Doctoroff hits back: Paul French is wrong

Tom Doctoroff

"China Guru Clash" Thomas Crampton has already baptized the discussion between Paul French and Tom Doctoroff on China's middle class - at least that is where it started. Yesterday Crampton posted a vitriol attack by Paul French on Tom Doctoroff, CEO of J. Walter Thompson for Greater China, today Doctoroff hits back.

Thomas,

I don’t know what to say. I believe the posting is unbalanced and the tone is bully-boy cocky.

How does one respond to a sweeping statement — at least my book, on the first page, warns of “generalizations” — that yours truly is “wrong about China.”

And then he rails against me, sarcasm dripping, for having the audacity to call myself a “pioneer” when Carl Crow had already seen “everything.” He’s playing a gotcha game gone bad.

Doctoroff denies claims French makes about him claiming to be a pioneer in anything and Doctoroff points out that his so-called "claim to fame", the market introduction of the Buick in China in 1999 was done by Bates, not his firm. The market has changed since the days of Carl Crow, French's hero, says Doctoroff:

He did not see a middle class boasting 150 million people and an auto market with 6 million passenger cars sold per year. He did not see a mass market — now penetrating the rural fringe — snapping up mobile phones and using them to transform their lives. He did not see multinational corporations setting up R&D centers and manufacturing scale on the mainland. He did not see that extraordinary release of energy that resulted from the embrace of capital markets.

More at Thomas Crampton's site.
Both Paul French and Tom Doctoroff are speakers at Chinabiz Speakers. If you are interested in hearing them speak, perhaps even together, do get in touch.

Has Carl Crow done everything before?

Paul French

Thomas Crampton has been talking to quite a few of our speakers at Chinabiz Speakers. Here you can see Paul French, taking on one of our other prominent speakers, Tom Doctoroff. Paul French has been publishing a book on the journalist/entrepreneur Carl Crow, a Tough Old China Hand: The Life, Times, and Adventures of an American in Shanghai.
French argues that Doctoroff is wrong in portraying himself as a pioneer in China and that all has been done before the Second World War, indeed by Carl Crow. Folowwing that argument, all honor should probably go to Marco Polo for opeing up China, although he did not yet arrive in a Buick.

Both Paul French and Tom Doctoroff are available as speakers through Chinabiz Speakers. Of course it would be a great idea to have them both together on the stage. Do drop me a line if you are interested.

It is naive to think Google does not sell its results - Lonnie Hodge

Lonnie Hodge

Our speaker Lonnie Hodge was the guest of weblogger Thomas Crampton and sings high praise of China's search engine Baidu. Baidu makes money by selling its search results and asks brand names a million RMB (€100,000) to get associated with those results.

It is naive to think that Google’s results are not for sale?
Google may not be directly involved in the sale of their results, but Hodge pointed out that there is a reason people pay top dollar to search engine specialists. These specialists work for the wealthiest and savviest companies to skew results. “The average SEO specialist in the US with 5 to 7 years of campaign management can command US$100,000 to US$250,000 for his/her talents. That certainly indicates an uneven playing field exists and that the results are dubious at best.”
But the question remains: Are purchased search results unethical?
Hodge praised Baidu for only selling the top four results and putting a line under them and only allowing brands and government agencies to buy their own search results page.

Lonnie Hodge is a speaker at Chinabiz Speakers. If you would like him as a speaker, please drop me a line.

Wishfull thinking by "The Economist" under fire

via WikipediaI had to smile, when I saw this angry comment by Paul Denlinger, who goes at his weblog after the Economist about their attitude towards China. What is the argument? In an editorial The Economist - I believe Paul Denlinger gave up on the magazine after reading this introduction - the main argument is that the current nationalistic fever is quite likely to turn against the Chinese ruling party after it has dealt with the French and Carrefour.
The argument at The Economist:

There is no doubt genuine fury in China at these offences; yet the impression the response gives of a people united behind the government is an illusion. China, like India, is a land of a million mutinies now. Legions of farmers are angry that their land has been swallowed up for building by greedy local officials. People everywhere are aghast at the poisoning of China’s air, rivers and lakes in the race for growth. Hardworking, honest citizens chafe at corrupt officials who treat them with contempt and get rich quick. And the party still makes an ass of the law and a mockery of justice.

I agree very much with Paul on this issue: there is no beginning of an indication that this analysis of The Economist is more than wishful thinking. To summerize Paul Denlinger:

It is exactly this kind of argument which Chinese see as western hypocrisy and double standards. Of course there is anger at some Chinese government policies, but these are a separate issue. Please don’t try to change the subject!

Unfortunately, there is a trend in how "Western" media look to China (and the rest of the world). Lack of facts and too much wishful thinking is a major one. Mostly webloggers are blamed for having this same combination, but the traditional media have here also a longstanding tradition.
Paul Denlinger is a speaker at Chinabiz Speakers, and if you are interested in retaining him as a speaker, do drop me a line.

