Next week we are planning to launch our white paper on Sports IWOM. This paper will follow in the footsteps of our previous white papers on auto, mobile phone, health topics, and notebook computers all of which can be found here.

Netizens are extremely passionate about sports, sports teams, players and sports apparel. As we have seen in other aspects of Internet culture, netizens are proactive in creating original content around these topics and interests. For example, China has a rich DIY sneaker head culture. (see below, taken from the upcoming paper)

Nike iD recently launched in China and will "ride the wave" of DIY culture already active on Chinese BBS.

Stay tuned for the release of the paper next week.

Net Language VS National Matriculation Test (April 3rd）
（网络语言 VS 中国高考）

High school students in China are entering tense times with the upcoming college entrance exams. Most of the students scheduled to take the exam this year were born in the early 90s and are essentially the first generation of “net natives” in China. Interestingly, the authority behind the National Matriculation Test has ruled that Net language cannot be used on the test. This post discusses people’s arguments as to whether or not Net language should be used on the National Matriculation Test. The fact that there is a sort of national debate regarding net language shows the impact of digital culture on Chinese culture.

Spoofing on April Fools' Day (April 9th)
(愚人节的网络恶搞)

Spoofing has become an integral part of Chinese net culture, so it is no surprise that netizens decided to participate in some “online tricks” on April Fools’ Day . Even Google China decided to join in the fun and posted fake messages on its official website on April 1st. The recent April Fools’ Day jokes show that, when done correctly, spoofing can encourage positive buzz and enthusiasm among netizens.

Offline presentation spurs IWOM Controversy (April 11th)
(从大小S北大演讲看口碑的争议性)

On March 30th, Taiwan sister stars, Xu Xiyuan (Big “S”) and Xu Xidi (Small “S”), gave a presentation at Beijing University on beauty products. However instead of taking an academic approach to the topic, the presentation was more superficial. The sisters encouraged the students to try new products and brands, but did not discuss deeper content. This caused a lot of controversy among the students and faculty who began to debate on the Internet whether or not universities should continue to allow stars to present to students. In this post, James and Violet analyze the controversy and IWOM around this story. They mention that, just as in the case of Edison Chen, brands should be aware that they may get negative attention by being sucked into controversies not of their own doing. This is yet another reason to track what’s being said online.

I've been busy trying to create buzz for IWOM in the last week. Here's a quick recap.

Wednesday, April 23 2008:
"Marketing strategies in China: In cooperation with Louvain School of Management"
I spoke at the breakfast meeting hosted by the Benelux Chamber of Commerce in China, BenCham, combination of the Dutch Business Association and the Belgian Luxembourg Business Association and the Louvain School of Management.

Jan Van den Bergh from i-merge invited me to come along to speak about IWOM after he warmed up the audience talking about his views and research results on the "recommendation phenomena" in China. Jan is very wise; there is much to learn from him.

Saturday, April 19 2008:
"Marketing 2.0: How Internet Word of Mouth is being integrated into marketing communications by leading brands in China"
I was the keynote speaker at the Marketing Managers Group's April Saloon, an educational event which takes place every third Saturday of each month at the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade Professional Development Center.

This is a great group of local marketing professionals which get together once a month to network and hear speakers. I got some great questions from some really smart people.

Friday, April 18 2008:
"Getting Business Results From Communications in China"
Panelist at the IPREX global management meeting, a meeting of about 25 CEO's from public relations firms -- predominately from the US and Europe -- who gathered in Shanghai to share best practice, do business development, and learn more about China.

This group knew very little about China, but were open minded and curious. I was very happy to meet Jeff Risley who had worked with firms similar to CIC in the US.

For those like myself who grew up before the Internet went mainstream, it is natural to dichotomize our lives into “online” and “offline.” For the “80’s eggs” in China, however, these “worlds” are more like extensions of each other. Meeting and making real friends online and then organizing offline “meetups” in China is an integral part of strong BBS communities as we can see in the practice of Fubai (see here).

In this issue of IWOM watch, we see that there are emerging SNS sites such as Tonglou which facilitate this practice with communities and functions built around connecting people based on their location, not based purely on their interests (as BBS typically do).

I see such services as an example of using technology to more effectively address an actual need (as opposed to trying to create a need). With an active social Internet, China offers many “needs” and opportunities for brands to address.

Below is an extract from the our latest IWOM watch report which discusses Tonglou and the issue further.

