:: the lovely and formidable Mrs. Jenny Zhu recently interviewed me about the Chinese creative community, emerging youth culture, and social media in China. Check it out on her blog. Please pardon the pink // AjS
:: meeting people online is not hard: online acquaintances can be made in general-interest BBS forums, through SNS websites, or over IM software. But finding love in these online relationships might be a little awkward, so a wide range of websites have sprung up to help Chinese netizens meet a special someone to spend the rest of their life with, or just to get together for a quick roll in the hay.
general match-making ::
Baihe is the premier online personals site in China. Founded in 2005, it claims to have reached 13 million registered members at the end of 2008. From its motto (“soul mates finding a happy marriage”) to the services it offers, Baihe is geared toward bringing people together for traditional marriages, not casual dating. The website provides a Soulmate tool that performs a personality quiz and tries to match users up with compatible mates. With its sizable membership, Baihe has large local sub-groups in cities across China so people can find possible matches close to them. Other matchmaking websites are job-specific. 91Fate is aimed at white-collar workers; the website specifies that members must have achieved at least a vocational college level of education. And at Central Meetup (央务鹊桥), the Chinese government has set up a website for single civil servants and party cadres. Aspiring members apply through the government and party employees committee and can then take part in special singles events organized by the website and related organizations. And Shanghai-registered gay portal BoySky has a personals section (阳光交友) that has profiles from men across the country, along with a BBS, chat rooms, and video chat services.
hook-ups ::
Some people may not be interested in long-term relationships. For them, there’s 9yiye (就一夜交友), whose name translates to “Friends for a night.” This matchmaking website is devoted to bringing people together for one-night stands. Newly-registered users are given 1,000 free credits, and the website encourages users to reveal their real personal information and participate in community-building activities by rewarding them with extra credits — 300 for uploading a personal, 40 for revealing a phone number, and 2 for posting a comment — which can be used toward typical SNS services like buying virtual gifts and sending phone messages. In terms of privacy protection, the website allows users to send emails or text messages to others without revealing their addresses or phone numbers. Anticipating that one-night-stand registration could be used as a tool for harassment, 9yiye threatens to report people who fill in false information to the police. Currently, users are predominately male. There are countless other dodgy BBS forums that get thousands of comments a day in forums devoted to hookups. A random example is Avi4, which divides hookup requests by region and has other sub-forums for adult content and other, restricted boards for edgier stuff like partner-swapping and bestiality (how much of this is more than just for show remains unknown — entrance requires VIP status on the website). The site claims to be registered with the Ministry of Industry and Information in Guangzhou, but its registration number which isn’t in the database, and it’s hosted in the US. This and other sites like it (search Baidu for 一夜情论坛) form a part of the Chinese language Internet unwelcome by the authorities but that seems to satisfy a certain need on the part of netizens.
fetish ::
S&M site SMNei is an SNS aimed at people into S&M. Currently there are 25426 members who can join various interest groups, like “bondage and dripping wax” sex group, which are only open to members. Like other Facebook / Xiaonei knock-offs, SMNei profiles include a discussion board, a message board, a photo album, and functionality for users to seek other people who share their same S&M interests, such as seen in user Zuqiandai’s profile.
non-traditional relationships ::
Asexual Marriage (无性婚姻网) is probably the most well-known website devoted to bringing people together for marriages in which sex does not play a part. It’s been covered in the mainland media as well as in a 2006 Reuters article. The site mentions various reasons for which people may be seeking asexual marriages – no sex drive, a desire for purely platonic companionship, or for medical reasons – but judging from the articles posted on the front page as well as the links bar at the bottom, the website is largely geared toward homosexuals who are seeking a traditional marriage as demanded by heteronormative Chinese society.
video chat ::
Love65 (65经典社区) is a social network site that offers games, stories, and discussion groups but is mostly devoted to video chat. It’s fee-based, and features “dancing,” “KTV,” and “private chat”. A warning banner on video pages says that the platform is solely for making friends, and that members should not tempt video presenters to do anything obscene or pornographic. Similar restrictions appear on other mainstream video chat sites, such as Liaoliao (聊聊语音聊天网), particularly after anti-filth campaigns. Nonetheless, there are lots of dodgier sites, many of which seem to be outright scams, that promote sex chat services. 3ren.com, a platform for building special-interest SNS websites, hosts a recently-launched Naked Chatroom (裸聊社区) to connect people for sex chatting. However, judging from the QQ numbers that get exchanged on other BBS discussion forums, and screenshots that circulate on adult image websites, most naked chatting and cybering probably takes place outside the browser, in IM software applications.
