Warc, 5 August 2013
BEIJING: Companies like Philips, Visa and Anheuser-Busch
InBev are taking a consumer-led approach to innovation in China, reflecting the
challenges and opportunities characterising the market.
Greg Paull and Goh ShuFen, of consultancy R3, interviewed 17
leading marketers for a new book, China CMO: Best Practices in Marketing
Effectiveness and Efficiency in the Middle Kingdom.
"There's a lot of noise when you're in China,
regardless of what company you're in," Marie Han Silloway, chief marketing
officer of coffee chain Starbucks, told them, as reported by Campaign Asia.
"For us, there may be global initiatives we must
consider - a new food regulation, or a government changeover - so we have to be
very agile in that respect. But we also have to be very focused by asking,
'What is our North Star that we are ultimately working towards?'"
Philips, the Dutch conglomerate, attempts to answer this
question based on a consumer-centric model, rather than letting technology
alone determine its choices.
"We call it innovation that matters," said
Lawrence He, marketing director, Philips China Investment. "In our
research lab, there are lots of great ideas. But the question is: do they
matter?"
Insights are also vital for Rex Wong, VP, marketing, at
brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev China. "When we came here, we looked at the
research to decipher what the value sets in China are, and what Chinese people
think," he said.
Taking a long-term perspective is equally important, given
the megatrends - from urbanisation to the ageing of the population - that are
reshaping Chinese society.
"From top to bottom in Visa, everybody is trying to
think about how we can lead the payment category for the next 50 or 100
years," said Vivian Pan, chief marketing officer, Greater China, at Visa,
the financial services provider.
Despite this, it is still possible to create new categories
in China, where habits are changing fast. Nestlé opened a coffee-growing
operation in Yunnan two decades ago, and has reaped considerable benefits
since.
"We had a 20-year head start to do that ahead of our
competitors," said Paolo Mercado, head of marketing and consumer
communication, Greater China, at Nestlé. "Nescafé is really a flagship in
terms of embedding a foreign product into the Chinese market."
Data sourced from Campaign Asia; additional content by Warc
staff
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