Articles about our opinions and considerations on certain subjects, providing food-for-thoughts.

China car market slowdown

With a population of almost 1.4 billion people, China is one of the largest markets for car makers. However, despite being the world’s leading car producing country in 2015, car sales in China have been experiencing a marked slow-down.

After 10 years of rapid growth, Chinese car sales took a turn and declined in 2018. Approximately 23 million new passenger cars were sold during the year. This number is even lower than 2016 sales which amounted to 24 million units sold.

One of the reasons for this decline in car sales might be the China’s cooling housing market. It seems that there is a strong correlation between buying a new house and buying a new car for Chinese consumers. Since fewer people bought a new house, there was also less demand for new cars.  

Another reason for this decline could be the change in Chinese consumer behaviour. The second-hand car market is now an attractive option for Chinese car buyers. Despite still being image-conscious, Chinese car buyers are starting to realise that few people on the streets can really tell the difference between new or second-hand cars. More people are seeing cars as no longer a luxury or status symbol, but only as means of transport. It is predicted that by 2020, second-hand car sales will surpass new car sales.

There are many other factors that could affect the Chinese automotive industry. Let’s not forget about developing trends such as ride-hailing and car-pooling, which could also bring opportunities and threats to the market.

If you’d like to find out more about our knowledge in the automotive industry and Chinese consumers, please contact Nimrod.

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Why are we buying fewer cars?

Car manufacturers are facing a big shift in the way that people view car ownership and in the basic interest people have in owning a car. The trend is most pronounced and growing fastest amongst the millennial generation – the group that car manufacturers might have looked to traditionally as their future market.

In 2017, a KPMG study for Business Insider Intelligence has even predicted that by 2025 over 50% of people believe that half of today’s car owners will no longer want to own a car. It’s a massive shift and in an industry that plans years ahead a stark warning for fast changing consumer sentiments and behaviours.

Millennials are identified as leading this new trend.  As this groups comes to maturity and moves to the city in search of work, they are adopting lower cost, resource-sharing, and more convenient on-demand services.  Two key factors are also seen to influence their choices:

  1. Public transportation is getting better

 More and more people are using public transport. In the Asia-Pacific region, 2.29 billion more passengers used public transport from 2016 to 2017 alone.  As smart and connected cities evolve, we are anticipating further transformation of the transportation system, improving connections and convincing more people to abandon the personal car as a preferred option.

  1. Ride-sharing

Ride-sharing has been growing rapidly over recent years. While driving and owning a car is still enjoyable, it also means paying for fuel, insurance, maintenance, and repairs – all of which require a large chuck on the household budget. We believe that millennial consumers will opt for ride-sharing services more and more for the on-demand convenience and low-cost.

Contact Dam to find out more about our automotive experience.

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Technology-oriented toys

With technology developing rapidly in recent years, more and more digital entertainment has been developed and brought onto the market. And the impact is also being felt in the more traditional parts of the toy industry. 

Toy manufacturers are doing a great job at adapting to developing technologies and toys today are becoming more attractive and innovative than ever. For instance, you can easily find technology-oriented toys on the market with smartphone connectivity and in-built interactive – pet robots are just one example. There’s even going to be a new AR enhanced board game to be introduced at CES 2019.

Despite all the attractive technology and innovations, we think that the main challenge is not to figure out how to attract children’s interest, but rather to convince parents to give their children access to more than just a screen – online safety remain legitimate concerns for parents and the brands who are able to offer the creative and learning opportunities associated with new technology in a safe and secure environment are likely to win out in the long run.

In the US (as of January 2018), almost 40% of parents stated that they give their child a smartphone and almost 25% stated that their child had a tablet and even television in their room. The US figures are high for screen use, with Europe certainly catching up. But we are looking out for those brands and innovations that will encourage parents to go beyond the screen and embrace the full potential of technology-oriented toys.

If you’d like to know more about our kids & parents research experience, please contact Rob.