Case Study

Connecting in both virtual and real worlds: SNS builds on BBS trend

BBS platforms with regional forums, like Sofang, have been a popular way for netizens to meet up online with users in their area and arrange offline events. SNS have begun to build on this trend by adding applications and creating a more efficient platform for this type of need. One such site is Tonglou, which includes a special feature called residential districts . Tonglou’s network, with has more than 7 million registered users, targets netizens who live, work or study nearby in real life, in order to help them meet friends offline.

CIC View

Tonglou effectively leverages the existing trend of netizens’ finding ways to balance online and offline life, found in BBS, by creating a bridge between the virtual and real world. Other sites such as CityIN , are also riding the same wave of Internet culture by allowing users to search for friends based on their interests, backgrounds and location.

Below is a screen shot of the index for the full IWOM watch report

Other CIC IWOM Watch related posts that may be of interest:

-CIC Watch Half-Year Review released (download the full report)
-CIC watch: "You" - Time's Person of the Year - also lives in China (download the full report)

I was interviewed recently by Canadian public radio, CBC, about Tuangou or "Team Buying" in China. They found me through the post I wrote on the topic a couple of years ago here.

You can find the podcast here. The site is a bit slow loading from China, so you can also download from our servers here..

I am not sure I have true "geek" creds (and trust me, I do aspire to be a geek), but I will do my best in presenting our latest IWOM watch Half Year Review - An Overview of Chinese IWOM trends from July-December, 2007 at the next Shanghai Geek Dinner. The event, hosted by the The China Business Network, will take place tomorrow, April 8th at 7pm at the Moon River Diner (Jing An). For more information on the event see the event listing here.

You can download the full IWOM Watch Half Year Review report here.

I only have 10 mins to present, so I won't be able to cover it all, but I think you will find it entertaining at the very least...and hopefully informative.

When the Edison Chen sex photo scandal broke a while back, we quickly received calls from brands who used Edison or the other involved stars as spokespersons. Not surprisingly, they were worried about their reputation for being so explicitly associated with stars. Interestingly, in this issue of IWOM watch, we see that some netizens were more interested in the brands in the background of the photos than the people themselves. Is that a Gucci bag on the floor? Is that Cetaphil skin cream on the shelf?

Below are some sample screenshots of netizens spotting brands in photos. (Link to original post form the uber cool Shanghaining)

We also find that netizens work hard to decipher brand names and information about brands in the controversial movie "Lust, Caution." This ‘product presence’ plays a more subtle, but perhaps more powerful, role in stimulating awareness and interest than the often times overt ‘product placement’ and underlies the fact that Chinese netizens are curious about and interested in brands.

Below is an excerpt from the March 15th IWOM watch report covering this topic:

Case 1

Product Placement vs. Product Presence: Netizens sensitive to brands associated with hot incidents

We reported that netizens showed their passion and sensitivity towards brands by spotting their favorite brands and products in the famous fashion icon Edison Chen’s scandal photos. The buzz is not just about these inappropriately behaved celebrities, but about all the brands and products they use as well.

Furthermore, we saw that the movie “Lust, Caution” not only provoked hot discussions among netizens about the film’s controversial plot, but also generated buzz about the high end brands/products featured in the film. (for example, see the following post about the bed products used in the movie)

CIC View

While this may or may not be intentional product placement, netizens clearly made a special effort to seek out the brands featured in the popular film and talked about it with fellow users. This is an example of how brands can have an active presence in online discussions around hot topics, such as films. Association with popular films or events, can not only create brand awareness but can also form a stronger association between the brand and spokesperson/celebrities.

Brands should leverage these types of opportunities to promote brand awareness (i.e. facilitating the spread of the existing buzz around brand information) when sponsoring hot incidents or when associated with incidents or popular events by chance.(Of course, the Edison Chen case is not the case that brands necessarily want to be attached to.)

Just in case you haven't had enough, here is another screenshot of brands spotted in Edison Chen photos.

Screen shot of the index for the full IWOM watch report:

Other CIC IWOM Watch related posts that may be of interest:

-CIC Watch Half-Year Review released (download the full report)
-CIC watch: "You" - Time's Person of the Year - also lives in China (download the full report)

The article below is also my latest column post on iMedia Connection Asia.

My plan for now is to follow up next month with a sort of "part II" for the article to articulate ideas about how brands can actually connect to China's developed and complex community landscape.