// AjS
[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]
:: as an update to this 56minus1 post about brands using online video in China from a couple weeks ago, I learned of a new example.
Master Kong (康师傅) ice-tea has just launched a fully interactive, socialized, Webisodic series titled Sunshine in a Guitar (吉他里的阳光). The first episode went live yesterday, with episode #2 going live on the 27th. Link here to see the campaign mini-site.
This is a great example of a mass-consumer brand understanding that its successful participation in the digital space hinges first and foremost on delivering value to online audiences. In this case, the value Master Kong is delivering is free entertaining and engaging content and other interactive fun (voting, points, prizes, opportunities to be in the show, etc.).
This is also an example of another digital best practice: brands going to where its online audiences are, as opposed to expecting online audiences to find them. With all due respect to Master Kong, its online target audience is simply not going to its homepage or any of its other static branded sites – would you? The entire Sunshine in a Guitar campaign is housed within the QQ domain / ecosystem, which for those unaware, is by far the largest and most trafficked social networking, instant messaging, causal gaming, and information / entertainment portal in China (probably the world).
My only criticism of the campaign at this point is that the video content doesn’t appear to be exportable / sharable outside of the branded mini-site. Why not let netizens embed the videos anywhere they want online? All such embedding would link back to he mini- site anyway, thus driving free, organic traffic and Internet word of mouth. For example, me as a blogger would have shared in this post.
It will be interesting to see how this campaign is received and develops. More to come. Check it out for yourselves.
Oddly, Master Kong is using a very obvious image of a MacBook laptop on the campaign’s homepage. I wonder of Apple is paying for product placement. H/T to . // AjS
:: March 15, World Consumer Rights Day, has been a big deal for several years now in China, and following all of the China-related product quality scares in 2008, the “day” has received considerable media attention this year. Although the promotion of consumer rights issues around March 15 heightens public awareness of the procedures individuals can follow to protect their legal rights, the most noticeable activity against companies and brands at this time of year is generated by Chinese government agencies and the media.
The number 315 has become a shorthand for consumer rights in China. Complaint hotlines often include the digits 315 (as in the national consumer complaint line 12315), and Web sites devoted to consumer product quality will often have 315 in the URL. For example, while the Chinese State Administration for Industry & Commerce (SAIC) provides a fairly bare-bones Consumer Rights Web site offering legal information, it falls to other 315 websites run by trade associations (and for-profit companies) to initiate legal action if enough consumers file online complaints. China 315 Consumer Rights Net is a well-known example, but a simple Baidu search for “315″ turns up a wealth of similar sites, both national and local in scope.
In addition to merely filing complaints, netizens can pursue consumer rights issues in a variety of ways via special sections set up on major Web portals, ad-hoc complaint groups, blogs, and standalone sites set up for particularly intractable problems. At seeisee’s China IWOM Blog, Sam Flemming explained how companies can use these Internet channels to reshape their relationship with consumers.
Below are some online / social media examples of activities from this year’s “315″ in China. Despite my best efforts to identify examples or case studies of companies / brands embracing 315 as an opportunity to engage with consumers / target audiences online, I am very much left with the impression that everything surrounding March 15 on the Chinese Internet is designed to teach businesses a lesson about the power of consumer rights / complaints. Stick-it-to-the man booby-traps abound. Companies and brands operating in China, beware! Muh ha ha…
web portal channels / sections ::
As consumer rights features blanketed the traditional / offline media, China’s major Internet portals also launched special channels devoted to March 15 activities. Sina’s 3-15 section is a typical example, and is built around links to articles and videos about major cases involving fake and poor-quality products / services. In terms of netizen-related content, the channel features a prominent link to MarchPhone (三月电话), a blog written by a consumer information hotline operator who describes how the job picks up every year around this time. The blog’s posts have hits in the hundreds of thousands, and the comments section is filled with people voicing complaints about products and services. Sina also hosted a Web chat with China Consumers’ Association vice-president Wu Gaohan and China Quality Long March magazine (中国质量万里行) president Wang Quelin (video, transcript). QQ has a fairly active sub-section on its Auto Channel devoted to aggregating information about car quality issues. The channel draws its information from news reports as well as the Auto Complaint section of QQ’s BBS. In general, however, most portal offerings were fairly similar, and all of them included instructions on how to report consumer issues to the authorities, as in this featured BBS post on Sohu.
