Jerry Clode, associate director of cultural insight for Added Value, looks at the migration of brands from ‘one size fits all’ endorsements to a more meaningful engagement with celebrities in India.  Written originally for Campaign Asia

The heroes of Bollywood and cricket have typically dominated celebrity endorsement of brands in India. Signing up a leading man from the film industry, such as Shahrukh Khan, or a cricketing legend like Sachin Tendulkar provided a quick-fire way to mass awareness and credibility in a nation obsessed with both pastimes. Read more…

Citing recent examples where storylines built around road trips proved successful, Jerry Clode, associate director of cultural insight for Added Value, explains how brands can exploit the emotional impact such stories can generate—particularly in China.  Written originally for Campaign Asia.

The adventure and romance of road trips is increasingly capturing consumers in China and India. However the expression in India is more global, suggesting considerable untapped potential for the idea in China. Read more…

Evolve or die. It’s a truism. But it has never been more true than right now. The world is changing faster than ever, and as the world changes the people in it change. And when people change, what they want from the things they buy changes too. For a brand this boils down to the fact that today standing still is as good as going backwards.

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Why is it that even some of the best brand strategies don’t make it off the page?

All too often, we hear from clients that the execution of their positioning bears very little resemblance to the carefully crafted version in the positioning model.

Having invested precious time and dollars in developing a strategy that’s spot-on for the brand, the most frustrating outcome is when the positioning is brought to life in a way that seems to emphasize a completely different facet of the brand. Read more…

South Africa’s luxury consumers are bucking the global trend when it comes to the values driving their product and brand choices. Consequently, marketers responsible for guiding the fortunes of these brands should think twice before simply adopting communication strategies developed for European and American markets.

This was the message from Added Value’s cultural insight and semiotics specialist, Dr Inka Crosswaite, to delegates at the South African Luxury Association’s Wealth Conference held in Johannesburg on the 8th of March. The South African based Dr Crosswaite has a Doctorate in Social Anthropology from the University of Cape Town and was a lecturer at Stellenbosch University. She now applies her specialist skills to clients’ commercial brand challenges. Read more…

In China a common way to distinguish people is by the generation in which they are born.  The terms “post 80s” and “post 90s” have become the default to define different values of Chinese who have grown up in the period after the politically disruptive Cultural Revolution (which ended with Chairman Mao’s death in 1976).

These terms are so widely used, that brands have consciously started to deploy them to target specific age groups.  Li Ning, a local sports apparel giant, presented a provocative campaign in 2010 that suggested “no-one understands the post 90s”. The relationship between the post 80s and post 90s is relatively caustic.  The post 90s argue that the post 80s are out of touch with new China. While the post 80s dismiss the post 90s as selfish brats who are selling out to the “West”. Read more…

Jerry Clode writes for AdAge Global on the rise of #Linsanity and what it means for marketers in China: — Even more than his athletic prowess, New York Knicks phenom Jeremy Lin’s ethnic-Chinese identity is dominating Lin-sanity, especially in China.

Mr. Lin’s impact there is immense, with millions glued to TVs and researching his story online. The excitement was highlighted in an uncharacteristically impassioned plea by Xinhua — the Communist Party’s official news agency — that Lin declare his allegiance to China, and sign up for the national basketball team (that’s despite Lin’s U.S. citizenship and Taiwanese parentage). However, the mass excitement and desire to own Mr. Lin speaks to a wider crisis in China’s sports psyche, making him especially appealing to marketers. Read more…

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…

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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