Thread PHD’s study into Chinese consumers and the motivations behind their digital behavior. What is the Thread? We’ve called this project ‘Thread’ because connectivity is at the heart of how people journey through the digital space. Chinese Netizens’ activities are increasingly inter-connected, rarely independent of other Netizens. These connections therefore form ‘threads’ along which information and influence flow.

2. About PHD
Formed in 1990, PHD (www.phdnetwork.com) is a media and communications agency with over 100 offices and
3,500 staff globally. PHD is a media business that has been built on a culture of thought leadership, creativity and
innovation. At our core is a strong belief that great media ideas matter. In our hearts is a commitment to lead the
industry with thought provoking opinion and pioneering thinking.
PHD China launched in 2006 and currently has offices in Shanghai and Beijing with over 200 employees who are
helping grow business for many domestic and international brands. We are always on the lookout for people who
can make a difference to join our team and of course, are happy to extend our client partnerships. If you would like
to talk to us, please pick up the phone or drop us an email.
PHD Asia Pacific was crowned Media Agency of the Year 2009 by Haymarket Media.
P: +86 21 2412 3000
mark.heap@phdnetwork.com
CEO

3. 1

5. 4 5

6. The Engagement Curve
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6 7

8. 10

9. 12 13

10. 14 15

11. 16 17

12. 18 19

13. 20 21

14. As a Mum the internet takes on a whole new role in their life that might run
in parallel with, or overtake, their relationship with digital as a White Collar.
The nature and job of content, influencers, social media channels and
useful communications changes dramatically.
A compressed
Engagement Curve
To a degree the early elements of the curve regarding content, influencers
and ‘Getting Social’, become compressed as the provision of simple, one
way content becomes less important. The danger is that content can
become a distraction from their lives and pressures rather than something
to improve it. Content should increasingly play a role and ‘Be Useful’ in itself
as their downtime is well catered for by more passive media like TV –
Digital is largely addressing a more active need.
When applying the concept of useful content to Mums we can broadly
categorise it as either ‘functionally useful’ or ‘emotionally useful’. Emotionally
useful content could celebrate Mum’s new life and play a role in lifting her
self-esteem and in contributing to her happiness. Motherhood is often a combination
of the mundane and the wonderful – the tiresome tasks like cooking and
caring, coupled with the emotional rewards of seeing her family grow and
succeed. Emotionally useful digital content can make the routine inspiring
and empathise with the joys of motherhood. Functionally useful content is a clearer
proposition – content that acts as a delivery system for advice direct from the
brand, through key influential figures or through peers [in themselves key
influencers]. The challenge is to merge the two to develop an attractive tool
for Mums. This might be represented by a cooking show placing their
‘traditional’ parental role in a more aspirational, lifestyle-orientated context –
for example taking a celebrity mum and show her cooking with kids,
glamourising her daily role whilst communicating valuable advice.
As with content, influencers and social media have to be far more
intrinsically linked to ‘Being Useful’ – when looking to travel all the way
through the Engagement Curve connection or expression just for the sake
of it no longer applies. It needs a purpose beyond ‘winning’ or fame –
communication needs to become ‘bonding’, consuming content to become
‘learning’. Suddenly she is faced with a whole new set of pressures and
anxieties. Mum’s priorities realign to focus on their children - how they look
after them and, importantly for us, what they buy for them. Media
consumption is shifted from entertainment to knowledge gathering.
22

15. For Mum’s the internet becomes an invaluable resource for relevant knowledge.Though information
delivered through lifestage specific content is valued, the internet’s real strength in China as a trusted
source of peer opinion and advice comes into its own. The closer to a real consumer the advice and
opinions become the more believable they are. As demonstrated by CNRS data [and backed up by
proprietary lower tier Mum study OMG New Horizons in 2009] Mums in China value the advice of peers
over and above that of family. Though healthcare professionals will play a greater role in those
categories more closely associated with health scares, instant milk formula etc, it is peers who will
validate that advice. To reiterate the above, SNS take a back seat but simpler, more ‘traditional’ digital
social channels like Chat [and to a degree bbs] come to the fore.