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Virtual & Augmented Reality

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) could be the next game changers in the consumer electronics industry. By 2017, more than 13 billion U.S. dollars was spent on VR/AR in a variety of segments. Moreover, with tech-giants such as Google, Facebook, and Apple continuously innovating, the market size for VR/AR is expected to reach 209.2 billion U.S. dollars by 2022.

With the development of both VR and AR technologies, there will be many new opportunities and some threats to follow.

The main reason is that there are various applications of VR/AR technologies, including (and not limited to) gaming, engineering, shopping, home set up, and education. The main function of other technologies that support these industries may be replaced by VR/AR.

For instance, imagine if education fully adopts this technology. It may highly impact LCD projector manufacturers since the main function of these products could be replaced by VR/AR. Another example, if the gaming industry continues to adopt VR/AR technology, then computers and televisions may no longer be relevant.

It’s not that the technologies mentioned above will no longer be useful; however, the main value offering and the way to market for these technologies would need to adapt to the new competitive landscape.

We will continue to monitor the development of VR and AR technologies, as well as the opportunity and threats that rise along with it. To find out more, please contact Dam.

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Luxury insights

The luxury industry is wasting money targeting increasingly obsolete consumer profiles. A new generation of customers has taken centre stage for their buying power and unique relationship to luxury goods. Millennials are emerging as the prime target audience for today’s leading luxury brands. Boston Consulting estimates Millennials exercise around $1.3 trillion in buying power each year. Collectively millennials and Generation Z will represent more than 40 per cent of the overall luxury goods market by 2025.

The success of luxury brands depends on their ability to reach and resonate with these younger generations.

Exclusivity, prestige and impeccable service were always the hallmarks of luxury brand – with a dignified distance between brands and customers. However, brands now need to engage with consumers via social media, and deploy the mechanics of the “mass market” and not exclusive.

Millennials are looking for “exclusive inclusivity” from luxury brands.  Millennials want brands to be part of their daily lives, and value those initiatives that grant them true insider access or let them peak behind-the-scenes at the creation of luxury goods.

Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat are the top social channels that luxury brands need to master for digital marketing. 90% of Instagram users are under 35 years old, 34% of Pinterest users are Millennials, and 71% of Snapchat’s user base is classified as Millenials.  A well-considered and powerful social strategy is essential for today’s luxury brand communication, as well as incorporating connective technology such as Augmented Reality  and Artificial Intelligence into the personalised consumer experience.

If you’d like to find out more about our experience in consumer trends, contact Rob.

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Time for bed

Sleep deprivation is a growing issue in today’s world. On average, 25% adults worldwide do not get enough quality sleep every night. The reasons for sleep deprivation vary, ranging from simple issues, such as room temperature, to more serious issues, such as back or neck pain, or stress and emotional problems.

There are a lot of methods people use to help them sleep better. More than 30% of adults worldwide choose soothing music to help them sleep better, 19% choose meditation, and 16% choose to use either prescription drugs or over-the-counter sleep aids.

In this era of rapid technology development, there are new inventions coming onto the market to battle sleep deprivation. Not all of them are necessarily effective.

In the past, sleep technologies mostly emphasize in sleep tracking function. For instance, technologies such as smart pillows and mattresses that track sleep via movement. The data given can show sleep quality, but does not actually help people sleep better at night.

Sleep technology companies today are starting to do things right. They are taking into account what actually helps people sleep better, rather than just pushing innovations or products that no one really needs. Beyond the sleep tracking function, sleep technologies today have functions such as built-in speakers, temperature settings and smart alarms, which allow people to customize their sleep to match their personal preferences, and so improve sleep quality.

As with other innovative technologies, sleep optimization technologies could bring tremendous benefit. However, most people might still choose the “traditional way” rather than these new innovative technologies.

To find out more about how we are helping technology brands to understand the future of home comfort, please contact Nimrod.

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Digital imaging opportunities

The belief that you need a great camera to be a great photographer has been slowly losing traction in recent years. Nowadays, almost all smartphones are capable of taking a great picture, or at least a very good picture. The latest smartphone technology can provide consumers with superior camera functions along with many other connectivity and communication functions in one device, all enabling consumers to capture images of the surrounding world and share these images quickly and seamlessly with social networks.

