Reading A Book of Paradoxes

China Youth Trends and Business

Implications

By Lisa Li and Zafka Zhang

China Youthology

2009

www.chinayouthology.com

PREFACE

Can young people feel connected to brands? If so, has anyone figured out where those

connections exist and what they mean? It may be easy to pick up on the latest trends

and find out what’s hot among youth. Just knowing what is popular doesn’t make that

information useful to your brand and your marketing efforts. China Youthology is

devoted to make these connections more tangible to marketers, advertisers, designers

and other innovators who want to connect their products and services to youth in China.

Trend reports have dubious reputations. In the marketing world, trend research is

usually criticized for lacking practical, actionable recommendations to marketing

decisions, ‘only scratching the surface’ or ‘not representative’. We, however, feel

confident talking about changes in young Chinese consumers - and what it means to

brands - due to numerous presentations given to marketing teams of big companies

targeting youth. These companies include Nestle, Johnson & Johnson, Pepsico Foods,

Pernod Ricard, and world leading ad agencies such as OgilvyOne, TBWA, McCann

Ericson, and Dentsu. The questions and comments we received have helped us refine

this report. And the positive feedback has encouraged us to write it up a more readable

format, to share and discuss with you.

Who are we talking about?

By youth, we mean 18 to 30 yrs. They are university students and young working

adults.

The trends in this paper are only relevant to the more developed cities in China (Tier 1

and Tier 2 cities). The diversity in China makes it impossible to capture trends across

geography and city tiers.

These 5 trends presented here are strongly manifested among the early adopters and

early majority. At the same time, they are increasingly prominent among the mass

youth.

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What kind of trends?

The trends we are talking about are not what fashion magazines want to feature. They

are not about hunting the latest style and taste, but exploring deep-rooted changes in

values and lifestyles. These changes we discuss here became noticeable in 2008, and we

believe they are going to continue to manifest and grow over the next couple of years.

Different from many consumer trends report, we understand the youth as ‘human

beings’, rather than merely as consumers and shoppers. In order to understand them as

human beings, we believe in a holistic approach that accounts for social changes,

especially in an environment as fast changing and complicated as the China market.

What’s our approach to youth trends?

1. A holistic approach

Different from conventional market research which mainly studies consumers at an

individual level, we see youth existing within three spheres: 1) the historical and

ongoing macro context (economic, social, cultural), 2) youth communities, built on both

collective hobbies (music, sports, fashion, gaming, technology, visual arts, social

participation, etc.) and categories (mobile phones, skincare, sneakers, etc.), and finally

3) an individual level (values, lifestyles, and interaction with products and brands, with

integrated understanding of online and offline experience). More at our website.

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2. The ‘Youth-Category-Brand’ Scaffolding

In order to add the most value to brands and market them more precisely, we don’t

merely examine youth trends, but closely target insights into connections between

brands and young people. We firmly believe business goals best be clearly identified at

the outset, before we decide what kind of insights we need to look for. People have told

us ‘it’s hard to evaluate a youth trend report because there’re no clear research

objectives behind this kind of report.’ Research objectives need to be clearly stated on

the beginning to avoid wasted effort of both parties.

‘Youth insights’ are valuable for marketers only when they are combined with two other

areas of insights: ‘category insights’ and ‘brand insights’. To that point, successful

marketing initiatives in the youth sector need to resonate with youth’s values, lifestyles,

and subcultures (youth insights), sympathize with the way young people understand and

experience categories (category insights), and capture the nuances of youth culture in

every aspect of marketing plans/ executions from messages, channels, to forms, etc.

(brand insights). See our blog post: the tangible brand-youth connection

This paper is mainly about ‘youth insights’. There are some ‘brand insights’ discussed in

the sections of ‘marketing implications’ for each trends. ‘Category insights’, although

included in our presentations to clients, are not discussed in this paper.

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How did we come up with the ‘trends’ discussed in this paper?

We did not conduct a specific ‘project’ for this. We came up with these trends by several

strands of research:

Firstly, the team has been conducting market research projects for youth brands since

2006 (both with China Youthology and previous employers) and through this,

established a solid understanding of Chinese young people.

