<%@ Language=VBScript %> <% CheckState() CheckSub() %> Dreaming of red mansions: brand experience, emerging stories and the digital world
ESOMAR

World Association of
Research Professionals

Vondelstraat 172, 1054 GV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tel: +31-20-664 21 41, Fax: +31-20-664 29 22

April 2008


Dreaming of red mansions: brand experience, emerging stories and the digital world

Lee Ryan
Asia Pacific – Latin America – Middle East & Africa (ALM), TNS, Singapore

Lisa Li
Research Manager, TNS, China

INTRODUCTION

Who can guess the outcome of a game of chess? Incense burned out, tea drunk – it's still in doubt. To interpret the signs of prosperity or decline, an impartial onlooker must be sought out.1

Historically some of us have experienced global research studies which have viewed asia as underdeveloped western markets; or have fitted findings into a western paradigm. However increasingly we see markets leapfrog typical evolutionary paths –therefore challenging us to explore new frameworks to understand cultural, category and brand evolution. This paper explores how to conceptualise and research experience in the rapidly emerging market of China. How can we use tools that access the different experience threads that enable us to have conversations with people, and where we shift from researching consumers to researching people who are producers. Cultural ideas and practice are likely to be more complex and differentiated as our understanding becomes more tribal, more digital and more behavioural where we become more global and integrated, yet simultaneously, our experience is diverse and local.

AWAKENING

I don't know,” he says, shrugging his shoulders and raising his voice above the wind that rushes in through the open windows of the truck. “We Old Hundred Names, we don't know about these kinds of things. But I do know that China will never become like your country.2

It is an exhilarating time to be a qualitative researcher in Asia as global marketers focus on emerging markets and as new forms of qualitative research are also emerging. For researchers embedded in Asia, grappling with Asia, there are enormous challenges and opportunities. Among the numbers circulating the globe, by 2045, India and China put together likely to be equal to G7 and by 2050, becomes substantially higher – a combined economic strength of 75 trillion dollars. looking closer, by 2015, China and India combined would have overtaken each of the G7 countries except the United States and by 2035, the United States as well. All the major Asian markets have a large rural component, necessitating their further division into two distinct parts, each with a different consumer profile, distribution infrastructure and mass media. In china an estimated 25 million people per year will move from rural to urban areas in the next 10 years. Increasing urbanization could compensate for the declining birth rate in China to maintain the total number of young consumers accessible to multinationals.

Both within marketing and in marketing research, the centres of gravity globally have historically been located in the west. With a shift in gravity from developed to developing markets; we can expect to see not only a shift in focus, but also in how we conceptualise what and how we see.

The next wave of internet behaviours will be shaped by different cultures. Japanese is the #1 blogging language in the world, accounting for 37% of all blog posts,3 Tencent's QQ is the world's largest IM service (270 million accounts vs. MSN's 250 million) and casual gaming portal,4 South Korea has the world's highest internet literacy, and China is poised to overtake the United States as the world's largest online market in the future. China had 210 million internet users by the end of 2007 (compared with 111 million Internet users in December 2005) and will soon have more web surfers than any other country on the planet, an official report said. China already has the globe's biggest mobile phone user population, numbering 539.4 million at the end of November, according to government figures. China as a market is enormous, heterogeneous, fast-growing and unpredictable. We will be talking about China in this paper, both a case study of an emerging market, but also as a market that is unique. Several provinces of China are larger than many other Asian countries. Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shandong each have a GDP which is not very far from that of Indonesia and higher than that of Thailand and Malaysia. Shanghai alone has a GDP which is almost equal to that of the Philippines. In reality China is 40+ markets – most with a population of more than 10 million. Increasingly we see these markets leapfrog typical evolutionary paths (at differing rates) and therefore challenge us to explore new frameworks to understand cultural, category and brand evolution. We have also observed in different categories that emerging markets do not always aspire to Western values and lifestyles, and do not follow the same brand trajectories. For example, Korean drama, movies, music find increasing resonance in the rest of Asia.

There is the notion that other countries and cultures are just playing catch-up – sometimes leap-frogging particular technologies, but always developing along a trajectory set here about the right ideas and products. It is refreshing to have American engineers return from Japan or China or India and say, “Oh my God! You will not believe what I saw.” It is also a shock for people in other markets to realize they are more sophisticated than the markets in the U.S. Genevieve Bell – Intel

The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), also known by the title of The Dream of the Red Chamber, is the great novel of manners in Chinese literature. As we explore experience in the paper we will look at the role of memories and dreams. The novel is normally called Hong Lou Meng literally “Red Mansion Dream”. “Red Mansion” was an idiom for the sheltered chambers where the daughters of wealthy families lived; thus the title can be understood as a “dream of young women”. It can also be understood as referring to a dream that Baoyu has – in a “Red Mansion” – in chapter 5 of the novel, where the fates of many of the female characters are foreshadowed.

WHY DO I HAVE TO TELL THESE STRANGERS HOW I FEEL?

Frameworks and ways of thinking both simplify and accelerate understanding but can also limit knowledge and insight. What has worked well for one era or geography or culture may not be as illuminating for another. Western approaches can be constraining if the visiting qualitative research paradigm views Asia markets as underdeveloped Western markets; the techniques do not recognize the stage of evolution of the market or category, and findings are force fit into an existing framework built on western assumptions. Most of the theoretical assumptions of market research in practice come from the first half of the twentieth century. It enabled the market research industry to understand people as consumers, with a focus on needs. And while this understanding of people as consumers has served us well for the growth of marketing over the last fifty years (and the market research industry as well), we may need to start not only considering people as people, but also people as producers. In addition, the needs framework that has been a powerful tool in the last thirty years may need to be broadened not only for emerging geographic markets but also for emerging online research. The role of functional needs as opposed to emotional needs continues to anchor some of the debate in marketing and market research literature in a binary oppositional relationship with a recent article talking about the neglect of functional differentiation (Get real: the return of the product,5 Return of The Product, Never mind the sizzle ... where's the sausage? and the literature that emphasizes the role of accessing emotional needs in order to build a sustainable brand differentiation (e.g. LoveMarks), etc.

