By Shaun Rein
This commentary is based on an article appeared in Forbes 

While massive amounts of money is being spent on marketing in the run-up to the Olympics to capture China 250 million strong emerging middle class, unfortunately most marketing campaigns are failing to deliver the results that the sponsors like Coca-Cola or Adidas were hoping for. My latest piece looks at the effectiveness of Olympics sponsorship and whether or not it is helping companies win the hearts, minds, and wallets of China’s middle class. Some of the results were surprising:
 
1) the vast majority of respondents said that they did not care who the official sponsor was when trying to make a purchase and in most categories people had little idea who the official sponsor was. Instead, consumers were more concerned with the quality and safety of the product and how the brand image fit with their lifestyle. Read the rest of “Beijing Olympic Sponsorship’s A Waste” or post a comment

The subprime debacle has rattled retail sales in the U.S., forcing many companies to downgrade sales estimates as consumers shy away from checkout counters. Luxury retailers and credit-card companies in the U.S. have recently reported bearish projections for the coming quarters.

China, however, is a retail market on the rise. In 2007 China posted 17% growth in retail spending.

Read the rest of “China’s Rising Retail Market” or post a comment >>

Chinese market has been a highly preferred market for many organisations worldwide in the past twenty years. However, it is not an easy market to penetrate. Australian companies are among those Europeans and Americans who have been tackling the market with little positive results. One primary reason is that they do not appreciate the important role and impact of Chinese culture.

Read the rest of “The Impact of cultural difference when entering the Chinese market” or post a comment >>

Most of the commentary on the Shanghai market depicts the average Chinese investor as unknowledgeable and following the herd. However, a recent study that we’ve (kapronasia) just completed with Amber shows that individual Shanghai A-share investors are actually much more market savvy than commonly thought.

Read the rest of “Betting on the Dragon: Chinese investor behaviour” or post a comment >>

Having a meaningful footprint in China has become a strategic imperative for multinational companies from around the world. The attraction is China’s seemingly insatiable demand for products, services, capital and technology. George D. Martin, partner and chair of the Faegre & Benson China Practice, sees the current acquisition boom in China as the logical culmination of foreign investment trends that he first observed when practicing in Shanghai in the mid-1990s. Martin expects this M&A trend to continue. But in the years to come, he advises, it won’t be just foreign companies on the buy-side of cross-border M&A deals involving China.

Read the rest of “Dealmaking in China: Getting In on the Action” or post a comment >>