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Compared with their peers globally, the Millenials in India obsess more about the technology of their employers than youth of any other nation surveyed in a recent poll, while Chinese use real-time chat and speak about themselves more in online fora.

These results come from a recent survey by Accenture on how the Millenial generation uses technology. The intention of the report was to look at Millenials from the perspective of how companies should manage technology, but the survey is also interesting for cross-cultural comparison of Internet usage.

Chinese Millennials spend an extraordinary amount of time in the virtual world for both business and personal use, especially engaged through real-time communication tools. Young Chinese in the workforce spend an average of almost 34 working hours a week on communication tools, versus almost 11 hours for the rest of the world. For leisure, the Chinese spend 14.8 hours a week playing video games (versus 3.4 hours for the rest of the world), 5.1 hours shopping on the Internet (versus 1 hour), and 5.3 hours in a virtual world such as Second Life (versus 0.4 hours).

China and India topped the charts in three respects:

1- Tech-Obsessed India
Indians are more obsessed about finding employers with great high-tech infrastructure than any nation surveyed.

2- Chinese Chatting
Chinese are more obsessed with real-time chatting at work than any nation surveyed.

3- Sharing with Friends
Chinese are more enthusiastic about posting personal information on blogs or social networks than any nation surveyed.

Survey details: Acccenture surveyed 5,595 employees and students, ages 14-27, in 13 countries: Brazil, Canada, and the United States in the Americas; Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom in Europe; Australia, China, India, and Japan in Asia-Pacific.

Details and charts:

1- Tech-Obsessed India

Millennials want to choose what technologies they use, especially in emerging markets. Globally, almost one in two mid-Millennials in school (ages 18-22) expect not only to use the computer of their choice once they are on the job, but also to access their preferred mobile and technology applications. By contrast, only one in four want the employer to choose these technologies, and one in four remain uncertain. This sentiment is even stronger in Brazil, India and China. Indeed, in India, only 6 percent of mid- Millennials expect to use only corporate applications at work.

2- Chinese Chatting

Asia-Pacific Millennials spend the most time, and the highest share of time, on real-time communications technologies like instant messaging. China and India lead the pack in emerging methods of employee communication: 27 percent of employers in China already use online chat and 20 percent use mobile texting to communicate with employees.

Millennials in China, India, and Brazil lead the world in use of emerging technologies for work purposes, while most European countries and Japan are lagging.

Young Chinese employees, in particular, are pushing the boundaries of multi-tasking. While the time spent on email is similar to their U.S. counterparts, the Chinese outpace the rest of the world in using real- time communication tools. Working respondents ages 18-27 in China tell us that, during an average week, they spend 9.2 hours on email, 9.2 hours on instant messaging, 6 hours texting, 3.3 hours in a blog or tweet, 3 hours in a virtual community, and 2.9 hours on a social network site – a total of 33.6 hours per week.

3- Sharing with Friends

Related to IT security, Millennials sometimes have a much looser notion of online privacy than do older workers. Some 30 percent of global working Millennials write openly about themselves and friends online. The most open, as shown above, are in China (51 percent), Germany (42 percent), Japan (37 percent) and Brazil (36 percent).
The most discreet, who say they never or rarely post information about themselves or friends online, are in India (50 percent), Canada (50 percent), and France (46 percent).
Social profiling is most common in China and India, where more than three in four Millennials use social networks more than half of the time when trying to learn more about peers or superiors. Similarly, Brazilians use social networks more extensively than their peers in other countries to investigate prospective employers, service providers, or clients.

You can see the full study here.

This article was originally posted by MEDIA

Shenan Chuang (pictured), chief executive at Ogilvy & Mather Group China, shares her insights on marketing to Chinese consumers during the rapidly approaching Chinese New Year period and gives advise on how brands can capture a bit of the holiday magic.

1. Planes, trains and automobiles. In China, each year’s ChunYun, or Spring Festival travel season, sees hundreds of millions of people crisscrossing the country to reunite with their families. During this 40-day frenzy, three distinct groups of travellers can be spotted based on their choice of transportation. Migrant workers and students flood the trains; office workers, expatriates and overseas travellers form the core of the air travel segment while short-distance travellers take to the streets in automobiles. This mass migration means most consumers deviate from their normal media consumption habits and channels for up to a month or more - not an insignificant amount of time. Buses, transit zones, and outdoor media often become the primary communication channels for a country on the move.