a place to share gripes ::
To draw netizen participation, web portals held contests for consumer rights-related writing: blog and forum posts could be entered by putting a key phrase in the title. Some of the most popular posts were “inside stories” about how customers get screwed in various industries, as in these taken from Sohu: High markups on clothing, upselling and bait-and-switch in the wedding photos business, and the impotence of product standards enforcers. For netizens on the outside, the event was an opportunity to share gripes about how they had been ripped off in the past. On the local BBS for Xiaogan, Hubei, one netizen described how a supermarket was offering 5-yuan in cash for empty 5L oil jugs, but actually handed out 5-yuan coupons for future purchases. The solution: “I took out my mobile phone to call 12315, and the employee got nervous and immediately changed his attitude and said I could exchange the coupon.” “315″ is a shorthand on most BBS discussion forums for the consumer rights Board / group, typically a place where people complain about inferior products and shoddy services. Tianya’s 315 board is very well-trafficked, and even Youku has a 315 video section, although it only seems to receive new posts in early March.
ongoing issues ::
In November of last year, new homeowners in Xiamen’s Best Base Diadem (百源双玺) housing development discovered ceiling cracks throughout their apartments. A post to the development’s online BBS proposed joining forces against the developer, and a few homeowners exchanged email addresses. As World Consumer Rights Day approached, the residents staged a public protest outside the development, and held up a long banner complaining about their ceiling issues. Traffic and comments to the original post surged during March. Nationally, there’s a growing effort among netizens to hold Johnson & Johnson accountable for allergic reactions its products have allegedly caused in infants. On Sohu’s 315 Blog Group, a community set up in January 2009 for bloggers to pool information about consumer rights activities, J&J-related complaints are currently the top-ranked posts. Bloggers have tagged their posts with “Lodge a complaint against J&J” (投诉强生) and have shared photos of their babies’ skin rashes. One blogger recently posted a call for parents to join together to pool results of blood tests and use them against the company to attempt to prove that its products were directly involved in causing their babies’ allergies.
loser: China Mobile ::
Personal privacy has been a big issue in the past year, and one major consumer rights case this month involved China Mobile and spam SMS messages. A CCTV expose revealed that China Mobile branches in Shandong were operating bulk SMS services and had sold customer information to third parties (transcript on Sina with 1773 netizen comments). Although the revelations drew angry responses from netizens (toward China Mobile and toward CCTV as well), there were others who hailed China Mobile’s swift response to the expose as a qualified success — the company had quickly communicated not only to the traditional media but to online media as well that it would investigate the problem and work to correct it. China Mobile customer service was the focus of a post made to the Tianya BBS on March 14 by a netizen claiming to be a receptionist at the company’s customer service hotline (10086). The post ran through a long list of complaints about the job — strict performance requirements, long hours, unpaid bathroom breaks, and rage from callers. The post was promoted to featured status and drew more than 200,000 views and nearly 1,000 comments. Yet another complaint about China Mobile — this time warning about possibly fraudulent billing practices in Tianjin — was put up Sohu’s BBS on February 26, and was promoted to “3.15” featured status in the wake of CCTV’s expose, where it has registered more than 8,700 views.
notable online efforts ::
Netizens complain about shoddy products and services year-round. In 2008, one notable example was Huang Jing’s lawsuit against Asus for getting her tossed into jail on blackmail charges when she sought compensation for a faulty repair job. This led to a 315 Web site about the case and an effort to drum up a boycott against the computer company. Public opinion is divided as to whether she’s an ordinary consumer who’s been mistreated, or a scammer who got caught, but her persistence in taking advantage of all available media channels has kept the issue alive much longer than otherwise. Also in 2008, seventeen netizens filed a lawsuit against Tencent over QQ IDs they’d lost and that the company refused to return to them. In October, when the Nanshan court finally accepted the case, only eleven elected to pay the 1,000 filing fee. The blogger who had been reporting on the case at his blog has since taken down all posts related to the case, and no resolution has been made public.
