Weibo, tracked by the authorities with our blessing

I am very surprised. Last year Sina Weido was just starting and Tencent Weibo didn’t exist, yet Google was exiting the Chinese market because of disagreements with the Chinese authorities regarding censorship. Furthermore, Americans and Europeans were holding symposiums here and there condemning restrictions to human rights in China, which blocked and are still blocking major social media players such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and others. 2010 was both the year when social media experienced explosive growth in the West, and when China refused to bow to this western “democracy of the instant”. Compounding this was the massive western media campaign presenting Google’s and others’ problems in China as human rights issues.

While the Jasmin revolution in the Arab countries was showing the power of Facebook or Twitter in mobilising crowds and organising resistance, on the other side of the globe, Weibo was spreading like wildfire in China, promoting brands and star bloggers such as the Han Han and Hublot couple. Weibo was dedicated to mass consumerism, and was developping powerfully, while protected from western competition.

And now,  a dazed West discovers a Weibo that is more userfriendly and popular than Twitter or Facebook, and alliances are starting to take place between Weibo and Facebook. Worse, internet media are calling Twitter a copycat of the latest version of Weibo. Unbelievable reversal of fortunes in just one year, which a number of western brands are taking advantage of to penetrate the Chinese market. Yes, I was surprised in 2011 when, around December 20, in the People Daily, the Chinese government announced it was now mandatory to register on with the central government to own a Weibo. In short, the end of a world of innocence and Chinese grumbling about social media.  

Following the Silk Road, Junlon, a Chinese Jeweler Arrives in Paris

An Chinese jeweler, Junlon,  has set up shop in the Galerie Royale, 9 rue Royale in Paris..

The store is spacious and full of light, the products are abundently exposed everywhere, the walls are white and bare - to open the mind to what the jewels evoke. The craftsmen are French but designed by Chinese and Junlon is the only Chinese brand to produce in France.

Princess Fei Earings - Uighur influence

Junlon masters all sorts of materials, faceted stones or cabochons, whether precious and semi-precious, balls, pearls, that he assembles with all the skill demanded by “haute joaillerie”. But the most striking is the excellence of his traditional worksmanship at the service of contemporary pieces, often minimalist and warm at the same time, like the store which serves as their jewelcase. His creations contain many symbols mainly stories of Silk Road.  For example, the “Four Seasons” collection of rings uses perfectly rounded cabochons, to express time past, present and future turning to infinity.

Golden Abacus - Chinese Influence

Pearls, whether baroque or not, are selected according to draconian criteria. The jewels are both delicate and full of strength. The use of a multitude of small stones, assembled with white or yellow gold, results in finger rings so thin that you can slip them on one after another, according to the day’s mood or clothing. The earrings come in various lengths, depending on the ears or the neck they will highlight.

Women and men can only be seduced, so broad is the creativity, so reasonable the prices (for the time being!

Junlon has decided to take us on a journey, with excellence and humility, through his oniric universe, born on the Silk Road.

Silk Road by Ella Maillart

Silk Road for dummies : Silk Road exists from millemia, starting from Chinese capitals like Luo Yang (Xian today) or Beijing and end in Turkey around Trabzond.or Istambul. It goes through Central Asia,through towns like Kashgar, Samarcande, Khiva, Boukkhara and others. Silk Road was the most important exchanges road between East and West before the reign of vessels and the maritime roads. It has carried from East to West  precious goods, but also technics, ideas, religions which explain that all the cities along thèse roads are a melting pot of several influences Eastern ones as well as Western ones.

Silk road is the ancestor of contemporary global economy.

The Creator of French Loft Story Vamps Sephora in China

Who?
Alexis de Gemini , ex- French ChannelM6 (Big Brother, Popstars, Bachelor and Pekin Express), founded his production company A2G creation in 2009. Laetitia Rambaud, Director, Media and Advertising EMEA at Sephora. Rémi Guigou, Director of the Image of Sephora.Project Managers: Anne Véronique Bruel, President Greater China Sephora, Laurene Dutartre, Marketing Image Manager at Sephora China

What?
The case study “Sephora Beauty Academy”, broadcasted summer 2011 on Dragon TV and the Web, presented at the first evening event China ConnectInTheCity event organized by Laure de Carayon.