BTW, if you like this article, you might also like Paul Denlinger's "A new kind of ad agency warrior" as well as Kaiser Kuo's "Closing the marketing confidence gap Part II"

As the global internet community is striving towards a more connected online landscape, China's new media is already showing signs of the 'future'.

In its recently published report "The Connected Agency", Forrester suggests that the agency of the future will be a "connected agency", which should have "a deep understanding of consumer communities, helping brands create and nurture connections, deliver targeted, on-demand messages, and network for talent and insights."

While the Forrester report does not cover China, the need for agencies to help brands connect is more urgent with an online consumer community landscape that is more active, more complex and overall more evolved than the West. The state of China's online landscape is indeed so. For the country, the internet has always been social, and internet communities have always existed in the mainstream. In short, in China, the 'future' is happening now.

Unfortunately, in contrast to the greater presence and impact of online communities in China, it seems that agencies here are arguably less prepared and less knowledgeable than their Western counterparts. As a result, you often find agencies recommending copy & paste internet word-of-mouth (IWOM) strategies from the West that at best have little impact.

Before taking action, it's important for brands to have an understanding of the different types of communities. Let's take a quick review of the current Chinese internet word of mouth IWOM landscape to understand where brands have opportunities to connect with communities.

BBS as the core of the social Chinese internet
BBS, or topic-based online bulletin board systems, serve as the online nation's "water cooler" for every kind of situation and topic imaginable. While bulletin boards in the West have existed for years, in China, they have not only been in existence for sometime, they actually dominate with 35.5 percent of the 210 million Chinese netizens who use BBS on a regular basis. Most importantly for brands, there are active product communities for almost every category including automobile, mobile phone, parenting and cosmetics. Taking just automobile alone, we see over five million messages per month coming from communities built around specific car models that include detailed product feedback as well as queries related to customer service. In China, BBS communities are the first place to look for active, mainstream and influential consumer communities.

Blogs as diaries
Blogging is absolutely popular, with 23.5 percent of Chinese netizens using blogs regularly. However, blogs, for the most part, serve as personal diaries for individuals (not "power influencers").

Portals have blog "circles" around certain categories, but it would be a stretch to call these circles "communities." Microblogging (such as Twitter- type applications) is beginning to take off with sites like fanfou and jiwai, but has yet to hit critical mass. While there are notable exceptions for some categories, including technology, for the most part, blogs generally have incidental product mention with no real community.

QQ as an ecosystem
Over 80 percent of netizens use IM, with Qzone and QQ groups covering over 70 percent share. QQ is for all practical purposes a social nework service (SNS). Compared to Facebook, it has 50 percent more active social network users. Most importantly, QQ has proved itself to be a capable partner for brands, leveraging its platform for massive reach, even if not deep engagement. An obvious example of that is Coke's iCoke platform.

SNS has not achieved much traction -- yet
While SNS has yet to gain traction in China, Xiaonei is the SNS to watch as it burrows into the university mindscape to provide an alternative to local university BBS. Xiaonei will need to differentiate itself in order to stand out among booming QQ and BBS, and gain attention from those using the Chinese "social" internet.

Q&A communities serving info seekers
Baidu's "I Know" question and answer community, along with Sina's I-Ask, and Tianya's Wenda, has fuelled a segment that has not really taken off in the West. Brands like KFC are beginning to sponsor certain topics as a way to connect with targeted communities and it is worth exploring this hot area.

The many emerging others
Online communities that support product feedback and other consumer discussions already exist within BBS. We are now seeing new sites and applications which are trying to create better platforms for these communities. Dianping is a restaurant review site which will likely morph into a more successful Yelp. Douban is a music and book review community that fulfills the same need as Amazon reviews. Wodeyichu is a community site that leverages netizens' propensity to show off their new purchases with pictures; Meeli takes this a step further as a site where netizens list their purchases, with pictures and pricing. These platforms are emerging and are enjoying varying degrees of traction.

Of course, awareness of the communities is just the beginning. How to meaningfully connect with, support and participate is the next and most difficult step. Navigating partners and strategies within such a varied, vibrant and complex IWOM media landscape is arguably more difficult than in the West even as the opportunity is more compelling.

Take Ford Focus for example: every month, there are over 150,000 messages around the car on automobile BBS communities. How can Ford be a part of these communities? Is it welcome? How can they join the conversation? In which communities are they being discussed? Are there other communities beyond auto BBS communities that might be relevant? To be a truly connected agency in China will require a different mindset that includes actually listening to and understanding local Chinese communities, not just knowing about them and treating them like a new media.