// AjS
[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]
:: audio podcasts are fairly scarce on the Chinese Internet, but it’s hard to pinpoint a key reason for this. Perhaps it’s because there are no painless, all-in-one automated subscription systems for downloading podcasts from the Internet comparable to iTunes and similar systems that have had success abroad. The technical aspects of transferring podcast updates to MP3 players and other handheld devices may be a barrier to widespread adoption. Or maybe the rollout of podcast services by major blogging platforms was eclipsed by the rise of video websites in China, which followed closely on their heels.
The Chinese word for podcast, 播客, encompasses both audio and video media these days, but netizen-generated video clips are far more common than audio podcasts. Exclusively audio podcasting platforms have unfortunately all but disappeared on the Chinese Internet.
Likewise, the few independent podcasts that became popular have reached the end of their lifespan with nothing to take their place. Antiwave was wildly popular when it started in 2005, and received significant coverage in the mainstream media over the following two years. But, its creators turned to other pursuits in 2008 and it has updated very rarely since a relaunch late last year.
Listed below are some examples of well-known Chinese podcasts and podcast aggregators.
Princess Remy | 黑米公主
A woman from Taiwan who’s currently living in Europe records podcasts under the name Princess Remy (RSS http://princessremy.podspot.de/rss ). She’s produced more than 550 episodes since 2006; for the first year she released one short episode more or less every day, slowed down slightly the second year, and currently does about one a week. Her subject matter ranges widely, from fashion, to European culture, to issues involving Taiwan. Princess Remy frequently turns up on lists of recommended podcasts that circulate on the Chinese mainland.
Justing | 静雅思听
A wealth of educational podcasts on a wide range of topics, from daily life and contemporary culture to history and law to language learning to stories and anecdotes. One major source of content is blog posts and columns that authors have agreed to let Justing convert into podcasts so that young white-collars can listen to them during dead time when they’re away from their computers: during commutes, waiting in lines, before bed-time, or in particularly boring meetings. The podcast archive (available through iTunes) starts in 2007. Notable contributors include cross-cultural blogger Zhai Hua, popular historian Shel JeAnns, and economist Ding Xueliang.
Piekee | 派派网
This podcasting platform was founded in 2005 and currently offers blogs with integrated podcasting functionality. Featured on the front page this week is a post on Arbor Day (March 12) by leading podcaster Feixiang (DJ飞翔), several dramatic readings, and a history of jeans presented by “Transhon Studios” (书琴杯剑). The site has its own community, but Piekee has made the odd decision to wall itself off from the rest of the Internet: there’s no RSS provided. In addition, listeners are mostly restricted to in-browser media players, unless the podcaster has specifically chosen to make downloading available. Although this follows the practice of major video websites, it doesn’t give these podcasts the wider exposure they’d get through feed subscriptions and iTunes browsing: listeners are unable to transfer most of Piekee’s podcasts to offline MP3 players and handheld devices.
Converted Phoenix TV podcasts
Some of the most popular podcast feeds have been converted from talk shows, with Phoenix TV being one of the major sources. Perhaps the most widely-known is “Behind the headlines with Dou Wentao” (锵锵三人行) (RSS feed), an interview show that discusses the issues of the day. Since the 20-minute daily show is basically all conversation, it works quite well as an audio-only podcast. Noted cultural critic Leung Man-tao hosts another PhoenixTV talk show, “8 Minutes Reading” (开卷八分钟) (RSS feed), which introduces listeners to different book each episode. Lu Yu’s popular celebrity interview show, “A Date with Lu Yu” (鲁豫有约) (RSS feed) is also available in podcast form.
Sohu Holds Forth | 搜狐侃事
This series is a joint project between Sohu, which provides netizen-generated content, and China Radio, which hosts the programs. Episodes come out approximately every week and are about ten minutes long. They’re usually devoted to subject matter taken from one of Sohu’s special focus sections. A host recaps the situation and then reads off BBS postings from netizens. Recent topics have included the boundaries online speech (podcast link). This topic started out with a discussion of the stabbing of well-known blogger Qianliexian to address the question of whether violence is ever a justified response to offensive blog posts, and whether bloggers should be more careful about what they write. Hengyuanxiang’s tasteless Spring Festival commercial (feature, podcast link), and the appropriateness of college students acting as nannies (podcast link) were other popular topics that were recapped on this program. Sohu’s wrap-up is packaged for use on China Radio, which means it has pauses for station breaks and then recaps the issues afterward (to some degree, most Chinese podcasts employ common radio announcer techniques like musical backgrounds and solemn diction). Like Piekee (and like many terrestrial radio stations that have an online presence), it doesn’t offer RSS, which limits its exposure.