2. Know your (often unlikely) brand ambassadors As scores of migrant workers and students temporarily trade in the bright lights of the big cities for their hometowns in the countryside, they arrive loaded with gifts, products and information from their big city lives. Viewed as successful returnees, their attitudes and opinions on brands and products are very influential on old friends and family. For brands seeking to penetrate lower tier Chinese cities and rural markets, word-of-mouth endorsements from these (often unlikely) brand ambassadors are your best - and most effective - bet.

3. The New Year’s Eve dinner. The New Year’s Eve dinner is always a highlight of the holiday celebration and family reunions. But the format has changed over the years. First it was a must to gather at home for the annual feast. That tradition eventually gave way to eating out as many families chose restaurants for their convenience and ambiance. Nowadays staying at home for the once-a-year indulgence is back in vogue – but with a twist. Rather than slaving over a hot wok or battling for a reservation at a hotel, more families are choosing to order ready-made meals that can be enjoyed at home without the hassle of fighting for a taxi only to be stuck in holiday gridlock. This shift signals big business potential for brands that can enhance those dinners at home with tableware, gift sets of holiday spirits, sweets and snacks or even jumbo family packs for the three generations reuniting over this special event.

4. CCTV New Year’s Gala – who’s watching? The CCTV New Year’s Gala (or ChunWan) is the premier mainland Chinese television event of the year, comparable to the Super Bowl in America. As the most influential and highly rated TV show in China, the Gala attracts marketers eager to buy airtime at any cost. But be forewarned: audience ratings drop as you move from the north of the country to the south. The highest ratings can be found in Northeast China where 85 per cent of residents tune in. This percentage drops to 70 per cent for Beijing and Tianjin, 60 percent for Shandong/ Shanxi/ Henan/ Shaanxi, 20 per cent for Shanghai/ Jiangsu/ Anhui/ Hubei/ Sichuan, 10 per cent for Zhejiang/ Fujian, and below 5 per cent for Guangdong/ Guangxi/ Hainan. So before you burn through your budget, think hard about your target audience… and where they live.

5. Home (and nowhere else) for the holidays. While some sightsee during the holiday, others prefer to “ZhaiNan,” which essentially means hibernating at home doing three things: eating, sleeping and surfing the web. Surfers are primarily engaged in online shopping, SNS and gaming. In 2009, online retailer Taobao.com reported a 195 per cent increase over 2008 in the number of products exchanged by consumers during the CNY period. Bestsellers were mobile phones, digital products, household appliances and gift packs with health supplements. Another trend of recent years is the younger generation’s preference for sending New Year greetings by SMS rather than paying a visit to relatives and friends.  As the internet and mobile applications make their mark on millennia-old traditions, it’s time for marketers to make inroads into the CNY “ZhaiNan” phenomenon.

Where do you go to escape negative social media attention? Well, you could try one place that Twitter and Facebook will struggle to find you: China.

Some might think that is exactly what NBA “problem child” Stephon Marbury did when he moved to China a couple of weeks ago to play for Shanxi Zhongyu.

Marbury seems to have completely moved his social media presence. He posted his last Twitter entry on January 26, having already made his first entry a day earlier on the equivalent Chinese site. Marbury, the biggest NBA star ever to have played professional basketball in China, already has 26,132 fans on the Chinese Twitter-like Sina Microblog.

Of course, Marbury hopes to do more than escape twitterers; he is partly here to promote his clothing and apparel brand, Starbury. His posts frequently link to his Taobao store, where a pair of low-cost Starbury basketball shoes retail for around RMB 150-200 (USD 20-30).

I think this could become one of the best marketing uses so far of a Chinese microblog site, perfectly combining personal branding and product promotion.

Marbury is already creating a genuine dialogue with his fans. Earlier this week, for example, he engaged in a mammoth microblog Q&A, directly answering huge amounts of questions from fans.

Of course, challenges remain. He is only able to speak to his online fans in English, and his off-court brand will largely depend on his on-court success. Last week, Shanxi Zhongyu lost their first game with their new star.

The first in a new monthly series of reports monitoring social media buzz about World Expo 2010 Shanghai says tickets to the big event is the hottest topic online.

Launched today by Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, and CIC, an Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) research and consulting firm, ExpoSay is a monthly report on Chinese language IWOM – or Social Media buzz – related to World Expo 2010 Shanghai.

