Why mixing 7Up into your glass of Chateau Lafite isn’t necessarily a bad thing

It happens less in 1st tier cities, however, it’s still not uncommon to see people pour fizzy drinks into their wildly expensive wines. Instead of cringing about these so-called transgressions, brands coming into China should learn from them.

Now this could be a wild coincidence, however, when you look at the following market/category leaders, you’ll see one thing in common: they all adapted their offering to Chinese realities rather than trying to force their brand onto the China by ‘educating’ people how to adapt to their way of doing things.

• Chivas encouraged consumers to mix their drink with syrupy green tea drinks
• Louis Vuitton gave out Chinese lanterns at their store opening rather than imposing their French heritage
• Audi was the most successful luxury car bran by expanding the wheel base knowing that most wealthy business or government officials won’t drive. (Besides, it’s great to have a bit more leg room when you’re stuck in traffic)
• Carrefour introduced the wet market concept in order to appeal to the Chinese who want their food to be fresh fresh fresh. Well, this is more of an educated guess but judging at how Chinese look at the eyes of fish to judge how fresh it is, selling them pre-packaged fish as Carrefour does in West would be … well, a hard sell
• YUM! has been great at redefining their brands in China. They could have easily stuck to their brand equity from back home however having realized that their fast food offering in China isn’t all that cheap, they tweaked it. KFC is now a family restaurant whilst Pizza Hut’s environment and menu has been tweaked to attract twenty year olds who go there on dates or to celebrate their good fortunes.

What can your brand learn from the Chinese market? And how can it incorporate it into its offering.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 1:37 pm. It is filed under Asia, China, Food & Beverage, Luxury and tagged with Food & Beverage, luxury, status. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.