Research in emerging markets like China is still caught up in the binary relationship between product functionality and the emotional needs marketers can meet. But it is the assumed primacy of emotion (which is often about individual decision making, and framed in psychological notions of individualism) which can constrain insights. Maybe even the word 'individualism' may be deceptive. While Chinese consumers want to feel like individuals, individuality comes framed with western understanding. Dr Giana Eckhardt, lecturer in marketing at the Australian Graduate School of Management in Sydney, says that the social concerns of consumers tend to dictate their purchase decisions. Eckhardt teases out the distinctions between Western and Asian consumers. “In the West, consumers signify self to others, whereas Chinese people do not consume to tell about one's self, but rather to indicate their position in a social hierarchy.” For 18–25 year olds there is a focus on belonging to an “in-group”. “This is showing others the sort of group I am part of, not trying to stand out from the crowd.6 Choice may be to reflect group identity rather than individuality and may also involve an element of “qualification”, i.e., Do I think that this brand “qualifies” as denoting who I'm with (or otherwise meeting my needs)? Obviously qualification criteria varies by categories and between people but it seems that amongst the brands that qualify, there may be relatively little differentiation. The deciding criteria may be “yes it qualifies” or “no it doesn't”.

An example is laddering for depth in brand decisions; where nuances of meaning are not evident in categories/brand marketing less than fifteen years old (and in some cases less than five). Developed Western markets have had more than a century of gradual development of consumer culture, and consumerism is embedded in Western consumers. We can intrinsically recognize how a product and/or brand is targeted – at a minimum, at the mass vs. niche level. Therefore researchers can expect to be able to skilfully uncover the layers of meaning and the semiotics of particular symbols, designs, and messages. But in China and Vietnam, for example, consumers have fifteen years or so of consumer culture, and those layers of experience and therefore of association aren't always there. It's painful to watch moderators desperately probing for layers of association that just don't exist, or trying to find connections that aren't there – sometimes, red is just an attractive colour that makes a product stand out. What can be more useful is a wider understanding how brands “register” with consumers (e.g. Gillette qualifies as premium rather than having a brand personality). In addition, there are particular categories marketed by a type of group decision making. This requires a better understanding of the role of social markers.

Qualitative researchers need to have the tools to understand and explain the role and meaning of social identity in categories where a group is referenced by the decision, as they would understand functional and emotional needs. And in categories of young brands but old behaviours, we need to tap into the consumer aspirations and product experiences that date for hundreds and (even) thousands of years. In the era of 'planned economy', for most of the categories (except 'big-item' such as bike, TV, washing machine, etc.) that consumers encounter, choice and branding was limited. Yet their memories in the 'planned economy' still resurface again and again when it comes to decision making today. As an interesting example, a premium foreign vitamin brand has a 'glass bottle' in other countries as a symbol of 'high-class, professionalism'. However, the same package received a polarized perception by young and older consumers in China. A close look into the issue found that the contrast in perception came from the memory of the package in the China market: older people associate the package with an old-time package of soy sauce, vinegar, and medicine. They witnessed the glass being replaced by the 'premium and modern' plastic. While the young generation has little memory about the old-time glass bottles, on the contrary (while older people are much less sensitive to the change) the youth are seeing the evolution of plastic packages being replaced by 'premium, environmentally friendly' glass (in categories such as juice, cooking oil, etc.). In Vietnam we were once testing an idea for a new vodka. To Western eyes, one of the concepts looked very appealing – retro design, invoking French colonial times, authenticity, tradition, heritage, etc. To local consumers it looked old, poor quality, “un-modern”, undesirable. Things that to Western eyes looked mass, and didn't stand out, appealed the most – they met the “qualification” criteria.

This is not to say that understanding functional and emotional needs aren't critical for understanding brands in Asia. As we research experience in different categories across the different tiered cities in China, we have needed to widen our toolkit. We also need to have a more documented understanding of social needs and the complex role these play in a decision making process. Mark Earl's book The Herd discusses this role in some depth in a predominantly western context. Herd thinking is critical in China. It is interesting there is more debate about the limitations of Western methodologies in usability literature than in market research. Apala Lahiri Chavan in Another culture, another method notes (in human factors and usability), “All methods used in the Western world are based on the premise that participants will find it easy to articulate their thoughts and feel comfortable to say what works for them and what does not (Hall Edward). However, this assumption is heavily loaded in favour of certain cultures and against others.

Focus groups still dominate as a main form of qualitative research in China as they do in other markets. They have become a purchasable commodity which researchers feel comfortable proposing and clients have ease and control over buying. Focus groups do assume people will articulate both attitudes and feelings in a group setting, and that this is a comfortable cultural channel. Yet differing status and roles makes this less comfortable. Voicing direct opinions or disagreement is not always harmonious. (And it is an irony that people have bad focus groups but still use them, yet reject online research in some quarters even with one bad experience). It argues for more use of affinity groups, or in home groups, gathered from the neighborhood, and greater use of remote interactions (such as forums and/or bulletin boards). The almost “confessional culture” that can be tapped into in some western markets is not the case everywhere in the world, and in many parts of Asia it is culturally appropriate to be careful and considered and to find consensus in discussions. So expecting a roomful of strangers to reveal all, and to argue and strongly defend their point of view, is optimistic.

People are visual and living life on multiple levels. As qualitative researchers we need to 'dance' between these different levels – opening up the illumination. The contradictions are multiple and inherent to life.

