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'Experienced marketing' rolling into China
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-30 14:13

Experience sells

With the Chinese wallets ballooning, the consumers growing more mature and the goods becoming abundant, traditional marketing skills such as sales discounts and promotions, public relations and advertising are not playing a dominant role in affecting purchase decisions any more.

"For marketers it is easy to spend money, but it is difficult to make sure whether it is well spent," says GPJ's Rich.

Founded in 1914, GPJ has extended services to many industries especially those from the IT and automobile sectors. "When we asked the clients how they have implemented their objectives through the marketing events, their answer was always 'we are not entirely sure to what extent we have intellectually and emotionally reached the customers,'" says Rich.

"Then the problem rises."

But no worries. "We see experience marketing as one of the most effective ways, because it's not only direct, but also face-to-face," explains Rich.

Customers can then firmly believe "the product and the brand are designed just for me", says Rich.

Look at how the international companies have promoted themselves in China by utilizing the tool.

Take Ikea. Despite merely four stores, the global leading home furnishing retailer from Sweden has gained extreme popularity here, even dwarfing domestic players, since its entry in 1998. Its China sales have kept growing at an annual growth rate of double digits, and in 2007, the figure was 38 percent.

Of course, it is neither the price, (higher than the market average) nor the troublesome build-it-yourself approach that has attracted slews of consumers to the stores - especially on weekends and holidays - but what the company calls its "uniquely relaxing, entertaining and purchase-provoking atmosphere".

Shoppers can try everything in any Ikea store, sitting at (or on) desks, lounging on couches and laying on beds. Each store has mock-up rooms of different sizes that are meticulously furnished with Ikea beds, sofas, bookshelves, desks and chairs and decorations. And after a long day or evening shopping, consumers can unwind in the in-store Ikea caf.

The designs are appealing to Chinese consumers and most cannot restrain the impulse to buy something to spruce up their own apartments a la Ikea.

This summer, Ikea is opening its fifth store in Tianjin covering 600,000 sq m, following ones in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. It plans to open one or two stores every year in China.

US-born Starbucks is another striking case. Attracted by the neo-coffee house ambiance Starbucks creates with its artistic interior designs, lively music and coffee-related tips and stories, Chinese white-collars regard it as a tasteful, comfortable choice for meeting friends and business partners - though a cup of coffee is more than 20 yuan on average, twice the price of java sold in a domestic coffee shop.


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