16. However…
It is crucial at this point to include a caveat. The Engagement Curve is a guide to achieving the
ambitious. A guide to reaching the ultimate goal for any brand – Personal Brand Relationships. However
for Mums in particular there will be occasions when we will need to be pragmatic and focus more on
adapting to their base behaviours rather than pursue our ambitions. For instance should we be engaging
in particular with lower tier Mums, whose behaviours are even more limited [primarily to channels like
Chat], we need to consider how far up the curve we need or can travel. Often, when targeting this
audience, the budgets can be limited or the long-term investment not confirmed so digital will be
relegated to an amplification or simple, efficient content delivery role. In this case the need for our
channels of communications to ‘Be Useful’ might be dulled with the need to keep it simple prioritised.
Whilst for the more ‘naturally social’ students and first-jobbers even small budgets should look to drive
all the way through the curve as their chatter will serve to amplify the message, for Mums we need to
pick our battles and only push the agenda when the conditions are right.
So, central to tackling digital communications with Mums is recognising the contradiction between their
relatively unsophisticated digital behaviours and their complex requirements from the channel.
Everything we do needs to strike a delicate balance.
Beyond the need to elevate brand advice to the
level of peer advice [potentially but channeling
peer advice through branded channels] the real
media challenge is that whilst being useful often
means employing more complex channels we are
communicationg with an audience whose
behaviours are less sophisticated and who have
less time to dedicate to a brand message. To find
effective solutions we need to really be identifying
unique needs and fresh emotional trigger points.
For example beyond health, ‘Intellectual
Development’ of their child represented a core
concern and OMG New Horizons highlighted
money [or lack of it] as a driver of ‘guilt’. Often
smaller more niche executions might be the best
access point. Both globally and in China through
tech channels brands are already providing
solutions and tools. iPhone apps have been
developed to aid ‘downtime teaching’- for
example maths flash cards. Notably these are
small solutions not broadcast ones. For Mums
these smaller, more intimate channels and ideas
can stick and bemone part of their daily routine.

17. NIKE+
Nike+ continues to be a huge achievement and an awesome demonstration of
what communications projects can become if tracked fully through the
Engagement Curve. It has blurred the boundaries of where brand and services
meet, as a result creating an unbreakable bond with its consumers.
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18. 30

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20. Mobile Internet:
3G will amplify existing behavior
One distinctive consumer behavior of the Chinese market is that mobile phone owners use their devices
for a broader range of activities, particularly for entertainment and communication needs. In addition to
calling and sending short text messages, Chinese mobile-phone users send multimedia messages, play
mobile music, games and SNS, download ringtones, take pictures and watch mobile videos more than
do users in more developed countries. Nearly one-quarter of Chinese mobile phone owners use their
devices to access content online, an extraordinarily accelerated progression of the medium (Boston
Consulting Group 2010).
Although the number of Chinese users grew to 233 million in 2009 (CNNIC 2009), mobile-internet use
in China is still in development. The current developing mobile broadband market points to a growing
opportunity for mobile applications, particularly as 3G develops.
Both the software and bandwidth must catch up with consumer expectations, although many mobile
apps companies are already on the move, and the Chinese government continues to pressure the
telecoms providers to accelerate 3G network upgrading. An indication of the wide spread use of both the
internet and 2G mobile devices as personal entertainment platform hints at the immense marketing
opportunity. eMarketer estimates by 2014, 73% of mobile subscribers in China will access the Web on
their mobile devices, representing 957 million mobile internet users. This means that as many people
will be accessing the internet by mobile as will by computer.
While mass usage of many of the more sophisticated digital behaviors are not yet habit, the good news
is that the current network already supports and allows brands to do most of the interactions that you
want to engage your audience with. For example product introductions, mapping apps, downloading/
uploading media, games, utility / entertainment apps, micro-blogging, voting, inviting friends, etc. are all do-able.
Social networks go Mobile
Social networking in China has already proven its appeal and worth in the PC world and the move to
mobile is a natural evolution for the medium. Global mobile subscribers are on their way to five billion
and the world’s biggest mobile operator, China Mobile, has close to half a billion customers in there
China market alone. The traction of the medium is obvious as the millions of active users on Chinese
social networks will migrate to mobile.
According to Informa Telecoms & Media, the importance of mobile social networking will escalate
exponentially over the next five years, creating a much larger industry. They state that there is sufficient
diversity within the social networking arena, and predict that nearly 25% of total mobile subscribers
worldwide will be actively participating in mobile social networking by 2013.
34 35

