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Billions: Selling To The New Chinese Consumer (Paperback)
by Tom Doctoroff (CEO, JWT GREATER China), Martin Sorrell (Foreword)
| Category:
China Business, Marketing & Sales |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
MSL price:
¥ 148.00
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Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
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MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
This book is both a marketing primer and a snapshot of modern Chinese life, and is vital for students, business people, and even upper middle class Americans planning a trip to the PRC. |
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Author: Tom Doctoroff (CEO, JWT GREATER China), Martin Sorrell (Foreword)
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Pub. in: January, 2007
ISBN: 1403976635
Pages: 240
Measurements: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00993
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-1403976635
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- Awards & Credential -
"Mr. Doctoroff's book sheds much-needed light on the differences between Chinese and Western cultural preferences, and should be of interest to businessmen and general readers alike. Most importantly, his observations should help multinational companies understand their target audience, and enable them to market their brands more effectively to China's hungry consumers." - The Wall Street Journal
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- MSL Picks -
This book cracks the code of marketing to the New Chinese Consumerall 1.3 billion of them. Marketers of some of the worlds leading brands come to China without any clear understanding of their new audience. Doctoroff delves into the psy-chology of contemporary Chinese consumers to explain the importance of culture in shaping buying decisions. He provides insight into consumers fundamental motivations and reveals mistakes which many multinational competitors make. Anyone who plans to do business in China, especially those preparing for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, shouldnt be without this book.
(Quoting from the Publisher)
Target readers:
Businessmen, entrepreneurs who interested in china Market.
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- Better with -
Better with
Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East
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Tom Doctoroff is Greater China CEO for J. Walter Thompson and Asia Pacific’s leading speaker on Chinese marketing, advertising, and corporate culture. He lives in Shanghai, China.
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From Publishers Weekly
Narrower than the title suggests, this book covers only the branding of consumer items through print and television campaigns. There's no discussion of marketing, pricing, distribution or product design, nor media other than print and television, nor niche or wholesale sales. Doctoroff, who worked in China for 11 years with JWT, one of the region's largest advertising firms, believes that "quantitative research... is incapable of unearthing... an epiphany that elucidates buying behavior" and that "data are coldly empirical" while "insights... are alive." Most of his book, therefore, consists of "insights": qualitative impressions of mass campaigns, mostly by multinational companies selling consumer goods. Doctoroff's analysis of these ad campaigns focuses not on their immediate sales benefit but on their contribution to a valuable brand image. Along the way, he dispenses anecdotes and advice on such topics as how to choose a name that works well in China and how to deal with government censors. This unfocused approach reduces the book's value as a how-to manual, but it does make it easy to read. This is a painless way to pick up the benefit of the author's long experience, along with many stimulating facts.
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| View all 7 comments |
Jesse Kornbluth (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-05 00:00>
As I write, Google has just announced that it will censor Internet searches in order to gain entry to China, the fastest-growing Internet market on the planet.
Many Americans are shocked - just as they were shocked when Microsoft and Yahoo agreed to similar restrictions.
On another day, you could count on me to be shocked and dismayed. I'm not. That's because I've just read 'Billions.' And I now understand something that liberty-loving Americans don't: Individual freedom is just not that important to most of the 1.3 billion Chinese people. They are still living according to the codes of Confucius, who died 2500 years ago. And while they may not hold to Confucian beliefs for another 2500 years, they are not abandoning them any time soon.
But isn't China the fourth largest economy in the world? Isn't China an enormous shopping and manufacturing mall, home of the labels in your shirt and the parts in your hard drive? Isn't the Chinese middle class growing as if it's on steroids? Isn't China, in short, very much like America when we were in a great growth spurt?
Yes to all but the last question. And that's where the China story gets really interesting. The Chinese may be anxious to bankroll the America dollar, they may be thrilled to do business with us, but they are not like us in very fundamental ways.
Tom Doctoroff, head of an American advertising agency's China division, studies the Chinese market to see how products are sold and how they might be sold better. Those who think advertising is just a matter of inventing clever phrases and making eye-catching commercials have a big surprise in store for them - the key to success is insight. Deep sociological insight.
