from platforms to content-driven communication, he tells at the UK Advertising Exports Group (UKAEG) at Shanghai International Advertising Festival (SHIAF) July 2020. Will WeChat survive in the new digital revolution? How 5G will change the world.

Arnold Ma 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 marketing experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list. 

At the China Speakers Bureau, we start to organize online seminars. Are you interested in our plans? Do get in touch. 

How social media define marketing in China - Ashley Dudarenok

Ashley Dudarenok

Marketing veteran Ashley Dudarenok explains how she joined the social media bandwagon in China post-2009 for her marketing ventures, interviewed by 852 Reboot HK. With remarks on the future of Hong Kong and the fallout of the coronavirus. And why companies need at least seven business models to survive 2020.

Ashley Dudarenok is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. 
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How Douyin is undermining WeChat - Arnold Ma

Arnold Ma

Tencent's WeChat has been an unprecedented success story on the China internet. But new platforms are undermining the dominance of WeChat, says marketing expert Arnold Ma, CEO of London-based Qumin, at CBBC. Short-video medium Douyin is one of them.

CBBC:

 Anyone doing business with China in recent years has been aware of the importance of WeChat, a one-stop-shop of social media allowing chats, promotions, shopping and payments to all be done on this single platform. And its importance can’t be understated for most businesses in China. However, its popularity and prevalence has led some companies to forget everything else and replace a broad marketing plan with a simple WeChat plan. 

According to Arnold Ma of Qumin, WeChat should be regarded as more of an operating platform than a social media channel. And when it comes to social, there’s a new kid on the block. That kid is Douyin – a short video app, that was initially popularised by people lip-synching along to famous songs. Users then started showing off other talents, performing comedy sketches, and entertaining more generally; Douyin was soon mostly made up of user-generated entertainment content. 

Over a billion videos are viewed every day by the 350 million Daily Active Users on Douyin in China – not bad for a company that was developed by a team of 8 over 200 days. Today more than half of its users are under 25 years old, making it predominantly Millennials and Gen Z users who are active on the site. 

Many of the Western early social media platforms were desktop-based sites that have been adapted to mobile. But China – without a long history of desktop internet - leapt straight to mobile. It has hence been able to develop apps that are more suited to mobile, bypassing that desktop legacy that so many western sites have stuck with. Douyin’s format of videos being presented in full portrait mode (as opposed to the horizontal mode that is more suitable for desktop viewing) has really captured a youth audience who are used to swiping, scrolling and short-form content. 

Today, only 15 percent of teens now post to their WeChat moments feed says Ma. “When social media go mainstream, they lose the youth,” he explains. “We can see how Facebook lost the youth when they went from niche to mainstream and we now are seeing the same with WeChat.”

More at CBBC.

Arnold Ma 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.

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Ashley Dudarenok: top 25 Asia innovator in the Holmes Report 2019

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Marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok has been chosen by the Holmes Report as one of the top 25 Asia innovators for 2019. "Innovation starts with asking questions."

From the Holmes Report:

Ashley Galina Dudarenok has founded not just one but two consultancies focused on marketing in China. ChoZan is a social media agency while Alarice specializes in marketing training — and both outfits reflect Dudarenok’s expertise in navigating China’s famously fast-moving digital landscape. Dudarenok’s tireless entrepreneurial spirit has underpinned her progress on multiple fronts: as a member of Alibaba’s global influencer entourage and JD’s global China experts group, an Amazon bestselling author of three books, and running one of the world’s most popular China business vlogs. 

How do you define innovation? Innovation is finding a new, better way to do things. Innovation is moving forward. Innovation is life. 

What is the most innovative comms/marketing initiative you've seen in the last 12 months? Private Traffic on WeChat in China / KOC 

In your opinion, what brands and/or agencies are most innovative around PR and marketing? Durex in China is great :)

More at the Holmes Report.

Ashley Dudarenok 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 innovation experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.   

The dynamic state of the social media in 2016 - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

China´s social media have been developing fast and Sam Flemming, CEO of Kantar Media CIC, gives an update on the five most important developments for AdAge. China´s social media landscape is different from the West:  It's unique, fragmented and dynamic.

Sam Flemming:

The Chinese social media landscape moves fast – and if you haven't been paying attention closely, there's a lot you've missed. New platforms have popped up, while main players including Alibaba and Tencent have consolidated their power. In general, China's social landscape is involved in innovations in video, engagement and payment that have evolved differently and faster than anything in the West... 

