With Chinese consumers in a temporary funk, brands must tailor their messages to conservative tastes, says JWT’s North Asia CEO
Category: Consumer
Hong Kong-based clothing retailer Giordano International issued a profit warning Thursday following weaker sales in mainland China, Bloomberg reported. The company said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that first-quarter gross margins fell to 44.8% from 49.5% a year ago. This, together with a 12.8% fall in overall sales from continuing operations, […]
Raffe Ibrahamian, owner and manager of Cantina Agave, a Mexican restaurant in Shanghai: “Business is good, as usual. We got a couple of phone calls asking if everything is OK. I say, OK – we’re not in Mexico. It’s like when SARS came out… do I not hang out with Chinese people when I’m in […]
Local governments have put in place all kinds of schemes to boost domestic consumption. Vouchers are the best-known option and Hangzhou is the city best known for pushing them. But these consumption-boosting measures range from mere encouragement (through voucher schemes) to obligation. As we noted in a report on local protectionism that appears in the […]
Suppress incomes, suppress consumption, April 9: Chinese government policy is increasingly focused on creating the social infrastructure that will persuade people to save less and spend more … Huang [Yasheng, of MIT’s Sloan School of Management], however, believes that a high saving rate is not the problem; low income growth is to blame … In […]