Another Amazon reviewer has described this as 'a deceptively insightful book.' Just so. It's not what you'd expect from an advertising exec. Or, for that matter, from a sociologist. Instead, it's the work of a world-class cultural reporter, who assembles a thousand interesting facts and then fits them into a conclusion that's the furthest thing from a slogan or easy truism. In the process, he delivers --- almost as an afterthought --- the best look at Chinese life I've seen in years.
Consider: Successful Chinese buy Buicks, a brand all but dead here. They prefer the Audi to the Mercedes. They almost went nuts when Toyota made a commercial showing Chinese stone lions bowing to the Japanese car. They like SUVs, especially the Lincoln Navigator, which is called 'The President' in China. They adore Montblanc pens, but mostly for the way others can see the white star when the pen is in your pocket.
Did you know there are at least 150 manufacturers of air-conditioners in China and what that says about Chinese industry? Do you understand why the airports look great, but are, in essence, made of tin foil-covered cardboard? Do you grasp why there are sex shops all over the place but no sex in Chinese advertising? Why Chinese TV shows are anything but reality-based? How a local brand can wipe out a multi-national giant? And how the Beijing Olympics in 2008 are 'the most ambitious brand-building exercise in history'?
Doctoroff has fascinating answers for those questions and more. But most valuable of all, he explains the schizophrenia at the heart of middle-class life in China - the split between Confucian allegiance to order and rank and targeted ambition on one hand, and raw Westernized individualism on the other. How will it resolve? It may not. As Doctoroff reminds us, the Communist party is still the biggest brand in China.
From shampoos sold to the poor in rural villages to luxury cars and fancy apartments in Shanghai, Tom Doctoroff covers it all. His book is like a visit to China with an excellent guide - just without lung-burning pollution and street-vendors trying to sell you the latest DVDs. If you're at all interested in China, are thinking of traveling there or are contemplating doing business with the Chinese, this book is required reading
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zhangmin , China, PRC
<2007-03-05 00:00>
I am a local Chinese living in Beijing and work in a Korean company that manufacturers and markets consumer electronics. Most foreigners don't understand us and think they are better than Chinese. That causes big mistakes! Remember the time Nike ads got banned? But the author really knows Chinese people (its scary) and even seems as to admire us. This book is very perceptive it's hard to believe a loawai wrote it.
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Millie Van Deusen (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-05 00:00>
The marketing universe described in Doctoroff's book seems both familiar to Americans (its size, scale and ambitiousness) and utterly foreign. Its Confucian view of the world is brought home with a series of insights that can be used to build a strong brand. One that I particularly liked described how American mothers want their babies to grow bigger, faster, taller. In a bit of marketing mumbo jumbo, Doctoroff calls this "transformational benefits." Chinese mothers, on the other hand, are more concerned about the dangers of the world and therefore seem immunity and other "protective" benefits. This is just one example and there are loads more.
Doctoroff's analyses of many "sub" markets - youth, men, women - are pretty fascinating and eye opening. Almost like a parallel universe. The middle section is probably the least accessible to non-marketing types but the rest of the book is surprisingly accessible and easy to understand.
A really good - even fun - read.
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Marketing Whiz (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-05 00:00>
I've been amused by Doctoroff's blog blitz. His team hit the blogosphere with 12 "Facts" about the "Confucian Consumer." Obviously, given our aversion to cultural generalizations, he was bound to step into some doo doo. Many of his conclusions were maligned.
I thought, however, they had the ring of truth and ordered the book. "Billions," contrary to some complaints, doesn't claim that there 1.3 billions consumers march in unison. The first several chapters cover different market segments. But the book is pretty clear in arguing that a "Chinese worldview" does exist and, what's more, is relevant when marketing Western goods in China. (Don't Western values reflect a "Christian Worldview," despite the fact that many of us are lapsed church goers.?) The insights Doctoroff reveal are, I think, pretty compelling and are rooted in Confucianism and Daoism. Doctoroff has actually written a deceptively important book.
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