The BATS, the core of China's digital and social landscape, have grown ever more powerful 

Chinese internet powerhouses Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Sina (referred to by the acronym "BATS") together have upwards of eight different social media and/or e-commerce platforms, each with hundreds of millions of active users. They are the absolute core of China's social and digital landscape because of their cumulative 2 billion users. These key players are at the heart of making the Chinese internet viral, informative and practical. Let's call that "VIP." The "I" and the "P" are particularly important in differentiating China from the rest of the world. Trusted Information in China can be scarce, while the plentiful information on social media such as news, word of mouth and rumors is often the type of content that cannot be found anywhere else, even with government regulators keeping a close watch. This makes social media more important in China than most global markets.

Four more points in AdAge.

Sam Flemming 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 internet experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

The march of WeChat, mobile and e-commerce - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming, CEO of Kantar Media CIC, is taking the pulse of the latest changes in his ten years in the industry. WeChat, mobile and e-commerce continued to explode in 2015, he writes for Ad Age. From six observations, his take on WeChat.

Sam Flemming:

WeChat continues to dominate, while its role and influence evolves 

For anyone doing anything with China or with Chinese consumers, the impact and dominance of mobile app WeChat is obvious. It is everywhere and seemingly does everything. With Whatsapp-type messaging, an addictive Facebook-like news feed called Moments, a PayPal-like wallet, mutual fund products, taxi ordering, restaurant reservations and many other built-in applications, WeChat is more than just another social platform, it is an indispensable social media Swiss army knife that melts the lines between online and offline. It's an operating system for getting things done in life. 

WeChat users' Moments content, similar to Facebook newsfeeds where consumers share content with each other, cannot currently be tracked by brands. However, WeChat public accounts managed by brands, celebrities, key opinion leaders and media, can be tracked, and they are playing an increasingly important role as a new form of owned, earned and paid media and as a place to wield influence. Just as brands, celebrities, key opinion leaders and media can have a Twitter or Facebook account, they can have a WeChat account to push out content that serves as the magazine articles for the new generation. Brands can track the owned media performance of their own and competitors' accounts. And they can track the earned and paid media performance of KOL, celebrity and media accounts to make more informed media buying and content strategy decisions.

More in Ad Age.

Sam Flemming 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 experts on e-commerce at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this recent list.   

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Consumers still pay a premium for brands - Tom Doctoroff

+Tom Doctoroff 

Some branding experts have been suggesting brand loyalty among consumers is on the decline, as they get access to more information. Shanghai-based branding expert Tom Doctoroff disagrees with the interviewer of Knowledge CKGSB. "People are still willing to pay a premium for brands."

Knowledge CKGSB:

 Q. We sometimes find that consumers are less loyal to brands. Where do you think this will leave the idea of branding? 

A. That is the $64,000 question and I wholeheartedly reject it. All you have to ask yourself is: are there still products that people are willing to pay a premium for? That premium ipso facto is loyalty. When you think about brand loyalty, and declining brand loyalty, what you’re talking about on the flip side is increased price sensitivity. So perhaps it’s true, that as consumers evolve they become less brand loyal in some sectors, but more brand loyal in other sectors, as you scale the Maslowian hierarchy of needs, a cleaning detergent could be high involvement for you when you’re relatively poor and you need clothes to shine. [But] as you move up, what you wear in terms of a brand, your car or your mobile phone becomes more high-involvement for you and more relevant to your life and you’re willing to pay a higher price premium for that. In emerging markets, you have waves of consumers entering different phases of economic development, so there will always be new consumers. With urbanization in China people are owning homes or moving to cities for the first time. So their brand choices are high involvement and then there’s loyalty. Societies are always evolving. Different segments of societies’ engagement with different types of categories is always shifting as well. Even in the US—in the recession of 1989 everybody thought that generics would take over the store. They haven’t because of the relationship that people have with categories and brands. So I don’t quite buy it, but I will say certain pockets of commoditization do occur. 

Q. Some experts are saying that people are often ‘product loyal’ rather than ‘brand loyal’ and it’s easy to confuse the two. Is that a differentiation that we need to be paying attention to? 

A. I disagree. I’m not saying that product attributes aren’t critically important. We have to define our terms: what is a brand? A brand is the role of a product in life and it is the relationship that a person has with a product. That relationship is forged through both product engagement, but also from a clear proposition that is in many cases passively received and actively defined by the manufacturer. When you are engaging with Apple, you are engaging with the Apple experience. Ultimately a brand is an experience. So if that experience is not only multidimensional, but also consistent, that experience becomes a holistic brand. Take Lego. It’s not just the fact that you have blocks that makes Lego a strong brand. It’s that you have a clearly defined brand idea, a relationship between the brand and consumer of inspiring builders of tomorrow. So every time you come into contact with that brand—whether it’s Lego Land, the Lego movie, the Lego retail experience, or the Lego toy itself—then you are reinforcing a predefined relationship. Once you start defining a brand as a relationship, you stop talking as if the product and brand can be separated. They can’t. The brand is a relationship that is an alignment of function, emotion and role in life, so that it’s all consistent. Of course if you don’t have a strong and cohesive brand, then the product becomes very important. But that [would be] a very vulnerable product because people can simply out-innovate you very quickly.