Secondly, since it’s founding in July of 2008, China Youthology has studied Chinese

youth with systematic and innovative methodologies. We observe, interact, explore and

innovate with youth everyday – both online and offline. Methods employed include

ethnographic research, in-depth interviews, semiotics, etc. We are heavily involved with

the online communities of Chinese youth. We track and observe the major portals, SNS,

BBS, blogs, and microblogs to keep updated about what’s going on. Offline, we not only

talk to youth, but also observe and participate in what they are doing. We go to big

events like Modern Sky Festivals, brand campaigns like Nike’s Lebron event at 798, and

private parties/ activities of the youth.

Thirdly, this paper synthesizes some of the findings from a series of topical research we

conducted, from ‘vintage trends’, Beijing Olympics, Shan Zhai culture, to music festivals,

skateboarding culture, and creative communities (co-researched with Neocha.com, a

leading online creative community) while spearheading ad hoc research projects,

including research on hair and beauty, snack and health, beverage, media habit,

advertisement and digital engagement, etc.

Are we supported by data?

Yes and No. We did not invest in a quantitative survey for this paper. But the trends

discussed here can be validated by publicly available ‘data’, for example, the number of

volunteers for the Sichuan Earthquake and Beijing Olympics, the best-selling books on

Dangdang.com, or the prevalent use of Chinese cultural icons in local creative works…

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A BOOK OF PARADOXES

A glimpse at China’s background

China has undergone vast changes, from economic development, social structure, public

policies, to cultural scenes. All of these changes at macro level have had great impact on

the shaping of values and lifestyles of Chinese youth.

Recently, two factors are especially worth mentioning here: globalization and the

Internet. China has begun to take center stage in the world. The Beijing Olympics is

considered a symbol of this change. The heavy role China’s economy has played in the

world’s economic downturn is another.

On the other hand, China’s netizens on average spend more than 16 hours per week on

the Internet. Compared with western youth, they have easier access to online

movies/music/creative tools free of charge (because of the availability of the pirated

software and entertainment materials). The influence of mass media is still huge, but is

being diluted by the fast growth of social media.

Chinese youth are a book of paradoxes

Chinese youth are a book of paradoxes. They live amongst the fastest changing group

of people in the world, constantly bumping up against local and global changes. They are

bombarded with strong influences from both western and traditional Chinese

culture at every turn, both new and old, hip and ancient, blending new ideas and

traditional culture into the fabric of daily life, thought and output.

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Typical understanding of China’s youth often leads to unsuccessful communication. Often

times, brands seem to be offering what’s cool to youth but fail to hook them because

their products don’t capture the nuances in meaning, and wind up saying nothing. Real

understanding of Chinese youth lies in understanding the paradoxes within the

nuances.

Chinese youth are growing towards greater diversity and complexity. Without over-

simplifying, we feel confident talking about some trends, or important changes.

These trends, or changes, are discussed based on the assumption of Chinese youth (in

developed cities) as self-oriented, fun-seeking, hedonistic consumers who possess a

strong need for self-expression and self-development. What’s discussed in this paper

sometimes seems contradictory to these understanding. It is not to say that the trends

discussed in this paper are going to replace these themes but to emerge, grow, and co-

exist with these themes.

Five trends will be depicted. For each trend, we’ll talk about 1) the background and the

social/economic/cultural triggers, 2) the nuances that lead to a deeper understanding,

and 3) implications for brand marketing (with cases).

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From ‘Little Emperors’ to A ‘Bird Nest

Generation’: Making Small Differences

by Social Participation

Over 1 million youth volunteered for the 2008 Beijing Olympics (read CYW on the Beijing Olympics: University Volunteers - The ’Serious Side’ of the Post 80s)… and after the Sichuan earthquake, the number of college students queuing up for blood donations exceeded the capacity at hospitals.  