How?
30 days of shooting with a team of five French and Chinese 90
10 episodes of 45 minutes broadcasted on primetime, with over 30% audience market share on the Shanghai region
15 million views of episodes on the net
25 million votes combined on the web
51 080 posts around the program on Weibo, one of the Chinese twitters
40,458 blog posts
A production cost equivalent to a programme on TNT in France, or, one third of a prime time on M6.

How?
Alexis de Gemini discovered China with Pekin(Beijing) Express. He moved in shortly after with his family and develops over ten concepts he pitches to brands and channels. “To go to China, it’s better to be small, agile, which many large audiovisual structures can not,” he says. Sephora was seduced by “Beauty Academy”, a format that allows to educate a population consuming more care products than makeup. “In Communist China, there was a total lack of makeup culture. The mother-daughter transmission does not exist. “Beauty Academy is a major competition in 10 episodes, looking for the country best “make up artist”. At stake: a two-year contract with the brand.  

Chinese E-commerce, Mobile, SNS and Marketing, China Connect will be Back in Paris in 2012, March 22 and 23

In Paris, it is rare to find serious events on Chinese marketing, calling on real players such as brands and media, as opposed to consultants.  China Connect is one of those events.

What is China Connect ? A sort of open forum, where any marketing specialist interested in China may listen to presentations by the major players in marketing, and meet them in the networking areas. The event is rich, intense, lively and completely worth the cost. It is all the more important since the major players of emarketing – Facebook, Twitter, Google, Youtube – are not present in China for political or economic reasons, and since China has developped its own players for the  several hundred millions of Chinese connected through their PCs or mobile phones. These players have often grown autonomously from the western world, due to the specifics of Chinese ideograms, or for cultural reasons such as the predominance of mobile phones over PCs.

Have you heard of the war machines that are the weibos from Sina or Tencent ? The world’s largest B2C ecommerce site TaoBao ? The Baidu search engine ? The local equivalents of youtube : Youku and Tudou ? If not, run to China Connect, because China is preparing to invade the West, and what is happening in China today will happen tomorrow in Europe. To prepare for this, you can come and meet the head managers of these players and build your network.

In parrallel, numerous brands from the fields of luxury, design and consumer goods will be presenting Chinese business cases, offering lessons that are often valid across industries. Finally, a few experts in Chinese marketing will focus on the reality of numbers, on the on-going battles between the various Chinese players, on the successes and failures …

Among participants this year (available on the following site http://www.chinaconnect.fr):

-Youku, the Chinese Youtube, represented by its General Manager for East China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzen and the whole east coast) Lee Li.

-Elleshop.com.cn, the e-commerce arm of Elle magazine, leader in Chinese women’s fashion for the past 25 years.

- case studies with the Adidas brand, presented by  Hélène Saurais, in charge of the brand’s ecommerce activity

-Fei Wang Eyewear, profiled glasses for the specific Chinese physionomy, represented by its founder Fei Wang

-Philips’ Chinese design center, represented by its star designer Tammo de Ligny

-the famous Shanghai blogger Sam Fleming, who will analyse the key trends in the Chinese internet.

Many others are expected to join the list as they confirm their participation.  

Weibo – Opium of the Masses

Weibo – the only talk in town, whether in China or elsewhere

What is a Weibo ? As its name indicates, it is a microblog on which you can write 140 chinese characters (equivalent to 1,400 of our letters), and which allows you to attach a picture which can be changed at will from your mobile phone, and sent with a new text to all your followers. In short, a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook, all of which (picture, text and blog access) is managed in three seconds through a mobile phone.

A formidably effective communication tool, whose versatility comes from the fact that 140 chinese characters offer a lot of room for expression, available at any time

While Twitter is forbidden in China, Weibos are proliferating. The one from sina.com, the first to appear two years ago, will end up eating up the giant internet portal which generated it. On par with Sina and counting more than 200 million users, Tencent Weibo is the child of Tencent instant messaging (among other things), a local social network. Then there are others, smaller, less advertised.

As Chinese political experts point out, Weibos were not shut down last summer, when popular discontent (also spread by these same weibos) was very high due to the high speed rail crash. Could Weibo be the Facebook of Chinese “Jasmin Revolution” ?