Shanghai Disneyland’s Real Competitor
Most multinationals reluctantly localise their product offerings. It’s far easier to sell 100 million of one thing, than 10 million each of 10 things—less complexity, less risk, and higher profit. When a multinational does localise, they typically do so based on exhaustive analysis of local needs, which provides insights into local values, norms, and the edges of globalisation versus localisation.
Two reads that explore localisation in China:
- How Chinese is Shanghai Disney? (LA Times)
- IKEA with Chinese Characteristics (China Business Review)
While there are numerous competitors for Disney in the entertainment industry in China, Disney’s biggest local competitor for mindshare and wallet share is IKEA.
A while back Jan, the founder of Studio D, run a field study looking IKEA China. Locals go to IKEA to hang out to escape the heat/cold, sleep, date, eat affordable and mildly exotic food, and of course to buy. There are enough local quirks in IKEA’s Chinese consumer behaviour to fill a book. (Snippet: it also used to be common to take a carpenter to reverse engineer furniture, because it was slightly cheaper than buying from the store.) The way the store is used, the consumer self-documentation of the experience, make it Disney’s #1 experiential competitor.
If you’ve wondered about the lifestyle behind the Studio D travel, there are two publications you’ll enjoy:
- Today’s Office, documents a year on the roads/skies/mountain trails.
- Popup Studios, describes our preferred approach to getting under the surface of a new city.
We’ll leave you with a photo from an IKEA in Saudi Arabia, more on which in the next letter.