For more podcasts in addition to the above examples, the best place to go is probably the Douban Podcast Group. Members share new podcasts they’ve discovered – both Chinese and foreign-language – and exchange tips for the best ways to listen.
// AjS
[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]
:: it’s rare that I write about my “day job” or the world of digital / social media and marketing, etc., but today I came across something I was particularly impressed with: www.skittles.com
Mars and Agency.com have turned Skittles’ web site into a mashup of several 3rd party social media services, with only a small widget-like “remote control” that floats over the content acting as a site navigation device. In fact, the widget seems to be the only Skittles-made / branded content on the whole site, the rest is essentially user generated content hosted on other sites that is being aggregated (and unedited!) within the Skittles.com domain.
Despite an epically terrible name for the site, “Interweb the Rainbow, Taste the Raindow” (maybe I just don’t get it…a possibility), the site is, dare I say, fucking genius! (Although, not entirely original as Modernista did it first.)
Skittles has effectively surrendered its brand to netizens. As my colleague said today, “Skittles has taken the common social media mantra, “go to where your stakeholders are” to a whole new level.” While true, I think that’s an understatement. The brand has not only gone to where its stakeholders are and engaged them, they have invited them inside its most precious digital asset (the brand site) and asked them to fill in the blanks –– consumers are now fully in control.
The Skittles’ homepage now displays a live Twitter stream resulting from a “keyword: Skittles” search query (currently the #1 trending topic on Twitter). The products page loads up a Wikipedia entry, allowing netizens to input their own “product information.” The media page loads up the brand’s YouTube channel (video) or its Flickr page (photo). A friends page loads up the brand’s Facebook fan page (nearly 600K people)…enough already, just go check it out: www.skittles.com
This is one of the boldest things I have seen a brand do online. It will be interesting to see how the campaign plays-out and how its “managed” (if at all) after the intial hoopla dies down. Comparing bottom lines after 6 months will also be interesting. I’m willing to bet sales soar. Skittles has likely never been more widely discussed or top-of-mind online than right now, and it will surely get a mountain of press for this –– but how durable it that? Maybe the whole thing will amount to brand suicide / anarchy. Whatever it is, I am all for it. I applaud the boldness, I applaud the “risk” Mars / Skittles has taken to push the boundries of “what has been done and did.” I look forward to the case study. Bravo, well done. // AjS
:: netizens in China have a wealth of online choices for obtaining information about cars. Prospective buyers and auto enthusiasts alike can find news and reviews of the latest models on blogs and in special-interest BBS forums, and if they want to make a purchase, there are sites to help them find both new and used cars that suit their requirements. Once they’ve bought a car, they have ample space to discuss their car owning experiences or, should something go wrong, seek help and advice. And a number of brands have taken advantage of blogs and online games to increase their exposure among netizens.
cars on blogs ::
Moyan Qingfeng is an auto commentator associated with Sina’s Auto Channel. He blogs about new models and keeps an eye on industry trends. Recent posts have followed the decline of the mainland’s auto market, which he says is nothing to be surprised about. He’s also associated with Way of the Car, an auto community website that features BBS boards, blogs, and auto analysis. Li Xiang, founder of community website PCPop and car portal Autohome, keeps a blog that’s mostly about cars, although he does muse about entrepreneurship and other unrelated topics from time to time. Xiao Cheng is a Dandong-based auto commentator. His blog is mainly concerned with reviews of new models, and his posts are widely redistributed across the Internet. In blogging-related activities, Sina’s own blogging platform features an application called “I’m Car Crazy” that allows netizens to put up a widget on their blog that displays a car they’ve “purchased” through the system. New users are given a certain number of credits to start with, and they can accumulate credits by posting in Sina forums, answering surveys, or completing other tasks. With more credits, they can purchase better cars. The “Auto Mart” section contains real-world specifications of the different vehicles that are available for “purchase.” Once netizens have purchased a car, they can take part in online games like racing against their blog friends. Popular SNS app Kaixin has a similar game called “Parking Wars” (requires registration) that features lots of different car models.