The media called 2008 the ‘year of volunteers’. But social participation is more than volunteering at big events. From campus bulletin boards to online communities, and topics ranging from environmental protection, social justice, equality, to public safety, it refers to the expressing of opinions and/or taking action on public interests for the betterment of society.  

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Youth participate in various forms. Even things as seemingly trivial as forwarding emails about food safety, putting red hearts on a MSN nickname, and discussing social issues on BBS are worth mentioning and noted as a marked change in attitude and behavior towards social causes.  

The economic development of China has enabled some young people the ‘luxury’ of caring about things outside their own living conditions. The issues of social justice and equality have become relevant and visible to common people. And the Internet has empowered youth as a tool to express their opinions, exchange ideas, form communities, and make a difference. The social changes in China will continue to reshape Chinese people’s life and mind, especially the youth.

Nuances

These nuances spring more from

individual choices than from collective norms or traditional patriotism. ‘Searching for meaning of life’ and ‘love’ are the key motivation for this new attitude in social responsibility.  

Background The young generation grew up with Chinese economic reform and open-door policy. As the single child generation, they have been coined ‘little emperors’ and labeled as selfish, irresponsible, and rejecting of traditional values. In 2008, when youth spoke up during the Tibetan unrest, showed concern during the Sichuan earthquake, and great pride at the Beijing Olympics, it caught many people by surprise. This generation is now known as the ‘bird nest generation’. And as a result, many big social events now provide more opportunities for young people to participate even further, and gain more media exposure.

 

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A girl in Fujian province declared on her blog, her page at Douban.com, and Neocha.com that she hand makes bags for people to carry their own chopsticks instead of using the disposable ones at restaurants. She wrote in her blog:

‘I was dining at school’s canteen and suddenly felt the place was delightful because there were no disposable chopsticks provided, and I thought I could do some small things to make more places delightful.’

Small and continuous actions in

daily life (大爱微行)

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Candy visits schools for orphans almost every weekend. She is not a member of any NGO. She found other like-minded people at Douban.com and QQ groups and decided to go together, and continuously. She writes, ‘Every time I go there, I can bring some happiness to a few kids.’ Marketing implications

Corporate Social Responsibility under scrutiny CSR is no longer a ‘nice to have’, but a must-have quality of corporations.

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The single child generation grew up with abundant attention and care from the family, and though they are known to be somewhat spoiled, they can also tend to be sensitive and simple.

The concept of contributing through traditional ‘collective movements’ is out. Doubt in ‘official charity organizations’ and ‘campaigns’ is prevalent, and many young people have rolled up their sleeves and decided to see what they can do on their own, or with small group of like-minded people.

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Stop talking, Prove it

How does a corporation participate? Empty slogans are transparent and out of date. Even donation and charity campaigns now risk the perception of trading money’ for media attention. Young people respect sincere and long-term efforts. The amount of investment is really not the sole criteria. Companies can learn from what the common youth are doing with their lives every day: Stop talking, Prove it.

2 Case: After the Sichuan earthquake, a 100 million RMB donation by Wang Lao Ji, a local beverage company, turned out to be a very worthy ‘investment’ that obtained great attention and applause. At that time many big companies were criticized for lacking in social responsibilities.

Case: Stop talking, Prove it: the communication of WWF resonates ‘small actions in daily life’

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Case: Johnson & Johnson TVC “强生相信在我们的身边，存在着一些巨人，他们以巨大的爱做细小的事，让心灵获得慰籍，

让创伤得到安抚，让人们得到关爱，强生以医疗卫生和个人护理的经验和智慧，与这些巨人并

肩，用爱，推动人与人的关爱。因爱而生，强生。”

‘Johnson & Johnson believes in the giants in common people who take small actions out of great love…’

Get it Louder through Communities The long-term, down-to-earth efforts need to be connected with the local communities through which young enthusiasts are taking small actions. Online and offline, companies need to know where the grassroots communities are, what kind of support the young people need, empower them, and work with them. Only by this means will efforts become ‘social currency’ for young people to talk about.