LEARNING TO DANCE BETWEEN TIME AND SPACE, INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL IDENTITY

Divided into five volumes, of which The Dreamer Wakes is the fifth, the glory and decline of the illustrious Jia family (a story which closely accords with the fortunes of the author's own family) is charted. The two main characters, Bao-yu and Dai-yu, capture the ritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life. It also deepens one's understanding of what it means to be human as it blends realism and romance, psychological motivation and fate, daily life and mythical occurrences, as it narrates the decline of a powerful Chinese family.

This next section of the paper explores how we should explore brand and category experience in China. As qualitative researchers we need to 'dance' between these different levels of experience – opening up the illumination. The contradictions are multiple and inherent to life in emerging markets. A literature review of “experience” revealed there are at least two main strands to the experience discussion. One strand is focused on 'experiential marketing' (by marketers) – which is more focused on marketing communication events. The other is 'product design' (by designers) and is more focused on the design of products (an upgrade of/breakthrough from usability). As design is now playing a larger role in marketing, there has been an accompanying shift of emphasis into understanding and designing brand experiences. TBWA is now marketed as the Brand Experience Company, Nokia has both stores and a site called www.Nokiaexperience.com, and Samsung has brand experience stores. For some commentators, this is seen as a necessary move away from conceptualizing functional needs as product features to a more holistic emphasis on experience. Peter Merholz from Adaptive Path gave a presentation called “Stop Designing Products” at SHIFT 2006 to emphasise the move to designing experiences. Both the Ipod and Starbucks have been two often used examples of experience rather than product design. P+G have shifted from a focus on product functionality or performance to a focus on product experience. “If you look at design as part of the entire consumer experience, it's critical,” notes Kotchka. “But we don't try to quantify design as something different from something else; we measure what is the total consumer experience with this brand and this product. It's very holistic.7

Research then needs to develop its tools to enable clients to understand experience. Sometimes research into understanding these experiences even at a qualitative stage can either lapse into functional touchpoint evaluation or have a narrow psychological focus that is shaped by thinking about participants as consumers. A wider view is required to incorporate other elements such as social identity, social interaction is required. In the design world, the shift of focus from 'interface' to 'interaction' happened a while ago; however in the market research world, it seems many methods are still looking at 'interface'.

Compared to 'product-centered' marketing, 'experience-centered' marketing takes a more 'human-centered' perspective. It acknowledges the power of the new consumers by understanding consumers first and foremost 'people' than 'users or consumers'. Sanders

We have found 'experience' to be a more sustainable scaffolding than 'usability' or 'needs' because it emphasizes three elements: context, interaction, and action. (By scaffolding, we are using a term that we feel offers more than frameworks. Scaffolding has gained popularity in some design literature – and originates from academic literature on language learning and refers to supports to promote learning when concepts and skills are being first introduced to students).8 Our experience scaffolding emphasizes context, interaction as well as action.

Experience takes place in and is determined by the context – the where and when (place/space/location) and whether it is fixed, mobile, and/or virtual. It is also social, it is never shaped by oneself, it is shaped through interaction with others. It is not static, it is dynamic, it forms over time and changes over time, through actions of people. If we look at brand experience it is not just the result of functional and emotional needs, not one moment, it is a process, it concerns a period of time and interactions. We have learned that rather than asking what is experience, what components make it up; it is more important to ask “How is experience formed?” The present experience connects the past and the dreams (Sanders). In order to understand experience, it is instrumental to know the desires, aspirations, fears, pains, values. Experience should also acknowledge that they are the authors of their own experience (they choose to participate in an experience or not and make sense of their experience creatively and subjectively). This means we need to understand what people do, what they say, as well as what they make from their experiences.

The Four Threads of Experience

TNS has identified four experiential threads, two of which include individual and social elements. We need to understand individual triggers, hopes, fears, functional and emotional needs. We have also found it useful to identify the pain and pleasure points of an experience (detailed below), and increasingly are introducing a more active “production” component so we can incorporate participants as producers (which extends all the way to ideation and prototyping). But experience is rarely formed in an atomized way in emerging markets, so social elements are crucial. People's social interaction with each other continues to use new technologies to meet human needs (weblogs, online forum, Facebook, etc.). The interaction between people and brands are also shifting with the discussion of prosumers. In China, Apple became phenomenal in the youth cohort today. Many know it from online, through the experience of others, prospects perceive the brand through making sense of who the users are and what their experience is like. There are many examples of recent brands in China where awareness spread so quickly in communities. We are social animals with a strong need to fit in, to belong and to identify with a particular group. Patriotism, parochialism, family, club, and peer group identification are all expressions of social identity needs. One of the most overt ways brands are used is to display membership to a particular social stratum. The meaning of an experience is located in the culture that supplies those meanings – which implies understand the world(s) and culture(s) in which consumers live and gain identity. Beyond social identity, we need to understand social interaction, cultural values; often within a context of both wider regional and global shifts.

The other two experiential threads are spatio-temporal. Actions and events unfold in a particular time and place. If we 'unpack' time and space we can more fully understand experience. If we look at the experience of brand, it is not a result of pleasures, not one moment, but rather is a process which concerns a period of time and interactions. Any one experience is linked to the memory of an experience (both as an individual and as part of a social group). Through both activities and discussion we can understand how people reflect and anticipate experiences. (If we consider holidays and relationships, reflection and anticipation make up as much of the experience as what happens in the instant). Consumers today can experience products not only in real world, but also on the Internet, be it top-down (online ads, brand online portals) or bottom-up (web2.0 review), or 2D or 3D (virtual gaming and second life).

Experiencing the Present

Clients are increasingly immersing themselves in the present experience of people.

