Spurred on by government incentives and higher in-comes, Chinese consumers are hungry for all kinds of goods ranging from cars, home appliances and mob-ile phones, to luxury cosmetics, basic foods and homecare products. Just like most western consumers, they focus on good value, based on price, perceived quality and benefits. They are eager to learn about new products, and view brands as vouchsafing both reliability and status.
All that is pretty standard for western marketers, and some have already learnt how to appeal to the weal-th-ier, more sophisticated consumers in Shanghai, Guangdong and Beijing.
But, for many, extending their market into the rest of the country will require strategies aimed at a broad-er swathe of the population, and with a flavour developed specifically for China. Companies that have al-ready gained experience in this have developed some useful ground rules: