23 January 2012: A pioneering study of Chinese domestic life has revealed unique insights into the next wave of growth in the Middle Kingdom.  WPP researchers spent time with extended families during the one time when Chinese people relax together for a long period – up to 15-days of New Year celebrations.

Combining ethnographic research and cultural insight from Added Value and data analysis from BrandZ and CNRS-TGI China, the study unlocks year-round brand and retail opportunities for marketers engaged with the Chinese market. Read more…

On the eve of the Chinese New Year, Steve Bale, Oracle Added Value’s Non-executive Chairman, explores what the Year of the Water Dragon will mean for one of the world’s fastest growing markets.

Dragons are notoriously unpredictable beasts.  There’s only one thing that can be said with any certainty about them… if you are going to ride one, you’d better hold on tight.

The good news is that this year’s dragon is easily the most civilized of the five that exist in the otherworld of the Chinese zodiac.  Read more…

Is China losing its appetite for the hustle and energy of its New Years celebrations?  Or is the holiday still an opportunity to connect with consumers?  Nicolas Peden, cultural-insight explorer at Oracle Added Value, delves into Shanghai to find out.

Nothing like a tall cup of coffee to reinvigorate.

I wouldn’t dream of starting my day without two large cups ‘o’ joe (forgive this hopeless New Yorker).

It’s what kept me chugging along the last couple days when trekking through hazy Shanghai to unearth the city’s “Chinese New Year Spirit.” Read more…

La chaîne de supermarchés Tesco a innové et crée le buzz en 2011 en proposant un supermarché virtuel sur les quais du métro de Séoul (Corée du Sud). Les affiches lumineuses proposaient des produits avec des codes barres QR que les passants pouvaient scanner avec leur smartphone et acheter. Une fois le panier rempli et validé, le passant se faisait livrer chez lui. Ce procédé a permis d’intéresser les consommateurs n’ayant pas le temps de se rendre en magasin.

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Tesco* have felt the wrath of the UK press this week after its worst performance in many years. A raft of issues has been cited: from badly-designed stores, poor customer service, failure to meet shopper’s quality expectations, to, above all, price.

Behind these factors lies a deeper problem: shoppers have fallen out of love with Tesco. And the reasons are two-fold: the brand’s failure to emotionally connect with consumers and Tesco’s own blurred positioning. And the two go hand-in-hand. Read more…

Sustainable Innovation Director, Leslie Pascaud, writes for GreenBiz.com–:  Despite economic turbulence, political abdication and consumer apathy, the corporate sustainable agenda is still alive & kicking. According to a recent McKinsey survey on “The Business of Sustainability”:

“More companies are managing sustainability to improve processes, pursue growth, and add value to their companies rather than focusing on reputation alone.”

Clearly, some companies are doing a better job than others. Near the top of my list is Danone *– a publicly traded company that, in my opinion, is a model for best practice in sustainable innovation. Read more…

USA VP of R&D and Offer Innovation, Zoë Dowling, takes a look back at ESOMAR’s 2011 3D Digital Dimentions Conference , and reviews the challenges facing researchers in a digital age…

In the two years since I last attended the ESOMAR Online conference, it is interesting that relatively little of the conversation has changed in that time.  Reoccurring themes  included what to do with social media, the usefulness of online communities & co-creation, mobile as poised to take over the world and Web surveys being in real trouble. Gamification was a prominent newcomer which made quite a splash throughout the conference, while notably there were a few absent topics: panels, data quality and, to a degree, neuroscience. Read more…

As you take off for the holidays, destress and refresh your mind with some of these inspiring reads:

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Welcome to Issue 30 of Branding for Good News, Added Value’s newsletter focused exclusively on sustainable marketing; the challenges, opportunities, our solutions and points of view.

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Luxury and sustainability: two opposing concepts? At first glance, perhaps. After all, the word luxury derives from the Latin word “luxus” and conjures up images of ‘pomp, excess and debauchery’. Whereas sustainability, by definition, invites us to ‘meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs’.

The two sound paradoxical indeed. And consumers seem to agree. In a recent survey by Salon 1.618, consumers put the luxury industry last in a ranking of industries associated with sustainable commitments; ranking lower than the financial and petrol sectors.

So should the luxury industry admit defeat and never embrace sustainability? We think not. For several reasons: Read more…