As Sanders describes any moment is where memory and imagination meet. The idea that brand should connect with consumers in their dreams is more widely acknowledged. To understand experience we need to tease out both social and individual memories and understand how the first memory of the brand or category was formed. 'Vintage' cool is evident among youth in China – the coolest youth wear military caps following the style of the cultural revolution. Alternative local brands access 'trendy' through 'childhood' memories. For example, the theme of eye protection through massage on t-shirts, vintage toys on t-shirts, bags, etc. The Chinese local fashion apparel giant LiNing (which is now considered a cool and young brand by many of the youth today) issued a limited edition in the theme of 'LeiFeng'. 'LeiFeng' was an old time hero of the kids but he's rarely mentioned by people today. What's interesting is the limited editions for many international brands such as Adidas and Nike are always concerned with the 'memories' of the west (Beatles, Air Force 1, Mike Jordan, etc.). The idea of 'limited edition' is to provide extra value that echoes with the consumers' value. However, the western brands merely import 'their' memories into China market without awareness that Chinese youth have a completely different set of shared 'memories'. We see 'local indie' as a new trend theme in China market – their strength is they know about the memories of their consumers (see Figures 1 and 2).


Figure 1: Vintage bag: the textile (the blue and the two white strips) is the same as the old time uniform which no longer exists, and neither does the badge. This bag is as expensive as a Nike bag from a local designer brand.


Figure 2: Print ad in the style of old time art & local magazine.

This impacts on how they learn, how experience is formed.

Ethnographic methodologies are increasingly important – and qualitative researchers are learning to observe and not just interview. Observational skills are critical because we are often looking at everyday behaviours. We operate on autopilot for many daily actions, the brain uses routines and scripts, and these things are not consciously thought about. Observation can reveal rituals and routines which in discussion can seem trivial and taken for granted. Pain points and pleasure points are practical analysis tools to employ for ethnographic work. Pain points enable researchers to identify overt and latent elements in the experience that are either obviously painful – or could be improved if done another way. Opportunities arise when pain point identification enables client products and services to address constraints. Examples of constraints include educational experiences (levels, beliefs and access of the learners), aesthetic constraints (lack of aesthetic choices), technological constraints, social restraints (mobility), and physical constraints (space). Pleasure points are the inverse of pain points. The question became what is a useful way to look at different types of pleasure. The Four Pleasures is a framework that was developed by the Canadian anthropologist Lionel Tiger (1992). Tiger looked at societies all over the world and analysed the different types of positive or 'pleasurable' experiences that people can have. Jordan took this framework and used this in design:

Luxury Case Study

According to a recent report China now has the largest number of billionaires in the world outside the United States. Clearly the economic boom in China is creating a class of consumers who have the wherewithal to buy luxury goods. This is evident from the blistering pace of growth that the industry has witnessed in the country – with some reports estimating China to be the third largest luxury goods market in the world. The luxury market in China is evolving, the competition is intensifying, the penetration is deepening and Chinese consumers are becoming more sophisticated. The luxury goods manufacturers can no longer expect that Chinese consumers will naturally lap up the products designed for the Western world or succumb to the temptations which are effective globally. It goes without saying that the consumption of luxury goods is fueled by a burning desire for status, to prove one's worth for the world to see and applaud. The increasing number of BMWs and Mercedes Benz on the roads of Shanghai and Beijing are advertisements of the occupant's success and bear strong testimony to this sentiment. The luxury market in China is no longer a single homogenous market, but is beginning to show signs of segmentation and differentiation, with different consumers looking for different motivations and demanding varying gratifications from luxury (Sethi et al).

By looking at the different pleasures sought within luxury, we can pull apart different segments, and how they experience pleasure. For one segment – it is the Socio-Pleasure luxury bestows – or the social or cultural status that ownership of luxury goods and services bestows on them as a purchaser. Consumers use luxury goods for the socio-pleasures of gaining respect, standing out from the crowd, and fitting in 'the circle'.

This is happening in two layers within China. For one group, particularly those who are recent entrants in the market (newest of the new money!) or live in relatively smaller cities and less exposed cities, the loud call of sheer status is still a valid one. This is more dominant in tier 2 cities than tier 1, which only consider the most well-known brands, favor products with noticeable value and tend to be influenced by salespersons.

For another layer, the same pleasure is being met but by using a different set of motivators. Externally they are looking for recognition – but not just on the basis of their wealth or ownership of luxury goods, but on the basis of their taste, class and discernment. The consumers in this segment want to be respected because of their sophisticated tastes and “status skills” such as ability to savour an expensive glass of wine, a Cuban cigar or a game of golf.

This segment is dominant in Tier 1 cities. They are heavy spenders of luxury who obtain their knowledge of luxury from magazines, Internet, and community.

But for a third group luxury goods and services were providing a different pleasure. For them luxury means new and novel experiences – gratifications that go beyond the pedestrian sensation. Perhaps the ultimate indulgence in this would be space travel. These consumers have the limited utility of luxury products as demonstrators of their status and success but more as sheer physio pleasure – the sensory pleasures provided.

Consumers choose luxury goods for the psycho-pleasure of self-reward, pampering, relaxation, stimulation, etc. The physio-pleasure of sensual gratification is usually instrumental for this segment. This segment is most likely to be seen in the categories of travel and leisure.

Indulgence seekers find the physio-pleasure of sensual gratification and the psycho-pleasure on a spectrum of peace/relaxation to stimulation/excitement.

Finally a fourth group looks to see their own values echoed in ownership. For luxury trend-setters it is the ideo-pleasure of fulfilling the desire to be individual and be different; the socio-pleasure of being respected/admired for uniqueness. Luxury means fashion leader and uniqueness. Consumers choose luxury to lead the trend and be looked up to as a 'trend-leader'. Luxury consumption is driven by the value of individualism and the desire to be individual, unique, and standing out as own style. Consumers in this segment are not content to use the usual luxury brands, but for more exclusive ones, the relatively less known.

Compared to western markets, this latter group is still a small driver of purchases in China. There are also local brands such as LaVie and Shanghai Tang (partially owned by Richemont Group) which are rising luxury brands. These brands do not tap into just a domestic market but a global market for luxury that is Chinese inspired.