“This report’s findings show how China’s netizens are already discussing many aspects Shanghai Expo, from tickets to pavilions to sponsors,” said Thomas Crampton, Asia-Pacific Director, 360 Digital Influence, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. “Chinese consumers can make or break brands online, so listening is the first step to developing a powerful strategy to engage them.”

Ticket-related topics were the subject of most online Expo chatter in December and phrases about “what to buy” and “how to buy” the tickets became the most popular keywords.

The increase of ticket prices to 150 RMB from 140 RMB announced in mid-December brought predictable criticism, but also some interesting responses. Some companies, such as the e-commerce site yihaodian.com, have started offering their customers tickets at the lower, initial price. Even Shanghai’s Jingan district is offering tickets as incentives for those touring historic Communist sites. This has served as a high-profile, attractive and relatively low cost promotion.

Meanwhile, students are using Social Media to self-organize to purchase tickets at group discounts and many people are discussing the technology behind the Expo’s mobile phone-based tickets. Netizens living in rural China have been using discussion boards as a way to find tickets.

To receive a copy of the report, simply register at Ogilvy PR’s World Expo Blog.

If you’re not one of the 70 million people expected to visit World Expo 2010 Shanghai this year then there is a perfect, virtual alternative. Expo Online is an ambitious digital project by the organising bureau of Expo 2010 which will be the nearest thing to actually being here from May 1 to Oct 31 when Shanghai’s hosts the largest world’s fair in history.

At Expo Online you can take a virtual tour of the 5.28 sqm fairground and take a look inside the striking pavilions, such as the one for Australia (above). In time the site will evolve to include more content as each participant readies its virtual contents. In some cases the virtual experience will reveal the contents of the real-time pavilions and in other cases they will merely give a taste, or otherwise complement the real thing.

This online ad for Chinese car maker Chery has been viewed 2,782,911 times on Youku and has received 843 comments since it was uploaded on January 9th. This is, therefore, a very significant viral video in China.

A reference to a recent challenge made against Chinese kungfu by Thai boxers, the car featured in the ad defeats the foreign challenger before kungfu even has a chance. 

According to Youku Buzz, which has also written about this “banal” clip, this was Youku’s most-viewed video last week. At the time of writing my post, there were twice as many thumbs up as there were thumbs down.

Despite this apparant support, the comments, which began overwhelmingly positive, end up being almost exclusively negative.

I think there are much more sophisticated ways of appealing to nationalism than this. This ad has none of the things I think make a good viral: it doesn’t make me laugh, it doesn’t evoke any emotion, and it doesn’t teach me anything.

Kudos is due, however, for getting the ad out in time to resonate with the recent martial arts showdown. This is the only legitimate reason I can think of why it has had so much positive attention.

One recent comment suggests another theory, “The people that gave this a thumbs up were employed by the company…”

An annual survey of Chinese consumers by McKinsey took time to highlight the power of Social Media in China.

China really is a global-standard country in terms of involvement in Social Media by consumers. The landscape is, of course, radically different from other countries due to government censorship policies, but Chinese are incredibly involved in Social Media as a trusted source of information on many topics.

Samples vs Word of Mouth

The McKinsey study points to the influence of Social Media in terms beauty products in China, which is  we at Ogilvy have found to be totally true.

McKinsey found: 66 percent of Chinese consumers would be influence in the purchase of a moisturizer by recommendations of friends and family, while just 38 percent would be in the US and UK. By contrast 66 percent of UK and British consumers say that free samples could sway them, compared with 20 percent in China.

Excerpt from the McKinsey report:

The Internet is an increasingly important marketing tool. All the online media vehicles we tracked in our survey, including online advertisements, product articles, blogs, and forums, have significantly increased their impact (SEE CHART ONE). Consumers even rate the credibility of blogs and online forums higher than traditional TV ads.

This had an enormously positive impact for the company: word of mouth combined with 19,000 blogs encouraged drinkers to switch to Wang Laoji. One blogger developed the slogan: “If you’re going to donate, donate 100 million. If you’re going to drink, drink Wang Laoji.” This consumer-created ad was distributed widely online. The sales volume of Wang Laoji increased by 25 percent at one supermarket chain the month after the earthquake, and by 35 percent at one restaurant chain.

I had a wonderful conversation this afternoon with MIT Professor Jing Wang about her project “NGO 2.0 China.” We were first introduced to each other randomly through Scott Kronick, by my desk, where I kept a book Brand New China written by her. Scott asked me if I’d like to have the author’s signature – of course! During our random but pleasant encounter, Professor Jing Wang mentioned her current project -“NGO 2.0 China.” I was intrigued. Having done some research at home, I wrote to her and told her that I’d like to be a volunteer.