The digital camera market has certainly felt the impact of this swelling belief in the smartphone and the desire for always on connectivity among millennial in particular. But even as revenue growth may continue to decline for camera brands, there is potential for the digital camera and the limitations of the smartphone will ultimately always create opportunities for the serious imaging enthusiast.

New trends to leverage could include the revival of film photography and raising environmental awareness through photography – not to mention the currently booming world of pet photography.

The big questions are how to take advantage of current trends and how to anticipate future and emerging trends. If you’d like to know more, please contact Nimrod.

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Smart home – the journey towards convenience

The increasing growth in demand for smart home devices is one of the biggest driving factors for the consumer electronics market today. Statistics show that over $50 billion was spent on smart home devices worldwide by the end of 2018. With the currently developing smart home trends, the worldwide penetration rate is at 7.1% and it’s expected to increase up to 9.5% by the end of 2019. Despite the increased revenue and penetration rate of smart home devices, the technology is still in its early stages of development and adoption.

Early stages of new technology always come with pain points. For instance, one of the pain points of this technology is that there is too much human input needed to make things work. It may be a challenge for some people to set up and operate the different functions of smart home technology. In the end, the pain points make it hard for companies to achieve the goal of making consumers’ lives easier and more convenient.

So the big question is how to truly achieve the goal of convenience through smart home technology? We believe that target market accuracy and timing is the missing puzzle piece.

Undoubtedly, companies are trying their best to come up with the best device through continuous improvement and innovation. However, pushing a great device to the wrong market at the wrong time may create more problems than solutions. Providing support such as instalment services and trying to educate the market may be a way forward, but knowing when it’s the right time to push a device to the right market will make a big difference

So how can we identify the right market conditions to leverage? If you’d like to know more, please contact Nimrod.

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The future of digital gaming

The rapid development of online, mobile, and other downloadable games for hardware consoles has lead to the tremendous growth of the digital gaming industry over recent years. At the moment, the size of the digital gaming market has already reached about $63 billion, which accounts for 54% of the total digital media market. Developing trends such as game live streaming and e-Sports tournaments indicate that the industry will continue to grow in the years to come.

With 60% of people worldwide owning a smart device and almost 50% of them spending more than 5 hours a day on it, it is no surprise that mobile games dominate the digital gaming industry. In 2017, the global market size of mobile games reached approximately $40 billion, which is still more than the global market size of both online and downloadable games for consoles combined. Moreover, mobile gaming is also expected to continue to grow up to 27% by the end of 2022.

We will continue to monitor how the growth of mobile games affects the growth of other online games and downloadable games for hardware consoles. And to highlight the opportunities and threats to the digital gaming industry. If you’d like to know more, please contact Dam.

Source: Statista – Digital Media Report 2019

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The art of brand naming in China

There are no hard and fast rules to getting a brand name right for China. Finding the best Chinese name for a brand takes time and needs to weigh up several factors.

Almost half of all brands go for an approach where the Chinese name sounds similar to its original. This solution can be good for globally consistent branding, but can mean that the name in Chinese lacks any real meaning.  For example, Audi sounds like AO DI and means “profound enlighten”.

Taking an approach where the Chinese brand name reflects the meaning of the original can also be a good way to go – and about a quarter of brands choose this route.  The Chinese brand name has a good sematic fit to the original, but global communication is more difficult.

Some brand names used in China have been able to stay close to the original in both sound and meaning. These examples are rare, difficult to achieve, but give a global brand the best chance of success. Nike (sounds like NAI KE and means “endurance conqueror”) and Coca Cola (sounds like KE KOU KE LE and means “can be tasty can be happy”) are amongst the best examples.

Our approach to evaluating Chinese brand name ideas takes into account the consumers’ voice and view, the role of descriptive bias, linguistic and cultural imagery, sound symbolism, context, message intention, memorability and uniqueness.

If you’d like to find out more about our experience in brand name testing, contact Rob.

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