As China enters the WTO, the range of brands and products offered to consumers will increase to match Asian standards. Therefore, China's growing domestic market will increasingly become a main reference point for marketing trends in Asia, together with Japan and Korea. As a result, the need to anticipate the next step in Chinese consumers' needs will become even more important. This paper highlights what makes the young (15 - 35 years) Chinese middle class consumer special in Asia. It also shows how this will increasingly impact the future of branding in the region, as mainland China urban youth progressively imposes its tune on regional trends and blends its priority with both western and Japanese pop culture influence.
The fast development of mobile telephony in many countries has surprised many forecasters. However based on the results presented here we believe that using a value-based approach could have reduced the gap between projections and market reality especially when taking a mid-term view. In the paper we show that from a socio-cultural perspective we find three groups of countries. The three groups also define three levels of mobile phone penetration. The results are based on joint quantitative surveys carried out by RISC and Ericsson Mobile Communications in twenty-one countries throughout the world from 1996 to 1998.
RISC is monitoring social change in most developed countries in the world to service multi-national marketing operators and institutions. A yearly survey on 2.500 people by country provides a regular evaluation of the social and consumer trends that our sociologists have identified or forecasted.
Modem society is characterized by change : technological, political, economic... These changes all contribute to socio-cultural evolution, that is to say our evolving vision our ourselves and of the society in which we live. This, in turn, influences developments in technology, politics, economics, etc., in an on-going, self-repeating process. In a context of emerging opportunities and threats one cannot afford to adopt a wait and see attitude, nor assume that the future will be a mere extension of the past. Because yesterday's solutions will certainly not fit tomorrow's problems, anticipation and flexibility are the keys to successfully piloting oneâs business in an ever changing environment. More research and consulting firms teach clients such a philosophy. But, how can we apply it to our own field of praxiology, market research ? By consistently providing both a brand or product related actionable angle and a long term perspective in each research product, at each research level, anticipation can be built-in in market research services.