As we celebrate the new calendar year, Chinese around the world are now preparing to celebrate the coming lunar new year or as we called it here in China, the spring festival.?? The 30 odd channels here in China are not short of TV ads and advertisers are taking the opportunity to “brain wash” the public.

Positioning can be a powerful tool for marketers. When melatonnin was first introduced in China to deal with “jet lag”, it failed miserably. A few years ago, a “marketer” re-packaged the product, gave it a “brainy” name and positioned it as a brain health tonic gifts for the well respected elderly (in the good old confucius teaching). It promised to help the elderly sleep better, thus, leading to good health. The marketing bliss took advantage of an aging population and a nation with a tradition of filial piety teaching.

Positioned as a gift because the older generation will not buy it themselves (different consumerism mentality), but their filial piety children (a new generation of consumers with increasing purchasing power!) would buy it for them because it is a respectable gift (for the face). It became an overnight roaring success across China. From a marketing positioning point of view, it is a very good powerful case. From an ethical point of view, well, it is very controversial.

Marketers should recognize that they should be responsible because they hold powerful tools and customers’ insights in their hands.

Winston Nyo

General Manager, Village Earth Pte Ltd

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007 at 6:20 pm and is filed under Marketing, China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.