Shanghai III
Today was interesting. I learned that the problem with economic statistics, and by association and relation, population stats used by marketing, is that the statistic will be created to serve the political agenda of the creator. This came out when I asked the marketing lecturer during the break why her "middle class" sizing metric and definition was based on family asset levels. This is odd for a few reasons. First is that assets generally don't determine purchasing power. They're correlated, but usually it's income, not assets that are used to segment customers by value, unless you're a financial services company. It's also odd because assets are, at least in the West, harder for folks to estimate accurately, but incomes are well known. The other part that was peculiar, though perhaps understandable, was the definition by family assets. Household income is the sum of the incomes of those living at a single address. Gay couple, married couple, single dude, it works. But "family" is a little vague. Immediate family? Extended? How far? And which assets? Liquid? Including primary residence?
The reason this number is the official sizing of the middle class is because it's the definition that permits counting the most Chinese as middle class. So the government can claim to have a broad middle class. Great for propaganda, useless for sizing the population with the capacity to purchase your product.
Had an interesting experience after our afternoon meeting with the local J. Walter Thompson office managing Director. In typical Ad exec fashion, his presentation was well choreographed and glitzy. Long on allegory and emotion, short on substance, but long on substance for an advertiser, to be fair. He’s an American. I asked my critical question: We've been hearing that Chinese are interested in joint ventures with the west not so much to gain access to capital, but to gain access to "soft skills" in management. Yet it's clear that one can't really market in China without getting the culture. So it seems that the soft skills that are sought: HR, Org design, marketing strategy, business strategy, are non-transferable. Without a knowledge of China, the skills don't work. You have to know the culture to make the right strategic choices, marketing choices incentive choices.
That Ad exec gave me a long winded response to my question, which really didn't answer it, but seemed to argue that the ability to frame and structure the approach to problems was the transferable skill and valuable. But then two questions later he acknowledged that 97% of his office staff are local. Which answered my question.
Again, very little reason to get involved in China: The "asset" of interest that we have isn"t really an asset and can't be transferred.
I took a walk in the extended neighborhood around the hotel. Took some pictures, saw some interesting things. Some very amusing uses of English. A man selling what I can only assume were potential pets on the street. Had a couple buckets full of turtles and some extremely tiny cages with very uncomfortable looking bunnies and chipmunks in them.
On the ground, I got a glimpse of some of the poorer circumstances in which folks live. Just a glimpse, cuz, the unsightly stuff is obscured a bit by blinds and barricades. A friend on the trip says he feels like Shanghai is the city in Bladerunner, and it's an apt description. Hypermodern and glitzy alongside hyper poor and ancient, but always crafty and aggressive. People here are on the move.
The reason this number is the official sizing of the middle class is because it's the definition that permits counting the most Chinese as middle class. So the government can claim to have a broad middle class. Great for propaganda, useless for sizing the population with the capacity to purchase your product.
Had an interesting experience after our afternoon meeting with the local J. Walter Thompson office managing Director. In typical Ad exec fashion, his presentation was well choreographed and glitzy. Long on allegory and emotion, short on substance, but long on substance for an advertiser, to be fair. He’s an American. I asked my critical question: We've been hearing that Chinese are interested in joint ventures with the west not so much to gain access to capital, but to gain access to "soft skills" in management. Yet it's clear that one can't really market in China without getting the culture. So it seems that the soft skills that are sought: HR, Org design, marketing strategy, business strategy, are non-transferable. Without a knowledge of China, the skills don't work. You have to know the culture to make the right strategic choices, marketing choices incentive choices.
That Ad exec gave me a long winded response to my question, which really didn't answer it, but seemed to argue that the ability to frame and structure the approach to problems was the transferable skill and valuable. But then two questions later he acknowledged that 97% of his office staff are local. Which answered my question.
Again, very little reason to get involved in China: The "asset" of interest that we have isn"t really an asset and can't be transferred.
I took a walk in the extended neighborhood around the hotel. Took some pictures, saw some interesting things. Some very amusing uses of English. A man selling what I can only assume were potential pets on the street. Had a couple buckets full of turtles and some extremely tiny cages with very uncomfortable looking bunnies and chipmunks in them.
On the ground, I got a glimpse of some of the poorer circumstances in which folks live. Just a glimpse, cuz, the unsightly stuff is obscured a bit by blinds and barricades. A friend on the trip says he feels like Shanghai is the city in Bladerunner, and it's an apt description. Hypermodern and glitzy alongside hyper poor and ancient, but always crafty and aggressive. People here are on the move.
posted by Kenneth at 7:41 PM
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