Domestic competition for foreign fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) in China is growing, but branding expert Ashley Dudarenok expects there will still be a market for those foreign brands, she writes in Dao Insights. “To sum it up, the FMCG market in China in 2023 is very fluid,” she writes.Read More →

China’s competitive landscape is changing fast, and the blooming incubators for startups offer multinational a much-needed edge in local competition, says William Bao Bean, managing director of the Chinaccellator in Shanghai to Forbes. “When you’re under pressure and local players are taking market share from you, you look to innovation.”Read More →

Deep insight in consumer behaviour is what marketing should offer, writes branding guru Tom Doctoroff, author of What Chinese Want: Culture, Communism, and China’s Modern Consumer, on his LinkedIn page. Cluttering that insight with “exaggerated faith in algorithms, programmatic efficacy and hyper-personalization,” is not helpful he adds. And: “Insights are not observations.”Read More →

Sales of big Western brands like Unilever, Nestle, P&G and Beiersdorf have dropped in China. Not a declining market is to be blamed – since people do not stop washing their hair – but e-commerce. Branding guru Tom Doctoroff looks for the Huffington Post at “the great leveler”.Read More →

A larger number of foreign companies have been accused of price-fixing. For all the wrong reasons, and based on little proof, argues author Paul French in Ethical Corporation. They include “Unilever, Qualcomm, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Chrysler, Microsoft, BMW, Nike, a whole bunch of Japanese car parts manufacturers and quite a few other corporations”.Read More →

The problem with big data is that they need interpretation, argued sociologist Tricia Wang on the recent EPIC2013 in London. In the way they seem like the oracles in Ancient Greek. More numbers does not mean we are better in predicting the future. A report by Erin Taylor.Read More →

The Dutch-British conglomerate Unilever set a target on increasing its revenue stream from China five times. A realistic target, tells business analyst Shaun Rein of the plan of P&G largest international competitor, according to Bloomberg.Read More →

The unusual fine of 2 million RMB (euro 200,000) for Unilever after announced prices rises caused a stampede, illustrates how inflation is becoming a headache for the authorities, Shaun Rein says in various comments.Read More →