Edwin Ting » China

Rotton Eggs at Lian Hua Supermarket

edwinting — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:54:43 +0000

Bought a set of rotten eggs at Lian Hua Supermarket; the produced date was the date of purchased. I had specifically chosen a set of eggs with the longest expiration date and to my shock and horror the eggs were all rotten.

The most obvious reason was that the eggs had been on the shelf for so long and was not sold out and hence the tag was simply switched out and continued to be sold. Things only get better if someone complains!!!

ad:tech Shanghai 2008

edwinting — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:35:58 +0000

I just returned from ad:tech Shanghai.

It was a good trip and a good conference. An eye-opener in many ways. I liked how the conference had invited many local entrepreneurs to share their point of view and discuss the current online space in China now.

There are 253 million internet users in China now and the numbers are increasingly rapidly. A significant percentage of the population are the post 80s generation. These people, like myself, are those who grew up in the age of technology. Technology is “comfort food”! According to some study, 85% of youths today thinks that their mobile phones are even more important their boyfriend/girlfriend.

The “One Child Policy” that has been on on-going for the past 30 years, is now starting to show it’s after effects in society. The policy has resulted in the “loneliest generation” ever. A child usually lives withe their parents and their grandparents. To them the family nucleus becomes very important. The pressure on them to perform academically, emotionally and in society also becomes very great, especially when the hopes and dreams of 6 people rests of their shoulders.

It is this generation of consumers that brands and marketers are now being challenged to attract and win over. The most connected generation of all time. The internet is their playground. It gives them power to be “seen” and “heard” when in reality they might not have been able to obtain. It is about identifying themselves through the community they build up around themselves.

Points above were taken from keynote speech by Tencent VP, S Y Lau and Pepsi Co CMO, Harry Hui. Both were very impressive speakers with many years of experience in the media industry in China.

While you are glued to this post, let me list a couple of very popular Chinese Sites that you might like to check out:

xiaonei.com – Social network similar to Facebook
kaixin001.com – NBT Social network
fanfou.com – Twitter equivalent
youku.com – Video Sharing Site (The founder insists that the workings and revenue model is very different from Youtube)

ad tech singapore

edwinting — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:51:45 +0000

My first ad tech event ever … my first experience with Digital Marketing in all it’s magnitude and glory!

The event was great thus far. Attended various sessions and 2 of them struck me alot.

The Virtual world
Creative Showcase – Effective campaigns, how and why they work

The Virtual world had speakers from Second Life, Sulake (Hobbo Hotels), Twinity, all different types of virtual worlds. The topics centered around how these virtual worlds were like and who their audiences are. How brands and advertisers should position themselves in virtual worlds, how they might do so in conjunction with integrated marketing campaigns, and also how to measure engagement level of the audience with the brands. It’s a huge area of the digital space to explore and I’m sure as the Virtual Worlds mature and more people are engaged in them in a meaningful way (exponential growth), we can look at Virtual Worlds becoming more mainstream. Brands and advertizers would then have more incentive to advertise in them.

I also liked the final keynote by various Creative Directors. I especially liked the presentation from Dirk Eschenbacher, who was ECD and Managing Partner at Tribal DDB based in China. He showcased one of his recent McDonalds Campaign – 我喜欢中国赢！- which was a massive campaign that worked tremendously. It was led with a digital campaign and viral in nature.

China as a market had always fascinated me. How the millions of people feel so strongly for their nation while as individual competition amongst each other is huge and they all are dedicated and determined to be better than the other. Rules in China changes rapidly and what works today might not work the next. Working and living in China is like standing on the edge of a cliff. You ever know which way the wind can change (and when you will truly be safe). The other challenge of being in China is the lack of intellectual property (IP) protection. Hence, ideas are rapidly copied and by nature of being in digital, ideas and concepts are even more easily copied.

Tomorrow is the final day of the conference. Hope to get more interesting insights from the speakers and the people I meet.

Temple and Kungfu Panda

edwinting — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:40:20 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Been “offblog” for a couple of days.

Recently, I went to watch a local theatre production – Temple – with my brother. It was part of the Singapore Arts Festival, a production of Cake Production. This was the 2nd performance I watched in the Arts Fest. I have to admit that this is the first year that I am actually seeing more than 1 production in the festival. Most years, the festival just goes pass me. The show was very rapid and droning. It was a different take on the reflection of society. It borders on being good, but lacks something to make it excellent.

Over the weekend, finally went to have lunch with my grand parents and the old time place – Hai San Chicken Rice. That place, we ate since I was little and it’s surprisingly still there, undisturbed by the changing times. The food remains good!

After lunch, I caught the long-awaited Kung fu Panda. The movie was EXCELLENT!

The animation was marvelous, the details was meticulously presented, the accuracy of Chinese style of legend was there, the Extreme comic relief of the hilarious Panda was definitely the essence of the show. Occasionally, I wonder if the show is correlation to China as a nation versus other countries. Whatever politics, it was THE most enjoyable show I had watched this year!