Marketing in China is heavily dependent on Key Opinion Leaders, or KOLs. These are online personalities who manage to form a bond with their viewers. This bond may be due to the KOL’s knowledge as a subject matter expert, or it may simply be based on personal appeal. Regardless, their online followers are influenced by the products and brands they promote. In the US, this type of marketing spokesperson is typically referred to as an influencer.

In today’s online society, Influencer Marketing can be a powerful component in marketing your product. For instance, they can incorporate promotions in their social media postings and in podcast and YouTube content.

Of Course, in China the social media arsenal for a KOL has its own variants of these tools that include Sina Weibo, QQ, Youku and Douban.In addition, in-person appearances by a KOL can be a huge audience draw for product roll out events, broadcast media spots and other opportunities—but really, the possibilities are endless.

Influencer advertising in the US is governed under the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)  and regulated as if it was a paid endorsement. In China, it is pretty much the wide-open West, like so many other things in that country.

Based on this, one might think using a social media influencer is a more stable proposition in the US… that somehow associating your brand or product with a personality in America is safer and perhaps doesn’t need to be closely monitored.

Not really.

Truth is, controversy can take a form you would never anticipate and come out of left field at any time, especially when you least expect it.

Take, for example, the case of Olivia Jade, a 19 year old woman and a makeup and beauty v-blogger with her own YouTube channel and some 2 million subscribers. Her activities as a college student were part of her brand appeal.

She had an online following of 1.3 million on Instagram and was part of an ad campaign forAmazon’s Prime Student program for college students and she even had her name on a line of makeup.

Everything seemed to be going perfectly for this sharp, University of Southern California student… until her television actor mother Lori Loughlin and fashion designer father Mossimo Giannulli were arrested in connection with a highly publicized bribery scandal involving their daughters’ admission to USC.

Olivia Jade Giannulli saw her brand damaged as she was dropped from her brand deals with Sephora, TRESemme and Lulu—yet it is uncertain if she was even aware of any of her parents‘ actions regarding her college admission.

While Avela Consulting conducts due diligence  in managing risk for our clients  collaborating with KOLs and Influencers, probably no one besides maybe the Federal Prosecutors could have seen this one coming.

With KOLs playing such a key role in China marketing, it is essential to have someone like Avela Consulting and its partners in China maintaining a finger on the pulse of Chinese social media , ready to do spin control for our clients should the unexpected occur.

Contact Avela Consulting to discuss how we provide risk management services for our clients’ brands and products as they  enter the vast Chinese market.

Forecasting the future can never be an exact science, but business persons need to do it all the time. Only their forecasts are called projections, and some are based on better data than others. Demographics are always an essential component when considering the investment needed for entering the China market.  Good data is crucial when considering what to export to China, but sometimes that data is hard to access.

That’s why the first step with any new client for Avela Consulting is to commission a feasibility study. Using Big Data and Small Data resources, we check the current pulse of the shifting China market and Chinese buying trends. Furthermore, some sectors of the Chinese economy are simply not open to foreign competition. Avela’s feasibility studies include an analysis of the changing regulatory landscape.

All that said, there are some Demographic certainties that can form the basis of sound business decisions regarding exports to China. The numbers are mind-boggling,..

1)  By 2020, China will have some 250 million citizens over the age of 65.

This suggests great growth opportunity in elder care products and services. The challenge is accessing that market effectively while protecting your brand and intellectual property. Avela assists with such considerations.

2)  China has 700 million people online.

The number of  Chinese people who are online at any given moment exceeds the entire population of the United States, so opportunities abound with ecommerce.  Choosing the right platform, messageand deliveryis key and they vary from region to region. Not only that, they are constantly in flux. Having Avela Consulting’s team in the country and on the ground in China gives its client the edge in this arena.

3)  Chinese Consumer spending is expected to grow to some $6 trillion by 2020.

As the Chinese middle class grows, Chinese consumerism grows and this is all essentially a new market being created before our eyes. Many of these people have never had access to foreign products before and they are in high demand.

This is an incredible opportunity waiting to be seized by bold businesses in the West, but it is a foreign land working from often different rules. Working on your behalf, Avela can guide you through the process and make the right connections necessary for a successful entry into the China market.

Seize this historic moment for your business! Contact Avela Consulting to begin the process of entering the vast China market with your exports. With offices in Houston and Shanghai, we bridge the distance and cultural differences between you and remarkable profit potential!

Imagine a country where 700 million people move from abject poverty into a brand new middle classin a span of 40 years. A country that was once ideologically opposed to capitalism, that now embraces property rights, free market competition and profits. A country with the third largest stock exchange in the world—when measured by market capitalization.

You are imagining today’s China.

