2013 BrandZ Top 50 Chinese Brands
High Value Brands Have Healthy Balance Sheets
Business leaders in much of world
have sought for a long time to build
local, regional and global brands
that add significant value to their
organizations. Today, in China, we
see the same phenomena emerging
as Chinese brands move from being
local to regional to national and
now to global entities.
China’s people drive the change.
Historically, the people of China
generally have been savers rather
than spenders. However, as the
economy strengthens the Chinese
are changing and causing the
businesses they buy from to change
too. Government policies and
initiatives encourage the formerly
conservative Chinese consumers to
release some of their hard earned
money and spend it on goods and services, driving GDP growth.
This slow but steady, and now
very noticeable, transformation
is affecting every business across
China. Consumers are learning to
buy more products and services for
reasons other than price. They’re
paying attention to brand.
Key Take Aways
The growth rate of China's
economy slowed but only in
relative terms. The market
opportunity remains enormous.
Consumer sophistication is
increasing rapidly. It's critical to
keep up with shifting tastes and
to respect the quest for value.
The convergence of these two
factors—the slowdown in the
rate of economic growth and
the acceleration of consumer
sophistication—may signal an
emerging era of more cautious
and discerning customers.
To reach customers as they
adopt these new attitudes,
brand owners will need to be
more precise in their targeting
and messaging. Brands will need
to be more relevant.
Both entrepreneurial companies
and State Owned Enterprises
(SOEs) can enjoy success with
these changing consumers.
The integrity of the brand is
more important to consumers
than its pedigree.
International brands also can
enjoy success, but in a market
with greater choice and more
sophisticated consumers they
may need to work harder.
Sustaining success is another
story. In several product
categories the leading brands
of just a few years ago declined
in value either because they
misunderstood the customers'
needs or they responded more
slowly than the competition.
As consumer attitudes change,
they will not be uniform across
all of China's geographic
markets. It's possible—and
important—to isolate the factors
that that most contribute to
consumer bonding with brands
in the various tier cities. These
bonding drivers help to both
design market entry strategies
and improve the performance of
brands currently competing in
the market. The BrandZ™ data
that produces the Top 50 report
contains this intelligence.
Many Chinese brands are
good at providing functional
benefits, but few do an excellent
job bonding emotionally
with consumers. Bonding is
important for several reasons.
It's a way to gain consumer
insight. And bonding correlates
positively with sales.
As China's media environment
becomes more complicated
and fragmented, many small
ideas can be more effective
than one big idea for reaching
multiple audiences with diverse
media consumption habits,
with many people still tuning
into TV but social media users
rising dramatically.