While marketers need to acknowledge the emerging luxury needs, and sharpen their products and positioning in a targeted manner, it goes without saying that status and prestige continue to be the underpinnings of this market and need to be supplied adequately. The affluent Chinese yearns for acknowledgment and luxury goods manufacturers need to make sure that they provide this in ample measure. However, the meaning and shades of status are different among different segments of consumers, and marketers who are successfully and sensitively able to match their offer with the precise consumer need will be the ones who will reap the largest rewards in the Chinese luxury goods market.

DIFFERENT TOOLS ACCESS DIFFERENT INSIGHTS

A Dream of Red Mansions' captures in ethnographic detail the daily lives especially of female characters. It captures personal habits, their inner struggles as well as the complexity of gender roles, social pressures and expectations people have around social identity, social roles and social interactions.

Kahneman talked about 'experiencing self' and 'evaluating self'. Our experiencing self is the part of us that registers events as they happen without anticipation or reflection, while our evaluating self, which is more influential in constructing our memories, focuses on the most intense moments and the final moments of an experience. In focus groups researchers are more likely to tap into the evaluating self of the participants. (Experience is often viewed through people – either in the first or third person. Research buyers tap into the third person more often in the focus group, but the first person experiencing self when participating in an immersion). In other research we have conducted, using powerful psychological tools we have found we can tap into people's emotional perceptions of an experience. But when we have used those same tools to tap into perceptions during the experience, different perceptions emerged. And for the marketer, we often want to understand both facets, how we imagine the experience to be as well as a deep understanding of what is happening within an experience. Recent research into happiness shows that as humans we are not always so good at predicting experiences – about what will make us happy.

Ethnography and online tools both provide researchers the ability to access the “experiencing self.” Ethnography offers physical closeness, the internet virtual closeness. Both are enriched when there is more time to build relationships, and where we blend the tools. For deep dive exercises we are increasingly integrating ethnographic and online tools. For participants who are utilizing the internet regularly for certain types of activities, they are more honest and expressive online than offline (through writings and uploading pictures and videos, etc). This has meant tailoring the online space to be as energizing and as expressive and rewarding as it can be. Using interactive platforms is a powerful way to enable expression, as the process becomes less tied to the social interactions or identity bound on them within a focus group ... and in line with adoption and usage of tech products and services.

Youth in China is a heterogeneous market. They have strong consumption power and strong influence on the spending of family members. In addition, they often set trends that are adopted by other demographic groups. They can be difficult to connect with by traditional media methods, as in China too they are netizens and are able to identify and reject marketing messages that lack credibility. One online study conducted by TNS involved Chinese youth invited to participate in a wiki over a seven-day period, with mass participation – a conversation agenda set by participants and not research led. TNS conducted a youth study which reveals the insight that Internet is the media/tool through which many social boundaries can be destructed. 'The virtual world is more real' (Chinese young consumer). When looking at the youth case, we see more changes in the way experience is formed than changes in the results of experience – this is mainly attributed to the role of the Internet in their life. In our youth study, we found that the most active panelists tend to be those we went out with in an ethnography stage. And online communication after the ethnographic phase, through bulletin boards, blogs, or IM, enables follow-up with participants – and more than often we find participants have more to tell us a couple of days after the ethnography.

Ethnography, Online Tools, Experience and Space

Compared to conventional qualitative research methods (FGDs and IDIs), ethnography and online qualitative accesses experience in different ways. People are not always able to explain decisions or bring to life contextual factors.

'Last weekend I went to KTV with a bunch of friends ... We ordered Chivas and some soft drinks ... When I tried to ask myself why I chose what to drink and which brand, I found I really cannot explain... it seems to be so random, accidental... Maybe it was the way I was exposed to the menu; maybe some of my friends pointed one or two brands out; and I had to balance the preference of boys and girls; and there was a promotion... it was just a lot of things happening...' Young Chinese female, in a follow-up conversation some days after the formal interview

While researching the triggers of brand choice for soft drink, a young male we spent time with emphasized the influence of media on brand choice: 'I didn't drink this before I read from the newspaper that it is good for keeping fit, the moderate taste, and the feeling in the stomach after consumption.' However, through observation in his dorm and in the campus, contextual information emerged. It is among the only three brands available in school canteen, the brand is stocked in the most eye-catching/convenient position in the convenience store in campus, and it is 'popular' in his dorm as well as on the campus (see Figure 3).


Figure 3

Doubtless ethnography enables the most intimate investigation of the context because the researcher is in the context in person. What's interesting is today the 'context', for some consumer groups, is comprised of not only real world surroundings but also the online context. We found ethnography and online research are complementary again in this sense.

During the luxury research, after ethnography, the researcher added a participant into the buddy list in msn through which the researcher started to dive into her online world of influence on luxury consumption. In her space she referred to a close friend when she talked about her fantasy of jade jewelleries – and the hyperlink takes the researcher right away to her friend's blog where the researcher obtained more contextual understanding about the respondent's aspirations...

At the same time, offline ethnography enables the researcher to investigate the online context as well. When the researcher meets a participant online (via IM, Facebook, etc.) or tracks the information of the participant (via blog), it is impossible to 'accompany' the participant to know more of her online activities at other websites/online tools. During ethnographic fieldwork, a check of the 'favorites', 'buddy list', must-visit for the day is always helpful to understand the online environment to which the particular participant is exposed.