It is estimated that by 2030, two-thirds of the world’s middle class will be in the Asia-Pacific region. By that time, the Chinese middle classis expected to number 1 billion.

Until recently, the Chinese government restricted access to its markets by foreign businesses. Following the natural order of things, these restrictions limited supply and drove up demand. Chinese consumers hungered for Western products and major players willing and able to pay the stiff price for market access—like GM, Nike, Apple and Starbucks—flourished.

But the Chinese middle class demand for products has increased beyond the capacity of a restricted market, so the government is opening up access. Large and medium sized businesses are now increasingly able to compete for the attention of the Chinese consumer.

Of course, just because there is access doesn’t mean the process is simple. Your “i’s” have to be dotted and your “t’s” need to be crossed. There are cultural bridges to be built, media strategies to be assessed, and so on. Avela Consulting is here to make that all easy. With office in Houston and Shanghai, we have been in country since 2002. We know our way around, and are waiting to help you with your first step toward a middle class on steroids. Simply contact us.

In November, 2018 Avela was at the China International Import Expositionheld in Shanghai. First announced in May 2016, it was a long-planned trade showcase opening with a public relations extravaganza featuring the likes of Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Microsoft’sBill Gates.

It was clearly an effort by the Chinese President Xi Jinping‘s government to demonstrate that it was opening up access to the vast China market to the West and other regions. An underlying goal was surely to counter ill will stemming from undeniably one-sided trade policies in the past, but the fact is that the country now has a huge middle class consuming products at a rate and of a kind that China can’t satisfy internally.

This creates tremendous trade opportunitiesfor large and medium businesses that previously were, or felt, shut out from the market. With offices in Houston and Shanghai since 2002, Avela Consulting has organically built up a network of relationships with Chinese firms capable of negotiating the labyrinth of regulatory, financial, cultural and media issues that have been barriers in the past.

Was CIIE 2018 a success? It is too early to tell. According to government figures, it had over a million attendees from 172 countries regions and organizations during its six day run. 160,000 buyers from over 80,000 Chinese and foreign companies were on hand with 3,600 exhibitors. The official tally reports that over 57 billion USD in deals were sealed at the expo, although some of these may have been in the works before.

But there is much more to accessing the China market than just signing on the dotted line. As mentioned above, there are a labyrinth of issues and concerns to be navigated. Whether the deals signed at the expo included the level of support offered by Avela Consultants is not clear.

Any business considering approaching the China market should be armed with a feasibility study such as Avela Consulting provides. It presents a clear analysis of the multi-faceted landscape that is essential before stepping into the vast China market. We back it up with a hand-selected team of experts to execute a marketing strategy crafted specifically to our clients’ goals.

The CIIE was a lauded first step at opening the China market. As it matures as a venue it may be worthwhile for some Avela Consulting clients to have a presence at it or other fairs sure to crop up around the country. But an enterprising business needn’t wait for that to happen before seizing this early opportunity. Avela Consulting has the team and the tools to pave your way today!

There has been a lot of concern about a trade war between the U.S. and China. As President Donald Trump puts it, he is working to get the best deal for the American people while acknowledging that Chinese President Xi Jinping is working to get the best deal for the people of China.

This may seem rather simplistic to some, but it is the way it should be. And if both parties approach the negotiations in this spirit–acknowledging the other has legitimate and reasonable concerns–then it should all work out because the bottom line is the United States and China need each other.

Both countries are carrying heavy debt burdens and they are dependent on commerce to keep afloat. Since opening up to Capitalism, China has experienced incredible economic growth but it has also constructed massive, state-sponsored improvements that need to be paid for. The U.S. government, as we know, has its own problems with considerable debt.

China is our second biggest trading partner (next to Canada). The U.S. is China’s largest trading partner. It is in everybody’s best interest that both have vibrant, profit-producing economies.

Part of our past economic troubles have stemmed from U.S. trade policies that, quite frankly, may have benefited a few but were not in the best interests of the American people as a whole. It seems there should be plenty of room to correct this without placing China in an unacceptable bind.

At Avela Consulting we see plenty of opportunities to promote win-win commerce between the two countries. The engine of Capitalism has quickly produced a Chinese middle class eager to buy Western, particularly American, products. From our offices in Houston and Shanghai we have witnessed this grow as we developed an organic network of in-country resources capable of reaching the China consumer market.

While no one can predict the future, we are confident that discussions between President Trump and President Xi will lead to a more balanced trade relationship that benefits both countries. A trade war is not in either country’s best interest, but prosperity-producing commerce is.

As the trade negotiations produce greater opportunities for commerce, as we believe they will, large and medium-sized business that act quickly have an opportunity to position themselves in this market early. Avela Consulting has the international relationshipsalready in place in-country to provide our clients access to a vast, quickly developing market.