Understanding Chinese Consumers. A new way of Approaching Marketing in Chinese Culture

There is a tempting marketing theory stemming from the idea that a ”global consumer” would exist and that he or she would be the consumer of the future. Is that why Censydiam set up shop in East Asia, in China to be precise?
If a ”global consumer” would exist, consumers would behave in a uniform way all over the world. Censydiam would not need to do marketing research in China – or wherever other place for that matter – and marketers would only have to ”globalize” local market information.
That so-called global consumer however does not exist. Consumers do not behave in the same way in different places over the world for the simple reason that they belong to different cultures, though they may seem to respond in the same way to the same picture codes. The problem with this approach consists in the fact that, in this particular case, the code is mistaken for the message. What appeals to the consumer is not the code itself but the meaning it generates and the promise it expresses. What appeals the the Chinese consumer is what Censydiam tries to find out. In China, however a lot of the East Asian consumers appear westernized nowadays. We do it in the spirit of the Chinese adage ”To excel others, master the classics.”

De auteurs zijn allen verbonden aan het onderzoeksinstituut Censydiam. Jan CALLEBAUT is managing director. Cis PAELINCK is master in marketing en Oost-Europese economie, Danny LAM is als marktonderzoeker gespecialiseerd in Azië.