Professor Jing Wang launched the NGO 2.0 China project in spring 2009 in collaboration with Ogilvy & Mather in Beijing, the University of Science and Technology of China, and three other Chinese NGOs.

What exactly is NGO 2.0? Professor Jing Wang and her partners are building the first social networking platform for grassroots NGOs in

China. At the same time, they will be holding Web 2.0 training workshops for NGOs in Western and central provinces and co-developing training materials with Intel China. A ranking system will be integrated into the platform to promote the organizational transparency of NGOs.

The project was created to meet the dilemma faced by mid-sized grassroots NGOs in China: even as they each develop their own small websites, these NGOs remain as insulated from one another as before. What they actually need is a platform that allows them to share resources, build networks and recruit members at little cost. Web 2.0 would be a perfect solution to help them.

Professor Jing Wang’s design of the project, in its much simplified version, is to bridge Chinese grassroots NGOs with 1) IT infrastructure/service providers and 2) business entities like Ogilvy & Mather. The former can help build a necessary platform and participate in implementing creative ideas generated by vanguard grassroots NGOs; the latter can provide creative ideas for NGO 2.0 programs and help with content generation on the platform. In addition, (1) and (2) can both contribute to training programs for capacity-building.

The NGO 2.0 China project intrigued me because in a world where everyone is talking frantically about social media and Web 2.0, I feel this project is one of the few that has a clear purpose backed by thoughtful program design.

NGO 2.0 China is not the kind of ideal that can only end up being a good will in real life. This ideal is supported by pragmatic program design that aligns partners with different interests and drives things forward together. Imagine an IT company that has a strong interest in CSR projects. Imagine a company that is attempting to engage third-party endorsers.

Finally, NGO 2.0 China encourages me to think critically about the role that traditional and mainstream Chinese media plays in this field. Many times, published NGO stories are often dominated by sensational and distorted narrations. The effect of such reports, in addition to creating a large readership, is often the further marginalization of the victims.

If you are interested in learning more about this project, please visit the following websites: http://web.mit.edu/fll/www/people/JingWang.shtml (Professor Jing Wang’s personal webpage) and http://ngo20china.wikispaces.com/(NGO 2.0 wiki site).

Chinese microblog platforms have one major thing in common with Twitter, they limit updates to 140 characters. However, since a Chinese character generally conveys much more meaning than a single letter of the Roman alphabet, a Chinese microblog update can say a lot more than one in English.

As a very rough guide, four Chinese characters (新浪微博) are used to describe one of China’s leading microblog platforms, while fourteen characters are needed to write its English translation, Sina Microblog.

Similarly, 推特 - the Chinese for Twitter, does in two characters what English does in seven.

In addition, Chinese sentences do not need any spaces to make sense, even after punctuation marks.

Admittedly, posts on Chinese microblogs are often a mixture of English words and Chinese; and the online cultures of China and the English-language speaking world abbreviate in different ways.

However, despite these qualifying factors, by offering the same 140-character limit, microblogs are being much less stingy to Chinese writers than people updating in English.

So, a company or an individual can say a lot more. And quite often, they do just that. First, look at this fairly typical Twitter update from microblog aficionados, Dell (@DellOutlet):

Below is another update, also from Dell (@delldirect), on Chinese “twitter-like” site, Zuosa.com:

In just 114 characters, this Dell microblogger had managed to say the following:

Dell’s National Day Sale will run from Sept 11 to Oct 8. To celebrate the 60^th anniversary w. the motherland, Dell Home Computers is offering 6 cool gifts & deals on 10 computer models. These exciting offers will run non-stop for 4 weeks. Also, get a free upgrade to color casing & a 512MB independent graphics card, as well as other service upgrades. All offers are on a first-come-first-serve basis. What R U waiting 4? Act now!

It doesn’t look so “micro” now, does it? By using only part of their allowance, Dell managed to say the equivalent of 430 English-language characters.

When it comes to microblogs, I am less likely to read long updates; fat blocks of characters – English or Chinese – put me off.

Of course, not everyone is as lazy as me. However, companies should think about whether they should take advantage of these slightly less “micro” opportunities by writing longer updates. Personally, I think they shouldn’t. In this case, less is definitely more.