21. The growth in mobile subscriber numbers will come from the mobilisation of existing PC-centric All smartphone operating systems are racing to court application developers and encouraging them to
communities, providing further confirmation that the mobile model is robust, allowing users to access innovate on their platforms. The composition of smartphone owners will continue to evolve as new
their communities when all they have with them is a mobile handset. It is natural that people who value technology in mobile devices are released and new features introduced. Brands need to monitor
immediacy and contextual relevance in their communications would seek to have them when they are consumers’ behavioural changes, attitudes, preferences and increasing level of app usage.
not in front of their PC. After all, in reality your social life doesn’t happen while you’re sitting at your desk,
so the mobile allows users to report, comment and share on things that are happening now, without
having to wait until they get back to their computers. App for everything
Mobile social networking encompasses a diverse range of technologies and services, ranging from As advertisers explore new methods to create closer relationships with their consumers, and to invite
simple chat applications to multimedia-rich environments, content generation and sharing communities. them into personal exchanges and immersive experiences, brands need to develop apps that are
Different users are motivated by different needs and have different ways and means of experiencing relevant to their audience lives by being useful and valuable. There are now mobile apps that fill
their mobile communities. Early adopters are using more powerful, community-centric handsets and utilitarian needs, serving up informative and educational tips and plenty that offer pure entertainment
services for finding and communicating with others, quickly adapting their lifestyles to the benefits and everything in between. The right kinds of mobile apps linked to social media can move brands
provided by the services. closer to their goals.
According to mobile social network Gypsii, there’s a monumental change happening on three levels — Of the three major operators, China Mobile was the first to introduce an application store, Mobile Market,
consumer, device and distribution. They state “Consumers have been looking to do more on mobile, in August 2009, and has around 11,500 apps available. It has recently started expanding the reach of
particularly in emerging markets where they don’t have convenient access to the internet through a PC.” the store by placing access links on major Chinese portals. China Telecom formerly launched its online
While Gypsii’s presence is global, its largest market is China, where the company operates in app store, eStore, in March of this year. Finally China Unicom just launched Unistore in July 2010 and
partnership with China Unicom, targeting the carrier’s 148 million mobile subscribers. Social networking offers apps best used on smartphones. Unistore will not only support China Unicom users but also will
is expected to drive the data business. One of the greatest influences on social networking is cultural be available to subscribers from China Mobile and China Telecom.
conventions, especially where those conventions are in a state of change. Gypsii notes that Chinese
users are “ferocious” social networkers, spending about ten times more time pursuing the activity than Advertisers are naturally angling for mind share on this most personal of devices through mobile apps
Gypsii users in Europe and the US. As Chinese users are coming out of a closed society there is wave and there are solutions beyond developing your own branded app. By choosing to partner with or
of curiosity as well as massive migration from rural to urban areas. This is stimulating a natural embrace sponsoring existing apps, advertisers can access and leverage an existing base of passionate users. In
of mobile platforms as Chinese users actually want to make friends. this scenario, the advertiser is a sponsor of the mobile app content with display ads or boxes, links to
promotions and other forms of content on the app.
Smartphones In addition, brands need to explore how an app will tie into their overall digital and mobile marketing and
China's three big carriers - China Unicom, China Mobile media strategy. They need to understand the connections and potential as well as planning social media
and China Telecom - have all sought more diverse handset aspects apps. Brands need to come up with a strategy whereby an app fills a unique and compelling
ranges to match the expansion of their 3G networks. In need. It should make a consumer’s life easier and more fun, or offer a useful benefit.
late 2009, China Unicom began selling the iPhone, China
Mobile has secured a deal for a BlackBerry model and Beyond developing mobile apps that are useful and entertaining, the need to create conversations
China Telecom has said it is in talks to offer the Palm Pre.
To boost their smartphone sales, the carriers are widening
their pool of apps and other content, such as music
services and mobile TV. Each are building their own app
stores to expand their content offering as they begin to
realise the differentiation possible with treating these retail
outlets as opportunities in merchandising, community
development and monetisation.
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23. 40 41