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From ‘Globalization’ to ‘Post-Globalized

Chinese’: Growing Confidence in Identity

The young generation in China’s big cities has grown up with KFC, Coca-Cola, Hollywood movies, Japanese cartoons and games … they are very much westernized. But many have started to look back to China’s heritage for inspiration. ‘Our generation has been following trends from the States and Japan since childhood, and one day I figured why not create something that is” Chinese cool”?’ said Tong Yun, designer and owner of Tyakasha, an independent brand.

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Background This growing sense of pride is mainly caused by the rise of Chinese economy and the increasingly important role of China in the world. The Beijing Olympics was an important milestone of China taking the world’s center stage. And during the economic downturn, China again stood at an important crossroads for the world’s economy.

The young generation, empowered by Internet, is more exposed to various opinions and beliefs. They have grown more critical, but at the same time are more understanding/ tolerant to Chinese government, media, and brands. Chinese youth used to give higher credit to western media than local media because they believed western media are more free and fair. However during the unrest of Tibet, there were incidents of questionable media reporting by the western media.

CNN used pictures of Nepali policeman beating Nepalese to mislead readers of police violence in Tibet. The Chinese youth all over the world initiated the ‘anti-CNN’ campaign. They collected biased reporting online, and also issued video clips to speak out, among which ‘China stand up’ the most famous. ‘Don’t be too CNN’ today means in Internet language ‘don’t bullshit’. (Also see our blog post: the Olympic series - preface)

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Nuances

Pride in Chinese identity

Young people have started to be more interested in traditional culture. Books about history and Chinese culture are appearing as best-selling books and at online stores.  

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Pride in generation identity Young people are always strongly inclined to differentiate themselves from older generations. To the Chinese youth, especially the more edgy ones, ‘Chinese cool’ is not about the classical icons of Chinese traditional culture, such as a Peking Opera Mask, Dragon, or Chinese red. The hipsters put on style of the 80s to celebrate the collective memories of their own. Old and local brands have become reborn and fashionable.

 

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Chinese elements are widely embedded in the works of Chinese artists and designers. Mass youth enjoy movies like Kungfu Panda and Mei Langfan.

‘China Discover China’ by <0086>, edgy youth magazine

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Marketing implications

Local brands have started to gain

‘Cool Mind Share’

A couple of years ago, ‘local’ meant low quality, countryside, and not trendy. But today local brands become more and more accepted as good quality, trustworthy, and even as cool.  

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True Connection through Resonance of Collective Memories

 

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Case: traditional yogurt (right), Huili sneakers (below)

Many brands have noticed the new chic of ‘Chinese cool’ and embraced Chinese cultural elements in their products. However fewer have realized the importance of the ‘collective memories’ of the young generation.

Case: fashion brand Giordano crossed over to local designers to feature characters in a vintage English textbook in design.

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Case: Lining impressed youth with Jiong (Jiong is a popular online word/ icon) sneakers and Play Station sneakers (see the pictures below).

Case: Sneakers (士力架) TVC about a Nintendo game

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Localization with Context Awareness

This new pride poses a great challenge to international brands. Localization must go beyond endorsement of local celebrities. A real connection with Chinese youth on cool culture or category benefits is needed, and must be based on true understanding of the local context.  

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Case: Nokia’s viral video ‘Hip hop originated in Chinese village’ received huge amount of clicks on video sites. My young friends ‘shared’ this video on Xiaonei. Most of the young people I asked have seen this video… It captured the popular themes of ‘hip hop’ in a local way.

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From ‘Cool’ to ‘Geeky’: Deep-ization of

Hobbies and Empowerment of

Communities

Today, a typical answer to our ice-breaker, ‘Hey I’m doing research about what’s in and cool in Chinese youth. Can we have a chat?’ would be ‘That’s great, but I’m not that cool.’ ‘Cool youth’ has been stereotyped as funky-looking people. But today substance rather than appearance is prized. Many young people choose to not equip themselves with visible cool symbols, but rather pride themselves with possessing remarkable capabilities/knowledge in a great variety of areas. They are the proud ‘alternative experts’ (边缘学科专家) on something about music, art, technology, or sneakers and skincare, or even translating subtitles of American sitcoms. Geeky = Passion + Effort + Talent  

Most young people today own their online ‘space’ in their blogs, SNS, or avatars. ‘Social currency’ turns from the visible ones (appearance and style) to more substantial ones and to a greater diversity.