Ethnography, Online Tools, Experience and Time

Focus group discussions are efficient at gathering a range of perceptions in a short amount of time. Understanding the temporal components of experience (memories, dreams) is harder in groups. Talking about memories and dreams is not what people do with a group of strangers. Individual talk time is limited in a group, so while people may mention stories of the past and their dreams and aspiration, either directly or through projective questioning, the information is captured within the group experience which means connections with memories, dreams and their influence on an experience are often not able to be deeply made at an individual level. Ethnographic methodologies (with the most popular forms of home visit/tour, accompanied hanging out/shopping, group gathering with friends, etc.) reveals more of the temporal thread of experience. Some spheres of memories and dreams can be discovered through observation (photos framed and displayed at home/office, posters, books, etc.) After spending a longer time with a person, a researcher is more able to have earned social permission to ask some heartfelt questions at the appropriate time. For example, we spent time with a university student, visited his dorm, went with him to the gig at his school (a live guitarist/band). When we were walking with him in the campus it suddenly started to rain, we then sat at the playground for shelter... the ambience and the mood of the student ticked to the researcher that it was a good moment to talk deeply. The student opened up to tell us about his complex relationship with his farther – how the conflict has made him rebellious and how a long talk with his farther has re-shaped his dreams. After the ethnography, the participant emailed the researcher: 'I really did enjoy the time with you... Although you did it for work, I was really moved by your sincerity in really trying to understand me... You know much better about me than some of my close friends now...

Online blogging bulletin boards are also helpful – while people may have concerns talking about their memories or dreams face-to-face, it is much easier to do so on the internet.

Experiencing the Social

While there are social interactions in focus groups, they are not the ones that really take place when consumers experience brands/products. Researchers can be accessible to some 'real social interaction' through ethnography and online. Similar to 'context', to many consumers today, 'social interaction' is also comprised of the online and offline world. We are learning conversational research techniques from our [longitudinal] online interactions with young people in China. We have had to move away from some of the formats we use in focus groups. Typically in a focus group, the conversation topics and flow are pre-set with the moderator very much in charge. It is more challenging to manage the discussion in the same way online where probing by the researcher may actually interrupt the atmosphere and create 'distance' between researcher and participants. We have found it more insightful to give young people the space and time to talk about topics that they find engaging. Although they may talk about completely irrelevant things from the topic, sometimes insightful information emerges unexpectedly. When we intended to understand the moral 'boundaries' of today's youth, we received few responses after probing such as 'what do you mean by ...' However, in the jokes of panelists and the many responses to the jokes by others, vivid findings about the 'boundaries' emerge...

Scene 1;

Day X, I went towards home after shopping;

A RMB100 cash nodded to its fall from the pocket of a kid several steps ahead of me;

I waited....

It finally fell down...

I picked it up from the floor

I turned around, and walked back to the store and bought some new clothes”... and in the comments, someone else wrote “haha, I once did the same thing”.

There's no hurry to 'probe', as we will always have the opportunity to re-ask a question from a different angle or in a different way. Young people are much more spontaneous online than in offline conversation. They are very likely to answer your question very abruptly if they are not in the mood to elaborate – it is found from time to time difficult to gain responses with 'depth'; however, highly possible on another day the participants initiate a relevant topic and some very interesting discussion take place voluntarily.

'Stories' and 'pictures' are found to be more helpful than 'what do you think...' 'in your opinion...' kind of questions. The participants can only engage when they like the community, and they are willing to understand more about other participants in the community and to introduce more about themselves to the community. Bulletin boards contribute more to the vividness of our understanding with the 'stories' and 'pictures' than to the 'depth' of our understanding of the cohort (compared to the ethnography) (see Figure 4).


Figure 4

So, ... what is emerging to be more powerful on the online world, are those techniques that enable people to open up in this environment. Key to this is the ability to create a community that panelists feel they belong to which facilitates more spontaneous sharing of ideas. Part of community building is the tools and platforms with which participants can build their online identity, for example through appropriate local glog applications.

We have found it more effective to ask questions within the blog space than in the 'official question and answer' space. Other tools include social networking, e.g. IM, 'buddies', and even 'lovers', the ability to share stories, 'throw a stink egg or give flowers' application, vote, rate and co-create in the making of ideas. As we work with participants to make new ideas, and new stories we can access new types of insights. As we shift from techniques that give us access to needs of participants to techniques that show us experiences of producers... clients will be closer to people. We count it a measure of effectiveness that amongst the online community of 100 across this project in different phases, there are already two pairs of lovers within two months of operation.

Experience is a more useful framework to take us into the future. With the shift to web 2.0, a lot of changes occur in the three elements of experience formation: Accordingly, market research should evolve to be able to understand experience on 'what' and 'how' do we study. The 'what' is aside from offline consumers, the online users/bloggers/bbs, even virtual world avatars. The how is methods with a better view to context, social interaction, and time span.

IF FALSE MAKE THE TRUE AND TRUE AS WELL FALSE

Dreams are a catalyst in this 18th century novel of manners. They enable the “complementary oppositions” between truth and falsehood, and between history and literature. Truth and falsity, reality and illusion are constant throughout 'Dreams of the Red Chamber'. In the story there are recurring motifs of mirrors and twins. The name of the main family, has the same pronunciation in Mandarin as another Chinese character , which means fake, deceitful, factitious or sham. Thus Cao Xueqin suggests that the novel's family is both a reflection of his own family, and simultaneously fictional, or a “dream” version of his family that is a mixture of real and fake story telling.

Some of the shifts in emerging markets' experience of social networking is becoming less about “collecting” friends and existing friendships, and more about meeting new and interesting likeminded friends as prefigured in South Korea about five to seven years ago. However, while this trend may be noted in western markets and in some Asian markets, China is still characterized by a desire for sharing peer reviews and information. Bulletin boards play a pivotal role in Chinese internet life, where information shared in this forum is trusted due to its first-hand nature, frequent updates and the communal virtual environment.

