Numbering up in China

China represents New Zealand’s biggest trading opportunity and biggest challenge. Last week’s China Business Forum spotlighted some impressive numbers – 1.3 billion buyers and suppliers; 10% GDP growth; 805 million phone users; 80 million new households in the next 15 years.

Hosted by the Rt. Hon Jenny Shipley, the forum was addressed by a number of Chinese and New Zealand business leaders including representatives from ANZ, IBM, The Economist and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Maxim was both a sponsor of the event and speaker. Lezlie Mearns, Maxim’s Managing Director, positioning products and services in the Chinese market. The theme of her speech centred on treating the principles of branding and marketing as non-negotiable irrespective of which market a company is operating.

However, Lezlie went on to say, “the tactics that you employ will be different to the ones you would use in New Zealand or any other offshore market.”

One of the reasons for this is that in the main Chinese consumers are not yet brand loyal. They are experimenting with the many brands that are now available to them and the purchasing decisions are frequently made on functionality and price.

The branding and marketing lessons are to communicate the functional benefits of products and focus on below the line price promotions and in-store demonstrations.

Overall, Lezlie noted that the main themes of the forum were:
  • Don't get seduced with the size of the market. We need to be niche players – which is what we are internationally anyway. Mike Moore put it nicely when he said, “we don't need to be greedy; 1% of their imports will be fine.”
  • We need to tune in more to Chinese culture and world view more than perhaps we would in other international markets, especially relationship building and the concept of time.
  • Planning, research and market intelligence must very thorough and there is a need to validate from more than one source as circumstances change and analysis can become quickly obsolete.
  • We need to use our New Zealandness in a more holistic way. This means balancing environmental /physical attributes with our New Zealand personality attributes of solutions provider (can-do/nut things out), independent (consistent with foreign policy) and hospitable (generous, cordial, sociable).

Maxim has experience in developing brand strategy, including positioning, and designing brand identities and marketing collateral for the North Asia market.