China’s Online Marketing & Ads

When there are over 137 million internet users (called Net Citizens, 网民) surfing the web every day, looking for new products or services to enhance their self-appeal as the booming Chinese middle class, you know you want a piece of the action in the lumbering online market in China.

The growth rate of China’s internet user population has been outpacing that of the U.S., and is projected to overtake the U.S. in total number of users within a few years.

In a country where state-run media dominates the television ads, savvy marketers are shifting their focus to sell their products through the internet, hoping to tap into the growing population of middle class who entertain themselves through the web. The migration of advertising from print to online is an accelerating trend in the U.S. Now, the same thing seems to be happening in China.

China’s “little emperors” – typically trendy, and loaded with the wealth from their parents (due to the one-child policy) has undergone tremendous change in the past ten years. Equipped with knowledge to cruise through the web with ease at the dismay of their often confused and clueless parents, they are ready to further fortify their westernized image by learning what is “in” on the internet.

Global companies have already mobilized their resources, companies such as Pepsi, Nokia and P&G have hosted multiple online ad and promotions under the disguise of “interactive events” to drive their products to the hungry consumers. Sohu.com, one of the premier internet portals similar to that of Google for Chinese around the world, is already reporting over one third of their revenue from ads alone.

However, it makes us ponder how much more this exploding ad market can absorb before the consumers develop tolerance towards the increasingly flashy and flowerily ads thrown towards the Chinese online community. Already there are signs of saturation – websites were cluttered with eye-blinding ads, informative text were lost amid seas of promotion and “Click Me”s - maybe these will caution the new comers about the impending immunity of the Chinese Net Citizens.

But before that happens, let us enjoy ourselves with the videos created by Chinese internet sensation “Back Dorm Boyz”, who were actually sponsored by phone giant Motorola to act as viral agents for their latest advertisements.

Lucan Mui
VP of Communications