Feb 07
15
The China Media Industry / Reaching the Chinese Consumer.
The <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />China Media Industry / Reaching the Chinese Consumer.
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China’s sustained economic development is probably the greatest driving force of the advertising market. As the country develops, its citizens will have a better standard of living, and hence consumers are more willing to spend on goods and services. This is especially true for the top tier market. Competition among firms becomes more aggressive as they attempt to reach out to more people in mainland China and also as they move into the second and third tier markets.
All these account for the expansion of this industry as the media, advertising agencies and companies vie for consumer’s attention. But what makes this market unique is the expansion of its media channels and also the extremely huge and diverse population.
Currently there are about 300 TV stations, around 230 radio stations, more than 8000 magazines and over 200 newspaper titles, all catering to 1.3 billion consumers. One of the biggest issues in the advertising world would then be how to ensure your advertising message is able to reach your target audience?
Another concern is the extremely diverse lifestyles of consumers, across the different regions. Their level of media sophistication and the kind of marketing exposure that they are used to will impact the way clients and media agencies position their advertising messages.
In this light traditional media executives are finding their experience less than germane as the media platform itself becomes more central to most advertising clients.
In fact the medium (being the message) is now being placed in the center as opposed to the creative aspect as in days passed. This is driven by the fact that audiences have more media choices and less time with those individual media, this juxtaposed with the traditional media having a less hold over consumers tastes and the Chinese consumers unique relationship they’ve developed with the internet in particular internet on mobile phones – which derives from their less openly expressive nature and the state censorship legacy.
They are highly opinionated and individualistic but express this obliquely and surreptitiously. China now has a 14.2 million-site “blogosphere,” with a new blog, or Web log, created every second, according to Technorati.
Blogging in China is a place to have freedom of speech in a country that doesn’t permit it in the mainstream media – Blogs Are Revolutionary Tool of Opinion!
In China blogs are more lifestyle/entertainment oriented. But Chinese bloggers are more willing to express themselves than American bloggers, as the blog serves as a platform to seed seemingly mundane banal social lifestyle issues with political comment – think ‘Chinese Whispers’ goes blog, and you get the idea.
Check out http://www.chinabloglist.org/ a collection of links to English language blogs focused on China.
Agencies are now looking to recruit those with china experience and technology experience first and old-school media know how further down the list – why hire 10 years of creative media experience that is now redundant they say.
McCann Erickson Beijing, have said that with the creative aspect in China being ‘not very mature’ the best course of action is to hire old china-hand and technology experience.
The priority is media relevance which is more technology and software related than creativity – this fuelled by the ‘Me the Media’ generation where anyone can be a media mogul and creator of content. In the last 3 years TV media has accounted for the bulk of advertising spend, YOY at 25% to reach U$19billion – print media was next YOY 27% to reach U$6billion.
Shooting the messenger is ok in China. Beware the advertising message, in China one needs to be ultra sensitive to the nuances that advertisements might carry. In December 2003, Japanese car maker Toyota formally apologized to the Chinese community for running ads of the Toyota’s Prado GX and Land Cruiser. One ad featured traditional Chinese-styled stone lions – a symbol of Chinese power – bowing to a moving Prado GX. Another depicted a Land Cruiser towing an old Chinese-made truck along a bumpy road.
Just last year McDonald’s website was attacked and its China home page defaced. In its place was an image of a skull with the words “Chinese Hacker”. The incident was widely covered in various newspapers.
China Daily said the incident was believed to have resulted as McDonald’s English-language homepage included Taiwan on its “select country/market” drop down menu. About a month ago another controversy took place.
People’s Daily reported that Nike’s “Chamber of Fear” ad was banned in China. The ad featured NBA star LeBron James slaying a pair of dragons and defeating a kung fu master. The ban was issued by Chinas State Administration for Radio, Film and Television explaining that the ad had violated norms mandating that “all ads in China should uphold national dignity and interest and respect the motherland’s culture” and “ads should not contain contents that blaspheme national practices and cultures”. Nike issued a public apology.
The development of China’s media industry is not likely to be an entirely smooth process. Policy oscillations and cycles of repression have characterized developments over the last several decades. Yet the movement has been toward greater openness, and that seems likely to continue.
A reduction of government subsidies to state-owned media enterprises and the emergence of a commercial mindset among media managers are undercutting government control and contributing to the development of a quasi-independent media. The government still maintains enormous control over the media, but the “propaganda state model” no longer seems suitable to describe what is happening in China. New forms of ownership are emerging, more private money flowing into the industry and the bargaining power of media managers, even though they may be state employees, is increasing.
As China goes ahead with its economic reform activities and becomes further integrated into the international market economy, and as new technologies, such as mobile phones and the Internet are used more widely, media liberalization seems likely to continue.
Citing these facts, however, may obscure the more important story about China’s media environment – media change. Through a combination of government initiative and unintended consequences of economic reform, the Chinese media environment is being transformed to one in which state-employed media managers have more autonomy in making decisions, the images and ideas to which Chinese are exposed are increasing and a greater role for private capital is being carved out.
The new media environment is one of lively radio talk shows, less inhibited press coverage, live television broadcasts, greater importation of foreign media products and the growth of advertising.
To make sense of these changes, and to understand exactly what the changes are, a number of books are available.
Two of the best for basic factual information about the Chinese media scene are 2003-2004 China Media Yearbook & Directory, published by consultant and market research company CMM Intelligence Ltd. www.cmmintelligence.com and China’s Media and Entertainment Law (Volume 1), produced by TransAsia Lawyers www.transasialawyers.com. These two books will be of interest to anyone interested in China’s media industry.
(Next post to follow : How Asia Builds Brands)