Empowered by the Internet, young people have easily formed tribes/ communities around their interests, share things they’ve learned, help each other, and educate themselves. Name as bizarre as an obsession you can think of, and you can surely find it on Douban.com.

 

Background The Internet has provided a great space for young people to show themselves.

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Nuances

‘Common’ people as Geeks

Lee could not be a more ‘common’ office worker in a Tier 2 city. However, because of her own experience of seeing Chinese Traditional Medicine doctors and her interest in this area, she has become a geek. She shares her own experiences, reviews hospitals and doctors, and answers questions other people of similar health problems have on the Internet. She has became a popular and authoritative ‘geek’ in her community.

 

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Geeks are different from ‘trendsetters’ (as understood conventionally). Many geeks are ‘common’ in most aspects but just ‘trendsetting’ in specific areas. Digging a bit deeper into the habits/hobbies of young people around you, you may find them geeky about sound art, pets, charity, discounts/promotions, nightlife, photography, food, skincare, so on and so forth. (I just randomly picked some friends in my mind to list the examples above.)

The New Self-Expression

 

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Songshuhui.net – online group of science and tech geeks sharing knowledge to youth in a fun and easy way

Chinese young generation has been characterized by their strong need and courage in ‘self-expression’ (as opposed to the long tradition of modest attitudes). On the Internet, Chinese youth are probably the most ‘skilled’ group in photo beautification and photo sharing (for example the ‘PK’ of beauties on 360quan.com, a SNS on which ‘self-expression’ is the key motivation of users); Off the Internet, the popularity of ‘Super Girls’ and ‘Happy Boys’ singing contest (similar to ‘American Idols’), and the fandom of Liu Xiang (world’s hurdler champion) for his boldness and confidence (with his famous quote ‘I came to win’).

‘New geek’ does not mean that ‘look at me’ is no longer relevant. Chinese youth are keen as always to show themselves. It is just a new form of ‘look at me’. It is very rewarding to be appreciated as ‘geeks’, or unique in a talented way.

 

Books I read, movies and music I love, places/ activities I go to become new spheres of self-expression

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Marketing implications Questions for the brands to consider are: How do I make young people geeky about my brand/ product? How shall I connect with the geeks? And ultimately how can I connect with the mass through the geeks?

Marketers need to understand 2

types of Geeks

1) Category geeks: Geeks in categories or category-relevant lifestyles (sneakers, skincare, mobile phones, café, nightlife, etc.) 2) Cultural geeks: Geeks in passion areas (music, art, technology, sports, etc.)  

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Real category geeks are obsessive in hunting down the ultimate truth about products. They are riveted by great products, innovations, explorative and personalized experience, and co-creation. In short, geeks are attracted by brands who are themselves ‘geeky’ in the product functions, technologies, ingredients, etc.

Case: There’s a natural association of Apple with geeks. In China, many young consumers love Apple products because of their fashionable style and creative industrial design. However ask a geek and he’ll firstly claim ‘Apple makes the greatest products’. Then he/she may go on to tell you how stable Macintosh system is, how iPhone enables people to use mobile phones creatively and differently, how the large number of genius/ geeks out there have created great software and applications that make the products increasingly easier and fun to use. (see pictures below)

Relevant link: Why do they camp in Apple’s store: brand fandom

‘Great products’ Engross Category Geeks

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Build Blood Connections by Engaging and Empowering Cultural Geeks Use of/ immersion with the cool youth cultures is a typical way of engaging young consumers. Many campaigns are designed around street culture, sports, fashion, or music. To what extent geeks of the subcultures can be attracted and mobilized is crucial to the success of the campaigns. Great campaigns should 1) Be about a ‘cool culture’ that has a

big community – or a large number of geeks,

2) Fit the taste of geeks (which is slightly higher than mass culture and aspirational to mass culture),

3) Engage geeks to co-create content that is cool to and connected with mass youth,

4) Empower geeks (to realize their dreams), and

5) Communicate with geeks IN THEIR community

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In order to be able to meet the above 5 criteria, brands need to obtain a real understanding of the communities and geeks, respect and empower geeks rather than merely consider them as commercial media.

The bands lived on the bus for the majority of their time during tour, played shows with the local bands they met along the way, and local graffiti artists come to paint the bus body. Documentaries were taken to spread the tour on the Internet.

Case: Converse Love Noise Tour: 2 bands. 1 bus. 5 cities. 5000km (see more information about the campaign here) ‘Indie music’ is a subculture with a sophisticated community and large number of geeks in China.

However, Converse did the ‘first in China’: first to sign underground bands as spokespersons: PK 14 is a band of over 10 years’ history and Queen Sea Big Shark a young and stylish band. The two bands have large and different fan base. It was the first ‘hitting the road tour’ that carried the spirit of a road trip in the classical sense, and resonated with geeks.

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The right online communities were chosen to spread the message. Douban MiniSite: although far from the biggest online community in China, Douban, with over 2 million registered users, was clearly the most suitable for Converse.

Douban is the community for ‘artistic youth’. About 40% of users are university students; most of the rest are university graduates. A community with the most concentrated discussion/ information about books, music, and movies, etc. On its musicians’ page, over 1,000 underground bands, musicians have their bios and personal spaces. Neocha.com and Mogo.com: more targeted on music and creative culture, Converse also chose to align itself with Neocha (a vertical online creative community) and Mogo (China’s independent music and art online TV site).

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From ‘Fun-Seeking’ to ‘Creativity-

Seeking’: Remarkonomy

Background

Economic transformation,

government support and the education Over the past 4-5 years, the most developed cities in China, such as Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Suzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Changsha, Guangzhou, etc., have been looking to ‘transform’ themselves to ‘new economy’, i.e. from manufacturing to non-manufacturing.

‘Entertainment’ has long been a key to connect bored youth with fun-seeking activities. However, today’s youth are able to find entertainment easier than ever. It is harder than ever to attract their attention. It takes great ‘creativity’ to be remarkable.

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Learning from the success of creative industries in UK, the local Chinese governments have decided to build hardware and software infrastructures to boost such industries’. In their 11th 5-year plan, ‘creative industry’ is listed as the pillar industry to ‘upgrade the economic structure’. (According to Wikipedia, ‘creative industry‘ usually includes the following; Advertising, Architecture, Arts and Antique markets, Crafts, design, Designer Fashion, Film, Interactive Software (particularly gaming software), Music, Television and Radio, Performing Arts, Publishing and Software. As a result, in many cities, we’ve started to see ‘creative industry zones’ where practitioners of creative industries find preferential packages on loft rentals, taxes, loans, etc.

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Meanwhile, despite of political concerns, the local governments has not only allowed, but encouraged festivals/conferences/exhibitions covering fashion, animation, art, design, music, etc., for example, Modern Sky Festival, International Machinima Festival, and eArts Festival.

The Internet has spurred the creative culture Creative capabilities: with cracked software widely available on the Internet, Chinese youth have mastered content-creating tools such as Photoshop (for visual), CoolEditor (now Audition, for music/sound), and 3DMax (for 3D modeling).

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Sharing and spreading of creatives: the most up-to-date and state-of-the-art creatives in the world (software, e-books, music, films, designs, etc.) are only one mouse-click away from the Chinese youth who are equipped with the p2p file sharing software such as Emule, BT, and Xunlei.com. BBS (forums) and today SNS facilitate youth to form online communities around their interests. Chasing and sharing cool are becoming easier than ever.

Change of Values and Growth of Demand Unlike the past, parents today react much more positively should their kid decide to choose a career in creative industry. In addition, the growing need for identity in global society has motivated the youth to create ‘China cool’.

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To meet the great demand for creative talent, more ‘creative-related’ educational programs have emerged. According to a recent report, today over 1200 education providers (in which 400 are universities) accommodate more than 100 thousand students majoring animation, graphic design, game design

Poster for Modern Sky Festival 2008 (above); Shanghai eArts Festival 2008 (below)

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China sees not only a growing supply of creative products/contents but also a huge number of creativity-seekers in the young generation. Music festivals, art exhibitions, book stores, live shows are crowded with youth. Consumption of culture has become part of their lifestyle. Youth has found that products/contents from indie designers/creators enable them to claim their uniqueness, and have helped the thriving of many indie designer flea-markets in China.

Nuances Not every ‘unexpected’ or ‘never used before’ or ‘fun’ idea is considered ‘creative’ by youth. They tend to find relevance in themes that have to do with their dreams, fears, passion points, and constraints in life. According to a report about creative youth (which will be co-issued by China Youthology and Neocha.com soon), these relevant themes include:

Everyday life trifles 1

Non-consumerism, organic: 2

‘Bedroom Bossa Band’ by Lullatone, Japan

On a flea market in Shanghai Feng Guo Box – a creative bazaar

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Kidult 3

Handmade 4

Inconvenience 5

Tyakasha, independent brand, Shanghai

Traditional ink and wash painting animation seen as ‘cool’

‘Chinese Central Marshal Arts Academy’, human animation work by students in Chinese Central Arts Academy, 2008

Fragility, vulnerability 6

‘Tears’ by little-a, Beijing

Hand made transportation card cover by little-a

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Techy

Social conscience 8

7 Collective memory 10

Hitting the road 11 Chinese chic 9

(Picture by Lowa)

Indie brand ‘More is Less’ using recycled materials for products

Animation works by Ray (raydesign.cn)

Painting by Overturn

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Graphic by DOGCO3

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Sensuality

Violence

Sarcasm and spoofing 12

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Marketing implications

‘Designy’ everything

Creative communication and packaging have become more important than ever in almost all categories.

Case: Limi’s creative packaging for mass-market skincare products

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Case: Nongfu Spring C100 attracted young consumers with unique bottle

Chinese ‘back dorm boys’

From ‘Cult Youth’, local independent animation publication

Graphic by (擦主席)

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Today, there are many indie musicians, indie designers, indie manga artists, indie writers, indie curators, indie label owners who work/ present their works at independent studios, booths at flee market, websites and online shops… They are great resource for crowd sourcing of creative jobs.

They are closely connected with the local youth but more sensitive to their feelings and more capable of expressing them. They naturally possess the ‘insights’ about the young consumers. Case: local street fashion brands TheThing and ENO both mobilize the independent designers to provide great variety of creatives to the local young consumers.

Crowdsourcing to meet the long tail needs

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c

From ‘Indulgence’ to ‘Sustainability’:

Pains of Modernity and Risk

Awareness

While the young generation has been trying to (and successfully) break many boundaries in their life to live with more indulgence, it also has grown hand-in-hand with increasing awareness, or trend, for moderation and sustainability. China’s youth are more aware of the risk in their life and in the society. This was firstly manifested as the attention to the body and health, and naturally bled into behavior and attitudes towards consumption, especially under the global economic downturn.

Books about health and traditional medication became the best-selling books among youth, especially those over 25.

More and more youth share health-related articles on Xiaonei.com (which is the Chinese version of Facebook). And more young girls now go to bed before 11pm for a ‘beauty rest’ (美容觉) (to make up for when they may have to stay up late at for KTV or clubbing occasionally). Numerous groups have formed around ‘organic living’, ‘Lohas’, and ‘saving money’ on online communities such as Douban.com.

