Week In Review: January 23-27

Jing Daily’s Top Posts for the Week In case you missed them the first time around, here are some of Jing Daily’s top posts for the week of January 23-27: Chinese Shoppers Putting Premium On “Made In USA” Labels By this point, it’s well established that China’s shoppers are fans of American brands like Coach, Ralph Lauren, Levi’s and Tiffany & Co., are buying Buicks and Cadillacs at an impressive rate, and are slowly but steadily coming around to Californian wines. But for smaller brands, particularly those made on a more limited scale in the US, opportunities are opening up in the Chinese market as well. In recent years, fueled by the “workwear” trend that swept through the American and European menswear markets, American-made brands like Red Wing, Woolrich, Engineered Garments, Tellason, Billy Reid and dozens more have found their niches in Western markets and Japan. Now, with the growing sophistication we’re seeing among some discriminating Chinese shoppers in top-tier cities (or those living abroad), US-made American brands may have a chance to crack the China market in coming years. Though “Made in USA” may not have the same draw as “Made in France” among the vast majority of Chinese high-end consumers, the higher price-tags, lower production volume, and quality of suitmakers like Hickey Freeman, denim brands like Roy, and shirt-makers like Gitman Bros. will likely give an ever-growing number plenty of reason to feel confident choosing a Hill-Side tie over Hermès. Dragon Week Gives China’s World Travelers A Taste Of Manhattan High Life Over the last five days, the inaugural Dragon Week brought retailers and luxury brands in New York face-to-face with some of China’s emerging outbound tourist-shoppers, a highly sought-after but poorly understood demographic. Organized by the membership-based network Affinity China, which plans to hold upcoming Dragon Week events in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, the week of events was clearly a learning experience for attendees as well as Affinity China and the participating retailers. Consisting of a series of private events that gave attendees exclusive access to fashion designers, brand execs, and public figures like Mayor Michael Bloomberg, designers Diane Von Furstenberg and Oscar de la Renta, and pianist Lang Lang, Dragon Week was both a celebration of the Chinese Year of the Dragon and of the growing spending power of China’s small but growing coterie of big-spending world travelers. Events during the week reflected many of the interests and products most important to these outbound travelers, ranging from cosmetics (Estée Lauder) to watches (Piaget), wine (Tribeca Wine Merchants) and fashion (Ralph Lauren, J Mendel, Coach, Bergdorf Goodman). Filmmaker Zoe Cassavetes Directs Johnnie Walker Blue Label “True Rarity” China Campaign Continuing its strong push to foster a new generation of Chinese whisky drinkers, the Diageo-owned whisky maker Johnnie Walker recently signed the Manchester-based ad agency Love to promote its Johnnie Walker Blue Label in the China market. Directed by the American filmmaker Zoe Cassavetes, who has previously worked with luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Miu Miu, Drum notes today that Love developed the concept, wrote the script and provided the creative direction for the 60 and 30-second “True Rarity” commercials. Along with shots of the Shanghai skyline, the ads feature a rare white tiger prowling the streets of the (mostly emptied, to unsettling effect) urban metropolis, which is meant to symbolize the fact that Johnnie Walker selects only one out of every 10,000 casks for its Blue Label whisky. As Love’s Mike Hughes, creative lead on the campaign, said this week, the ads were part of Johnnie Walker’s broader strategy to tap China’s wealthy luxury consumers. Said Hughes, “We wanted to create an emotionally engaging film that would position Johnnie Walker Blue Label as a luxury brand.” Brands Boost Digital Budgets To Sidestep Beijing’s TV Commercial Ban With the Chinese government’s ban on television advertisements during drama programs taking effect this month, one of the major trends we’re keeping an eye on is brands shifting resources from TV to the digital space. (A move that’s gained momentum in China over the past couple of years regardless of Beijing regulations.) The transition from print to television to online to mobile in China has been one of the fastest in the world, and advertisers have been quick to follow suit, rushing to keep pace with consumer preferences. This week, perhaps in an attempt to stay ahead of domestic competitors like Tsingtao and Snow, the 112-year-old, Anheuser-Busch-owned Harbin Brewery — China’s oldest and fourth largest brewery — signed the London-based company Telemetry to serve and audit its online video advertising in China. According to iResearch, the ban on television advertising during dramas will only speed up an unmistakable trend in China’s advertising market, which has seen the online video advertising market report 200 percent year-on-year growth. Chinese Pawnshops Set To Benefit After Luxury Gift-Giving Glut Now that Chinese New Year gift-giving season has hit its stride, major luxury brands have likely been left smiling as wealthy gift-givers loaded up on watches, wine and jewelry. But another beneficiary that stands to profit from the Chinese New Year luxury spending spree is the humble pawnshop, thousands of which have popped up throughout China in the last decade. As the Economic Observer recently noted in its profile of China’s “gift economy,” luxury consumption with the intention of gift-giving is part and parcel of the country’s holiday celebrations, and has in many ways shaped the Chinese luxury market as a whole since the first stirrings of market economy reforms in the late 1970s. As the article points out, “Gifts have always been the most effective lubricant in human interaction [in China]. In both urban and rural settings, a gift is a means of developing one’s power and profiting in return. The hunger to consolidate power and wealth among the elite and the nouveaux riche has vastly expanded the high-end gift market. Tweet Follow @JingDaily

Week In Review: January 23-27

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Published January 27, 2012

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Week In Review: January 23-27