Crisis management at Carrefour: too little, too late

Sam Flemming of the IWOM

Where would we be without the internet? Carrefour would not have had its national boycott and we would not have known how incompetent its management reacted on the fast emerging crisis. ESWN translates a piece at Sina, depicting the (lack of) crisis management. We follow (anonymized) PR-person Li Kuan of Carrefour in Shanghai, who smells after a few days that something is rotten:

After quickly looking up the earliest Internet posts, Li Kuan got worried. "Although Carrefour was not the initial target, this affair occurred under very special circumstances ..." But Carrefour headquarters did not give a clear explanation of the situation and its potential actions. This point was confirmed from another public relations worker at a Carrefour branch office. The branch office found out about this affair only on April 13, and they thought that April 13 was the first day when the Internet posts and mobile phone SMS went out for the Carrefour boycott. Thus, they were two days behind the headquarters in terms of awareness about the situation. It is not known what emergency meetings were held at Carrefour headquarters over those two days. But the slowness of communication was surprising. From April 14 on, the media began to descend on Carrefour. According to inside information, Carrefour did not have a consistent message when the media showed up. "The headquarters did not tell the various local public relations people what to say or respond. Everything was based upon their own careful handling by virtue of professional experience and guesswork!"

The power of the consumer emerged and has hit Carrefour by surprise. Only after a while counteraction started to emerge. One of the sound explanations is that Carrefour has been focusing on government relations since its start in 1995, when it faced major regulatory problems. It failed to understand fully the voice of the consumers, especially the internet word of mouth, as our speaker Sam Flemming of CIC would put it. Sam Flemming has been repeating his warnings as enterprise after enterprise found itself at the mercy of the emerging vocal consumers.
If you are interested in retaining Sam Flemming for a lecture, key note or otherwise, do get in touch with Chinabiz Speakers or drop me a line.

Beijing Olympic sponsorship is a waste - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

I already praised Shaun Rein, first on our April top-10 speakers list, last night for knowing how to play the traditional media, and today he does it again in Forbes. The Beijing Olympic sponsorship is a waste of money, he says in another attention-grabbing contribution.
There is a lot of money going around, he writes:

Companies like Adidas and Internet portal Sohu have coughed up serious money to sponsor the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Estimates have computer maker Lenovo paying $80 million to $100 million to be the official sponsor of the games. Eleven global sponsors--including Coca-Cola and McDonald's--spent a combined $850 million to sponsor the Turin and Beijing Olympics.

Shaun Rein Market Research Group decided to figure out how effective this money is being used and helps to increase the brand awareness of those sponsors and they conducted hundreds of interview in ten different Chinese cities.
Result: most consumers had no clue who the Olympic sponsors where. In the case of sponsor Adidas, non-sponsor Nike ran actually away with the honor:

Ultimately, 40% of respondents felt that Nike was the official Olympic sponsor, vs. 50% for the actual sponsor, Adidas, and 10% for Chinese brand Li Ning. Despite a great marketing campaign featuring the Chinese people carrying China's Olympic stars on their shoulders and an emphasis not only on the events but on China's entrance onto the global stage, Adidas has not made their sponsorship stand out.

Brands are better off when they target for the long-term, not short term hits to convince the Chinese consumers, Rein writes.
Shaun Rein is a speaker at Chinabiz Speakers. Are you interesting in having him as a speaker? Do drop me a line.

Most sought speakers - April 2008

Shanghai via WikipediaThe shortened holiday is around the corner and many readers seem to be already packing for different holiday destinations. So, before everybody's mind is on other things, we have an earlier edition of the Most Sought Speakers at Chinabiz Speakers for the month April.
As I already predicted in the top-10 for March 2008, Shaun Rein's march to the top will be upstoppable. This month Shaun has driven long-term winner Tom Doctoroff to the second place with a pretty huge margin, based on Shaun's diligent way of working with the traditional media.
Biggest surprise is Rowan Gibson on the third place, coming in from absolutely nowhere. He is the first speakers without clear China-credentials getting to high in our rankings. We have added Rowan Gibson to Chinabiz Speakers, because he is a leading expert on innovation and some of his authoritative books will appear this year in Chinese. Obvious, that was a good choice.
Also in the tail of our top-10 five remarkable newcomers, also because we have a shared 10th position for both Maria Trombly and Mark Schaub.
What helps very much to go up in the rankings, is getting into the media. In those terms also Jeremy Goldkorn is fast gaining celebrity status; Rupert Hoogewerf had already that status, but has been working hard to get the 10th year anniversary of his Rich Lists in the publicity. I'm using Twitter and can follow so Isaac Mao's international endeavors: also very impressive.

The April top-10 (March in brackets)

1. Shaun Rein (2)
   
2. Tom Doctoroff (1)
   
3. Rowan Gibson (-)
   
4. Rupert Hoogewerf (7)
   
5. Zhang Jun (3)
   
6. Kaiser Kuo (-)
   
7. Jeremy Goldkorn (9)
   
8. Isaac Mao (-)
   
9. Warren Liu (6)
   
10. Maria Trombly & Mark Schaub (-)
    

Lonely Chinese kids drawn to the internet

One of the reasons for the popularity of the internet among China's youngsters is the one-child policy, says William Bao Bean in a video made by Thomas Crampton.

Growing up in a one-child household makes Chinese children lonely and keen to connect, hence the obsessive use of the Internet by China’s young generation. Chinese, Bean says in this 2-minute video, are much more likely to connect with people than their counterparts in other nations.

William Bao Bean, partner at the Softbank China & India Holdings, is also a speaker at Chinabiz Speakers. If you want to retain him as a speaker, do drop me a line.