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Background While the youth enjoy the ‘fruits’ of modern life, they’ve also started to feel the ‘pains of modernity’ at the same time: the polluted environment, the growing incidence of diseases in younger age, the severe issues of food safety, and now the economic crisis. They have realized and experienced the many risks in the society and in their life, and they aspire a life and world that is more sustainable.

www.bujingqi.com: a website emerged in/for economic downturn

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‘Sanlu, choice of a step mom’ (Melamine milk crisis)

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Nuances

‘New old life’ – Healing the Pains of

Modernity Echoing to the underlying driver for ‘new Chinese’, the trend of ‘new life’ is also to do with the aspiration of ‘the good old days’. From food and beverage, to clothes and personal care, naturalness becomes a much-desired feature. To young consumers, naturalness means not only safe and healthy, but also truthful and joy – free from the pretentiousness and stress.

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Knowledge marketing

The trend of sustainability has been seen in the developed markets for years. However what’s different (and more challenging) in the China market is the presumption of guilt of corporations. When news (true and false ones) about product safety/ quality breaks, they spread dramatically and usually devastate the brands.

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Marketing implications

City Pictorial featured ‘non-material beautiful life’

It’s all about balancing ‘New life’ does not completely alienate indulgence. There’s the constant struggle between the desire of moderation and indulgence, health and extravagance, anti-consumerism and consumerism. When a student becomes thriftier in many categories, he is still ready to spend a cow on his hobbies.

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Aside from reacting to the crisis responsively (by various ways of conventional crisis PR), companies still need to learn better ways to constantly communicate with their customers to ease the tension and concerns caused by asymmetry of information.

Case: Lai Yi Fen, a local snack company, opens farms of ingredients to customers who want to visit

Sustainable products Safe is not good enough. The increasing needs for environmental friendly, natural, and healthy products has become inevitable. Concerns about health issues have become big barrier for many brands in the categories of food, skincare, home furnishing, and others. And it marks the precursor for innovation towards higher sustainability for many brands.

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Case: Oishi potato chips using mountain tea oil – an ingredient that is perceived to be healthier

Case: MUJI, as well as MUJI style, become new chic

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IN A NUTSHELL

To sum up, youth marketing in China needs to adapt to the following changes:

Key changes in youth Implications to brands

New Citizen Increasing sense of social welfare

Social participation as an individual choice in searching for meaning of life

Taking everyday actions to make small differences

Enterprise citizenship (CSR) under scrutiny

Stop talking and dumping money, prove that you care

Get it louder through community

New Chinese Pride in Chinese identity

Nostalgic for collective memories about the good old days

Local brands start to gain cool mind share

Chinese cool the new chic

Resonance in collective memories of this generation

Localization with context awareness

New Geek Deep-ization of hobbies

Communitized learning

Common and geeky

Being geeky the new-self-expression

Great products are the ultimate winner

Build ‘blood connection’ by engaging and empowering the geeks

New Entertainment

Remarkonomy

Growing taste for creativity

Creativity with relevance

Designy for all

Crowdsourcing for the long tail

New Life Awareness of risks and pains of modernity

Sustainability is the new luxury

Proactive management of knowledge

Innovation towards sustainability

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In a nutshell… 1. Stop telling the youth you are great… do something remarkable enough to

become the social currency that youth need to identify themselves and build relationships with others in their communities.

2. In order to know what’s remarkable and what’s valued as social currency, you need to understand the nuances of the changing values and lifestyles, as well as understand how your own category is experienced by youth.

Acknowledgement Thanks to the following thought-leaders for the great thoughts/ inspirations on youth trends, innovative research, and study on social changes http://www.mobileyouth.org http://www.kumeugirl.com http://www.trendbuero.de

Thanks to people who have contributed to the paper with their questions and ideas on youth trends and youth marketing: Our friends and/or clients at Pepsico Foods, Nestle, Pernod Ricard, Johnson & Johnson, Nokia, Li Ning, TBWA, McCann Ericson, JWT, BBDO, Dentsu, IDEO, Trendburo, Modern Weekly, Urban China, 0086, Douban.com, Xiaonei.com, Neocha.com, 360quan.com, Sohu.com, and many others that are not listed. Thanks to Angie Wu Chin for proof reading. Most grateful for the young, talented, and passionate ethnographers Summer Xia, Helen Yu, and Candy Yang.

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