More questions in Knowledge CKGSB.

Tom Doctoroff is the author of Twitter is Not a Strategy: Rediscovering the Art of Brand Marketing and 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 media experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check our recently updated list.

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Twitter is a tool, not a strategy - Tom Doctoroff

Tom Doctoroff

Branding needs more than social media tools like Twitter or Wechat, says Shanghai-based author Tom Doctoroff of Twitter is Not a Strategy: Rediscovering the Art of Brand Marketing on his book tour. Virals on social media do not build a brand, nor sell burgers, he says.

Tom Doctoroff 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 branding experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check our latest list.

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Talking to strangers: Tricia Wang at the Berkman center

+Tricia Wang 

Young Chinese use social media to develop a new public sphere, away from the old concepts of family ties and Guanxi, argues sociologist Tricia Wang in her Phd. On February 18 she will talk about this subject at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard University. 

From the invite:

When we read about the Chinese internet in the Western press, we usually hear stories about censorship, political repression, and instability. But there's a lot more to be learned about life on the other side of “The Great Firewall.” 

Based on over 10 years of ethnographic research, Tricia Wang's fieldwork reveals that social media is creating spaces in China that are shifting norms and behaviors in unexpected ways. Most surprisingly, Chinese youth are sharing information and socializing with strangers. She argues that they are finding ways to semi-anonymously connect to each other and establish a web of casual trust that extends beyond particularistic guanxi ties and authoritarian institutions. 

Chinese youth are discovering their social world and seeking emotional connection—not political change. Tricia argues that this reflects a new form of sociality among Chinese youth: an Elastic Self. Evidence of this new self is unfolding in three ways: from self-restraint to self-expression, from comradeship to friendship, and from a “moral me” to a “moral we.” This new sociality is lying the groundwork for a public sphere to emerge from ties primarily based on friendship and interactions founded on a causal web of public trust. The changes Tricia has documented have potentially transformative power for Chinese society as a whole because they are radically altering the way that people perceive and engage with each other.

You can rsvp for the meeting at 18 February at 12:30pm ET, or follow the proceedings online. Please follow the link for the details at the Berkman site.

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

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China's unique social media landscape - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

A common mistake outside observers make is taking their own social media experience, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, as the reference point for what is happening in China. Wrong, tells CIC-president Sam Flemming in China Innovation. China has a unique social media landscape.

Sam Flemming:

I think the first thing you have to understand about Chinese social media is that it is not new. Before Facebook, before MySpace in the West, they had these things called BBS which is the equivalent of forums or message boards and the BBS sites have always been very mainstream – it’s been a place where netizens in China would go to get the latest information about cars, cosmetics etc. particularly high quality products. These forums have always been very important in China. In the past few years we have had the launch of Weibo – a mircoblog that is similar to a Twitter that has exploded. (There are 400 million people on Weibo) Most recently you have something called WeChat which was launched by Tencent which in the past 2 years or so has only got 300 million users and is continuing to grow like crazy. I think the challenge for Americans/Westerners coming into China is that China is a very unique social media environment – we know the players that are popular in the west (Facebook or Twitter) – but in China there are unique fragmented players, there isn’t one dominant platform, there are multiple popular platforms which are dynamic. Netizens are also more active on social media in China but the media landscape is ever evolving and I think WeChat is case in point with that. Just 2 years ago, it wasn’t even on the map and now it has 300 million users. Unique, fragmented and dynamic are the key words!

More in China Innovation.

Sam Flemming 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.

China tries to limit access to the free internet. Internet users in China try to circumvent those filters, using VPN's, but China's censors are fighting a cat-and-mouse game, trying to close those loopholes. The China Weekly Hangout discussed in December 2012 the state of the VPN's in China with  Sam Xu, John R. Otto, Gabriel Rueck and Fons Tuinstra.

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How to get your ROI on social media - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

Companies have started to invest heavily in social media, including mobile application. But the results are often disappointing, tells William Bao Bean in this presentation on ROI on social media. Understanding your customers, and their differences, is more important than getting tools in place.

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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