Adapting or Designing for China?
Next, it is a short article I wrote one year ago. I found it on the drafts list and decided to make it public as it was; uncompleted. I like uncompleted things; they can show what happened to your brain when you decided to leave it.
Chinese consumers love imported products. Under this premise, I questioned: “In which way can a brand make Chinese consumers repurchase their foreign-made product more often and more steady? Conserving its original characteristics and only translating the necessary information or designing from scratch adapting the product regarding their needs?”
It seems to depend on the category of the product directly.
Chinese consumers mostly dislike the taste of food with different precedence. They do have a strong preference for local flavors due to their limited purchasing decision during their early times and the substantial role of parents in it. In the other hand, they do purchase it with the intention of gaining status while self-consuming or gifting.
Chinese consumers desire Apple; it is a symbol of status. I have met people that prefer to say that their phones ran out of battery instead of showing other brands that are not Apple during a meeting where most of the concurrent own an Apple device. In this case, the product is standard; iOS runs in Chinese and what matters is the physical object and the content able to consume through Apps that at the same time, are locally developed. So the flavor is locally customized by their own for their own.
Chinese consumers aspire to dress as model stereotypes. Luxury brands are the most counterfeited products that can be found online and in stores. It does not matter how thin or fat you are; you are dressing luxury.
Chinese consumers are always pursuing and buying dreams. In exchange of reputation.