2021 Met Gala and China

Hello again from Shunyi for Thursday Thursday September 16. Diverting somewhat from our usual strategy to bring an excerpt from an article written by Adina Laura Achim published the other day on Jing Daily. One of our “Goto” sources for cutting edge China news.

Foreign EV in China

Hello, and greetings, again, from Shunyi for September, Tuesday 14th to be precise. Last Thursday, September 9th, we published a short article titled EV in China in which we commented that it seems non Chinese brands of NEV / EV were arriving late for the party. In particular, the Detroit makers. Today, we will expand on that a little to look at non Chinese EV brands in China.

EV in China

A shorter article today, for Thursday September 9th, as there is so much other news to compete with. As our title suggests we will quickly look at EV in China from 2 angles. Firstly a quick look at the growth of EV sales in China, then we tke a look at another possible clone or knock off.

Pretty Chinese Men

Hello, welcome to Aim2D for Tuesday September 7th coming to you as always from the Beijing Airport Tech Zone, in sunny Shunyi. ‘cept it’s grey and raining today – again. Never mind, let’s march on John. Last Thursday we ran this story and briefly commented on the take over of cosmetics sales by males in China.

Best of British

Best of British

Hello again for Thursday, not just any Thursday, it has the distinction of being the first Thursday in September. Moving on. A few weeks back we featured a video from Alibaba re Tea Pigs, Selling Tea to China, the British brand of tea bag. Seems unfair to dismiss them so lightly, but anyway today we continue with our trilogy of British Brands in China series.

Bicyu / Uengager: What we do.

There are many truisms in life, for example, China is a very big country. Yet it is not just one very big market. It is instead a multitude of markets, that often overlap or interlock and can, indeed, even be further segmented. In today’s post we endeavour to answer one of the most frequent questions we are asked.

The NEW Order

One thing about life you can be sure of is you can never be sure of anything. OK, yes, corny, pseudo philosophic introduction. We could just have easily said that nothing in life stays the same. Thinking of some of history’s great empires, Greek, Roman, British – where are they now? Replaced by a new order.
The US was, once, synonymous with world power and economy. Not any longer.

Selling Tea to China

If you have been following us or have read our “About Us” page you will know that we were originally founded as WPBeijing, a Sino British company back in 2003. Of the two partners, the Chinese side was represented by Everlyne Yu with The Bic standing in for the British. Both partners continue to drive the company today. Tea Pigs, the object of our story, is a British brand.

Art Reflects Life.

Hello, greetings from Shunyi for Tuesday August 17th, 2021. To day we are revisiting Sixthtone who we have mentioned before. Sixthtone present a slightly different view of life in China, capturing more of the realty that Chinese customers face in society.

#32 week that was – China Biz News

Hello from Shunyi again for Friday 13, unlucky for some but lucky for Xiaomi it seems. We also feature TikTok news, China Valentines, Huawei, and of course, our elephants.

China EV News

We begin this short wrap with Tesla who chose end of July to drop the price of their almost 251,000 RMB Model 3 EV vy 15,000 yuan. According to the official company release, the reduction was possible as the realty of production costs was less than theoretical.

#31 week that was – China Biz News

Hello from Shunyi again for Friday 6th, the first week of August. A more meaty selection of topics this week, in fact spoilt for choice. So we begin with an ultra fast glace at China’s economic recovery over provinces, a mention of Huawei and a new but down graded P40, can China’s beverage makers tackle Coke, more DADA news, does Alibaba have Sunning in its sights, a look at EV in China and more.

Alibaba’s ‘Store X’

Hello from Shunyi, for Tuesday August 3rd. Today’s post is short, we will let the 3 minute video do the talking instead. But first a quick question:
Q: What is an Alibaba Store X?

#30 week that was – China Biz News

Hello from Shunyi again where we are supposed to be looking at tech, marketing, business and social media in China making “News.” However, July is turning out to be our bete noir as, once again, this weeks top news focuses on finance, economics and generally themes outside our scope. So we look briefly at a couple of smart phone brands making news, retail on Beijing subway, the good old weather and end of Bitcoin in China- well, it is sort of techish! ,

Quality of Foreign Brands in China

Last Tuesday, July 20th, we published a piece loosely looking at the changing trend of Chinese consumers towards buying domestic rather than imported goods. In particular relating to luxury items. We noted how many commentators are justifying this as part of the growth in China National Pride among the younger set. We countered with some alternatives. Today, we want to expand on that.

#29 week that was – China Biz News

Hello from Shunyi again where we look at tech, marketing, business and social media in China making “News.” In fact, it has been a week of slim pickings, most China business news is centred around China’s carbon trading, economics and finance, all outside our scope. Other than Xiaomi, more fake meat news, and Maglev trains, the topic making the most news in China has been the weather-so we will take a quick peek at that too.

China Local Brands Gain Favour

An interesting story form Nikkei Asia caught our eye Friday morning. In a way it is a rehash of a story we saw on Caixin a month ago re the sales pattern during the 6/18 shopping promotion. To recap, JD.com, the originators of the festival reported that  “over 70%(of sales) were Chinese.” Alibaba also reported similar figures. Some observers are interpreting this that foreign brands, esp luxury, have lost their lustre and allure among Chin’s younger gen consumers.

#28 week that was – China Biz News

Hello from Shunyi again where July is turning out to be a humid month. In this weeks issue we look at food, in particular a Japanese comeback, DIDI hits some unsealed roads, TESLA, China’s carbon trading scheme.

Email Bitcoin Extortion – a new game.

Hello, good morning from Shunyi. This article is an update of an earlier, very popular, piece we released May 2021 as part of a Bic community service to help educate computer users about online security threats and what they can do about them. Since then scammers changed or updated their game. Our original article dealt mostly with sextortion as that was the flavour of the day. However, email scams come in many forms – today most depend on Bitcoin as ransom payment because of its anonymity. We will outline them and their history below.

UPDATE: As scammers and thieves are exposed they come up with newer trick. We will update them here so check back often to stay ahead of the curve.

Chengdu: A good China Business Choice?

WPBeijing was a marketing studio founded by Peter Bic and Everlyne Yu in Beijing, October 2003. Now known as Bic Brands NZ Co Ltd and Uengager, a Beijing registered Martech company.
Aim2D is an umbrella media arm of Bic Brands.

This article is part of a Weekend Series where we dare to share some of our experiences, insights and off topic commentary (usually caustic) oft supported by links to third party articles or sites.
As with all our work, there is no copy-write. You are free to share, sub-edit, reproduce, sell, heck, even claim it as your own work if you are so desperate. But we are sure you can do better!

However, please bear in mind, some articles contain content from other creatives.
We ask you at least respect their IP and labour.
Of course, we won’t say no if you want to link back to us, or in other ways acknowledge us!
So, make yourself a pot of Oolong tea, grab a chocolate bar and settle down for a longer read.

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If the view of most non Chinese is taken into account, there are probably only a handful of cities in China – with Wuhan suddenly leaping to the foremost of everyone’s mind thanks the the US media, fake news and the conspiracy theorists. In so far as good places in China for business, the list narrows considerably; Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou / Guangdong (many can’t distinguish province from city) and Shenzhen – which oft gets lumped in with Guangzhou, seem to be the only 4 worthy of consideration. How true is that today?