As researchers like Genevieve Bell talk about the reemergence of the social “lie” of the 18th century (aka Austen) utilizing supporting data where 45% of UK mobile phone owners admitted to having lied about their whereabouts by text message (2006 survey); a Cornell University study showed that 100% of US online daters lie about either their height or weight; and James Katz says we are entering an “arms race of digital deception”. For every device that claims to purport to tell the truth (e.g. GPS), there is another service that allows one to lie, deceive or create alibi. Her next argument was that there is a big gap between our cultural ideals (lies are bad things, secrets are seen as being good, as they allow to maintain trust) and our cultural practices (we tell lies all the time, 6 – 200 a day). New ICTs manifest themselves in a very complicated space where there are already tensions between cultural ideas and practices (which are played out differently in different countries). Already in Asia there is a deep understanding of the impact of social roles and their influence. Yasuhiro Maehara is quoted as saying in the Financial Times, “I am constantly made aware of what I am expected to say or how I am expected to act in various contexts and environments. There is my honne, what I really feel, and my tatemae, the part I am supposed to show to the rest of the world.” Meaning is derived in relation to others in virtual worlds (but also on social platforms) where people can display their 'ideal self' or 'desired self' and behave accordingly, how they model their avatar, what they reveal (and what not) of themselves, how they communicate, with whom, etc. Where it becomes interesting is to interpret the gap between the 'real self' self and the 'ideal self'. With my limited knowledge of eastern cultures this could be even more relevant as conformity plays a bigger role in real life, as in the virtual world there are no boundaries.

One of the new architects of hipihi, Zafka Zhang, talks about his thoughts on 3D virtual world. He emphasized two main breakthroughs of 3D virtual worlds which actually fit into our experience scaffolding: 1) the shift of space and time; and 2) the revolutionary development of social identity on the Internet. Zhang commented that the virtual worlds will provide a new space and time where people co-exist in real time. Cory Ondreika has outlined how collapsing geography has provided a platform for people to communicate, create and commerce. Internet has been evolved from a tool/media to a space. 'Marketing has changed as well, in the age of 1.0 a brand created an online portal to disseminate information, in 2.0 it realized the importance of communities to approach/influence, in 3.0 a brand can build a space for people from all over the world to experience your products and your culture, even to co-create the products' said Zafka. But the new ways of marketing in virtual worlds is still in the process of developing and experimenting – many brands have their presence in second life, but few have made significant success. There's an overall short of engagement/experience in virtual world marketing techniques today. Different from 2D, in 3D virtual worlds, one has a complete social identity with his/her/its appearance, home, property rights, etc. 'In the virtual world I have a complete identity of mine. I care about my appearance; I care about my manners, my words and my behaviors. I build an identity with consistency.' How close/far is one's virtual world identity with real world identity? Research found people actually tend to build their avatars that are close to their real life (see Figure 5).


Figure 5: Would you dramatically alter the avatar's physical appearance from your own?

Avatars are 'real' in the sense that they (like real life people) have dreams and fears, passions and pains, interaction with others and communities... 'And the vw existence is in a great extent a reflection of the real world.'

'3.0 is going to change people's life as dramatically as the emergence of Internet has.'

Marketing on the virtual world is not just a new fad – with the aid of virtual worlds, brands will be empowered to new ways of interacting with consumers, and experience is the key word for the new way of interaction. Much more than this, the way product is designed and consumed is going to be dramatically changed. 3D virtual worlds are also a cost-effective platform for experiments. Social scientists have conducted experiments on virtual worlds to test regulations/laws/rules of society. The 3D virtual world is a potential platform for marketing experiments as well. Virtual world market research companies have already started their practice in virtual worlds. 'I haven't really thought through about market research in virtual world. But I can see the need-gap – while many companies are keen to enter virtual world, few of them really know about the world, not to say the audience/consumers in virtual world.'

Today, it is the avant-garde who are shaping a virtual reality of Chinese youth in the virtual world RMB City Manifesto.9 Tomorrow, there will be common Chinese consumers shaping their own second world of reality on the virtual world. 'It's a mirror that partially reflects; we see where we were coming from, discover some of the “connections” that fill the pale zone between the real and the virtual, the clues of which get disturbed, enriched, and polished. New orders are born, so are new, strange wisdom' (China Tracy, or Cao Fei, Chinese artist).

Gaming reminds us that the role of pleasure and/or play is a key consideration when designing for experiences. Users are encouraged to experiment, and there are small rewards. Converging technologies force design decisions to balance between productivity/utilitarian requirements and creating interactions that are playful. Some of the debate about social networks is underlying notions of work vs. leisure. Ironically technology which is shaping and driving work lives (impact of email, ppt, word) is also reshaping our leisure or play. Elements mentioned above are going to be important in web 3.0, including branded experiences, playful engagement, social interaction, sharing, and customization. Web2.0 shifts the way information is created, spread, and accepted (as well as information channels), the way people interact and relate to each other, the relationship between brand and customer, the relationship among business partners/competitor. As we shift from consumer to person, we also shift from consumer to co-producer. Gaming already has the notion of consumer as producer. Coders who at home are mod'ing (or modifying) an existing game led to the success of Counter – Strike (moving it from single to multi-players through consumer coding); and Quake is kept alive through mod'ing. In the rise of gaming we have seen renewed tribes or affinity communities. There has been an accompanied rise of LAN areas in Asia vs. internet cafes, while mobile gaming allows for more frequent access. South Korea is a forerunner of gaming as sport; integrated role in society.

With the shift to web 2.0, there are shifts in how experiences are formed, including the space and time in which brands touch consumers, new media, interactive marketing. Consumers' social interaction with each other changes (weblogs, online forum, Facebook, etc.). These are interlinked as new brands like iPhone are known through online, through the experience of others, prospects perceive the brand through making sense of who the users are and what their experience is. Accordingly, market research should evolve to be able to understand experience on 'what' and 'how' do we study: aside from offline consumers, the online users/bloggers/bbs, even virtual world avartars.