general auto BBS discussion forums ::
There are lots of places to find information about cars online. All of the major web portals have auto channels featuring the latest news, ads, and pretty pictures, and a number of major standalone sties are devoted to car information. Autohome. One of the biggest auto-specific websites on the mainland. Has its own stable of reviewers and commentators, one of whom, Meng Qingjia, went along on a press tour of China’s Antarctic research station. His trip was sponsored by Nissan X-Trail. PCAuto claims to be the second-largest auto-related portal on the mainland. One interesting feature, in addition to comprehensive BBS forum and blog offerings, is a fuel economy blog that aggregates netizen data to come up with the most fuel-efficient cars. XCar is another major portal with sub-forums for practically every (sometimes random) interest imaginable. The self-guided holiday sub-forum has over one hundred users, and is a popular venue for people to share experiences about their own travels to faraway places such as Kunming, Tibet and Xinjiang. Several threads are started each month and generate frequent replies. China’s auto-related websites include organic communities and small startups as well as major sites operated by large media companies: CBS Interactive runs the buying sites Cheshi and Go Car, as well as the XCar portal, by virtue of its 2008 acquisition of CNET Networks. PCAuto belongs to Pacific Online, which owns a network of special-interest websites.
making a purchase ::
Che168 is a forum designed to be a comprehensive buyers’ guide to the auto market. It’s part of a network of online buyers’ guides that includes IT website IT168 and has connections to Autohome and mainstream portal PCPop. A clever search function that lets netizens weight the importance of various traits (such as safety, efficiency, economy, brand, and power) on a sliding percentage scale. GoCar (购车网) is a no-frills car buying website. Front and center is a search box for country, make, price range, and style. There are sub-sites for Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shandong, detailed information on a wide range of models, and tools for figuring out loan and payment numbers. Data comes from a selection of online partners as well as relationships with offline dealers like Oriental Foundation International Auto Mall. The site is connected to XCar forums, so it does not host a local BBS. Cheshi (车市), which belongs to the same company, is more focused on information and buyers’ guidance, and features an active BBS which hosts sub-forums devoted to popular makes and models. The site also has a list of expert agents who are available to answer buyers’ questions. Judging from the response rankings, visitors to Cheshi are interested in new cars: the repair, rental, and second-hand experts have very few questions directed at them. Taotaocar (淘淘二手车网) is a website founded in 2007 to facilitate the buying and selling of used cars. It’s set up like an automotive version of the online auction house Taobao, and offers model- and price-based searching options and special sub-sections organized by location. Advertisements (or partner links) are from various used car dealers. Another technique for buying cars is group purchasing. Prospective buyers seek volume discounts by approaching car dealers as a group, and they frequently organize themselves using the Internet. Netizens find other interested purchasers on web forums, but the actual discussion mostly takes place off the web using tools like Tencent’s QQ messaging software (see this CIC narrative for details).
websites for car owners ::
Netizens who own cars have a wealth of online forums to choose from. Most comprehensive auto forum websites have sub-boards where owners of particular models can congregate; some of them also have sub-boards devoted to particular geographic regions. Independent sites cater to specialized interests. Pochezu (破车族), or “Jalopies,” is an auto forum aimed at existing car owners. Rather than focusing on the latest models, information on this site concerns auto maintenance and repair, tricks for keeping a car looking good, and directories of after-market services and destinations you may want to drive to. Car owners interested in tuning their vehicles can visit Modi-Auto, a community devoted to the art of improving car performance. Started in 2004 as a bare-bones BBS by tuning enthusiasts, it has grown into an archive of relevant news and information with an active discussion forum attached where newbies and experts can talk tuning. Another way car owners get together is through driving tours. Car Trips is a specialty forum devoted to organizing self-guided driving tours and sharing experiences and photos. Netizens discuss routes, lodging, and destinations, and sometimes arrange group excursions.
online branding / marketing ::
The Other Blog is a MINI-branded blog hosted on Sina. It features the latest ads for the Mini Cooper S standard and Clubman models surrounding blog posts related to design, art, and other trendy topics the brand wants to be associated with. Blog post contests are another way for brands to increase their exposure in the digital space. In 2008, Toyota held a contest for bloggers on Tencent’s QQ platform to promote its new Corolla model. Owners were asked to write about the joys of Corolla ownership or tell of their experiences with the car, with the winners receiving a GPS system, a netbook, a gas card, or other car- and travel-related prizes. In 2008, Anhui’s JAC Motors partnered with Sina to place its Rein SRV into a driving game. As part of the promotional campaign, net gamers competed in a series of elimination rounds with the ultimate winners getting the use of a Rein vehicle for one year, a laptop computer, or other high-tech prizes.
// AjS
[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]