24. 42 43

25. 44 45

26. An Envolving Channel
1. Open API’s on SNS
Though QQ’s remains closed Kaixin001 have recently opened their API, following RenRen and
51.com’s lead. All 3 willl benefit from the superior quality of the games available with their key rivals
who are when working with more advertisers and foreign dvelopers. This will in turn create greater
opportunities for advertiser collaboration and long term gaming strategies.
2. Increased sociality
Players will begin to experience new ways of communicating within the SNS games. The methods,
such as instant chat, will not be new to them but will be new to their social gaming experience.
These new elements will deliver improved ‘stickiness’.
3. Brand Zones
We expect to see a growth in gaming ‘worlds’ whereby brands work with developers and SNS sites
to create linked social gaming zones akin to the child orientated Club Penguin [www.clubpenguin.
com]. These offer consumers greater choice and depth still within the brand’s touch.
Rules Of Engagement
1. Maximise communication within the game to build stickiness
- both with other gamers and with the brand.
2. Build levels of complexity within a game, simple and complex play must be
allowed to exist within the same close community of friends.
3. Facilitate virality by generating content that can be passed on.
4. Place reward at the heart of the game – virtual or real, ‘tangible’ or
intangible. Reward could either be currency or just fame.
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29. Key
Opportunities for 2011
To build our presence in gaming.
Gaming is nothing new but remains a fundamental driver of social media usage
and thereby advertiser success. In 2011 we should be looking to establish a
heavier gaming footprint and closer relationships with SNS sites allowing for rapid
roll-out to work with fast moving consumer trends and brand needs.
To wrap social media around TV content.
To maximize the efficacy of our investment in TV content we need to have a
robust social strategy surrounding it to allow consumers to discuss, communicate
and even affect the storyline. Social media can drive the explosion of
‘water-cooler moments’ shows can only hope to achieve in the real world.
To sync up social media with our mobile strategy.
There are opportunities to be pioneers by aligning with key publishers [like
RenRen] as they improve the transfer of user input from handset to profile.
Location-based mobile technology offers Unilever brands an opportunity to be
true pioneers in China.
To develop a social networking service.
Such is the immaturity of the niche SNS market that there is room to dominate a
platform – to literally own or dominate a social network that fulfills a specific need
relevant to our target. Not re-inventing the wheel, just finding a key consumer
need that would benefit from a narrow, focused social network. A great example of
‘Being Useful’.
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30. I ‘Like’ connecting
In Israel Coke hosts an event each year – The Coca Cola Village. Thousands of youngsters live in the
village, with its pools and discos, for 72 hours at a time. This year Coke used Radio Frequency
Identification [RFID] technology to automate the uploading of all the fun onto facebook in real-time.
‘Villagers’ were given RFID bracelets with chips that held details of their facebook profile.
Around the event they were invited to use the bracelet to ‘Like’ certain activities by holding it to a
sensor – their pleasure was uploaded in real time! Furthermore the RFID bracelets allowed photos of
the villagers to be automatically tagged as they were uploaded.
The boundaries between their social worlds
– the real and the virtual – weren’t blurred…
they were knocked down.
Look for ‘The Coca-Cola Village’
on Youtube.
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32. 59
58

33. 60 61

34. Give yourself a
Gu Tianle grin What’s the worst that
Mentos made great use of Image can happen?
Recognition [or rather ‘Tooth
Dr. Pepper took control of users Facebook status updates
Recognition’] Technology to give you
to bring to life their ‘What’s the worst that can happen’
a winning smile.
campaign and take it social.
Stare into your webcam, play around
Downloading their app allowed you to choose how
with the app on the website, and
shamed you were willing be – just ‘Mildly Embarrassing’?
give yourself the kind of white teeth
Or go all the way with ‘Properly Embarrassing’.
that otherwise cost a lot of money
Dependent on your chosen level the app would
automatically change your status each day with an
Hello geek…
excruciating new revelation there for all your friends to see
The longer you can stand it, the more points you get. And
points win prizes!!
Who the hair’l am I?
L’Oreal invented a new vocabulary (Hairoscope + Hairitage) and launched a fun and quirky new
education campaign for their hair care/repair solutions in Singapore.
Things We Love
Answering a series of queries and uploading your pic would reveal your personal “hairscope” predicting
your personality type which you can share/match with your friends. L’Oreal did a great job in putting
ownable content in consumers hands and feeding the thread.
Best Buy has always boasted the most knowledgeable salespeople
in town but always hid them away in-store.
They decided to create ‘twelpforce’ to unleash their geeks. With a
simple tool on twitter it afforded bemused buyers 24/7 access to
these fountains of knowledge. The twelpforce was always on hand
to answer techy questions..
With the ultimate soft-sell Best Buy just provided a service suited to
the digital age. Even technophobes who have never set foot in a
store now feel they can trust Best Buy
www.hairoscope.com
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35. Have my friends
The African Medical Research
Foundation tapped into people’s
desire to do good [and be seen
to do good] by asking people to
give a voice to those in need.
Facebook users could ‘donate’
their profile page and twitter
accounts to impoverished
individuals who otherwise
would never get the chance to tell the world their story – it could be
anyone from a Nairobi streetkid to a Nomadic tribe member
A fantastic way for a charity brand to humanise suffering and drive
donations by connecting those outside the Thread
Connecting ideas with ingredients
Food52, a website ‘Where Kitchens Keet’, is using mobile to provide access
to their recipe database while you are at the grocery store. They have linked
hundreds of their online community’s recipes to bar codes on the packs of
potential ingredients. Take a photo of the bar code and list of potential
Things We Love
recipes pops straight up.
You’ll never return from the store with a missing ingredient ever again!! A
fantastic way to make your communications useful, reach into store and get
your brand talked about.
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36. 66 67

37. Thank you to all from the PHD China Creative
Channel Planning, Research and Digital
teams who contributed to the PHD
Thread project...
Authors:
Jason Grosz
Paddy Crawshaw
Ali Kazmi
Amo Jiang
Coolio Yang
Researchers:
Yvonne Shen
Claire Jiang
Special thanks...
Designer:
Neuneu Wu

38. PHD Thread was wri en and produced by PHD China.