FINALE

Archetypal stories capture not only the experience of daily life in a compelling way, but also transcend. Throughout the novel 'A Dream of Red Mansions' is the theme that there is another plane of existence. “Red” is also evocative of the Buddhist idea that the whole world is illusory – merely “red dust” . This fits with Buddhist and Taoist beliefs that to find enlightenment, one must realize that the world is but a dream from which we must awake.

In its quarterly publication, McKinsey published eight business technology trends to watch in December 2007. The top three were distributing co-creation, using consumers as innovators, and tapping into a world of talent:10' digital world, emerging stories, and brand experience' because all changes started from the surge of digital world; brand experience changes as a result of the changes in the process of story emergence.

We are entering an emerging era of internet – if the main language is Mandarin how will that impact the relationship between local and global research teams? As a younger generation finds the technology invisible, the real/virtual world will integrate in new ways, as mail or real world went virtual, and virtual worls impact on real life (geotagging). The topology of social networks – as the social “map” – is the relationships between everyone in a network. For some client stakeholders it will be about identifying and influencers or conversation starters; for other stakeholders it will be understanding the conversation stoppers. Utilising elements of social broadcasting tools like twitter, participants can communicate quick location or status updates to friends within social networks. There are new tools available for this, for example Wordpress creator Automattic has launched a new theme called Prologue which can be used to create private Twitter-like micro-blogging platforms.

It's not about consumers, it's not about users. It's all about people.

'Chinese consumers are going through a time, as are many other consumers in developing countries, that they are not sophisticated enough to articulate their needs of experience but they are super open-minded to learn and pay for new experiences and novel market offerings. To a point, those new offerings can charge even more to the consumers than what they charge in the developed countries. A good example is the popularity of the i-Phone in Shanghai' Christine Wang, Human Factors, IDEO China.

As clients become closer to the people they are designing experiences for, we need to work with clients to expand their concepts to the consumer to embrace peoples' lifestyles. Understanding the context in which brands are experienced, the growth of the online world, the complexity and shape of social networking will cause us to revaluate authentic experience. Understanding people as people yet increasingly asking them to produce with us.

FOOTNOTES

  1. A dream of Red Mansions, translated, Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 178), 19. This poem appears in a manuscript copy with a preface by Qi Liaosheng. It is not found in other editions.

  2. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90781/90877/6341926. html

  3. Technorati 2007 “State of the Blogsphere” report.

  4. Inside QQ, plus8star.

  5. Get real: the return of the product. Malcolm Baker and Greet Sterenberg, Market Leader, Issue 30, Autumn 2005, pp. 43–47. Refutes as a myth the widespread marketing belief that brands in a category lack differentiation in functional performance, and therefore depend wholly on the emotional elements in branding to create distinctiveness.

  6. Dr Giana Eckhardt, ASIA-INC.COM, December 16th 2002, APAC. Beating a drum for tribal youth.

  7. Adweek 'Product Experience' Drives Performance'. November 05, 2007.

  8. Daniels, H. (1994). Literature Circles: Voice and choice in the student-centered classroom. Markham: Pembroke Publishers Ltd. //Wlikipedia// Scaffolding Theory was first introduced in the late 1950s by Jerome Bruner, a cognitive psychologist. He used the term to describe young children's oral language acquisition. Helped by their parents when they first start learning to speak, young children are provided with instinctive structures to learn a language. Bed-time stories and read alouds are classic examples (Daniels, 1994). Some ingredients of scaffolding are predictability, playfulness, focus on meaning, role reversal, modelling, and nomenclature.

  9. http://www.alternativearchive.com/caofei/article.asp?id=190

  10. http://www.news.com/Eight-business-technology-trends-to-watch/2030-1069_3-6223397.html

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Malcolm Baker, Earl Taylor, and Greet Sterenberg, Managing global brands to meet consumer expectations, ESOMAR, Congress 2003
Antonella Caru and Bernard Cova, Consuming Experience, Routledge 2007
Dr Giana Eckhardt, ASIA-INC.COM, DEC 16th 2002, APAC.Beating a drum for tribal youth
Pete Engardio, Chindia: How China and India are Revolutionizing Global Business, McGraw Hill, 2007
G Ereault and M Imms: “Bricolage': qualitative market research redefined.' Admap, December 2002
Jonathan Follett, Engaging User Creativity: The Playful Experience, December 17 2007, www.uxmatters.com
Rob Gifford: The Road Home by, Liu Qiang a truck driver comments:
M Gladwell: The Tipping Point. Little Brown and Company, 2000
W Gordon: Goodthinking. Admap publications, 1999
Wendy Gordon, I'll have one small insight and two large ones please, Admap, December 2002, Issue 434
Shivkumar Moulee, Neerja Wable, Advertising in Asia, Esomar Congree 2005
Giles Lury, The Next Generation Of International Research, Admap Publications 2006
[Cory Ondrejka, “Collapsing Geography (Second Life, Innovation, and the Future of National Power),” Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, MIT Press, vol. 2(3), pages 27–54, July, 2007]
Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders, Scaffolds for Building Everyday Creativity, In Design for Effective Communications: Creating Contexts for Clarity and Meaning. Jorge Frascara, (Ed.) Allworth Press, New York, New York, 2006
Cynthia L. Selfe and Gail E. Hawisher, Gaming Lives in the Twenty First Century, 2007 Palgrave MacMillan
David Taylor, Market Leader, Winter 2007, Issue 39, pp.22–26 Never mind the sizzle ... where's the sausage?
Peter Wright and John McCarthy, Technology as Experience, MIT Press, 2004.
Ashok Sethi, Sandy Chen and Lisa Li, The Changing Face of Luxury in China, China Luxury Summit 2007
Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders, Scaffolds For Building Everyday Creativity, Design for Effective Communications: Creating Contexts for Clarity and Meaning. Jorge Frascara (Ed.) Allworth Press, New York, New York, 2006.


http://www.warc.com
© ESOMAR. All rights reserved