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CHANGING CURRENTS
20 YEARS of REFLECTIONS
BIRDS IN CHINA - PHOTOS
CYCLING to XANADU
THE CHINESE DREAM
CHINESE NEW YEAR ADS
The MEDIUM, the MESSAGE and the SAUSAGE DOG
ANYONE FOR TENNIS?
VIEWS FROM ABOARD THE CHINA EXPRESS:
1 Zola and Retail Marketing
2 Playing the Waiting Game
3 Beware the Ides of March
4 The county not on a map
5 Chinese Chess in Beijing
6 Build it and They'll Come
7 Riding the Water Dragon
8 The Best of Both Worlds
9 Storming the Great Wall
10 Welcome to the Wangba
11 The Catcher in the Rice
12 The Marriage Business
13 The Crouching Dragon
14 Counting the Numbers
15 A Century of Migration
16 Shooting for the Stars
17 Rise of Yorkshire Puds
18 Harry Potter in Beijing
19 Standing Out in China
20 Self-pandactualisation
21 Strolling on the Moon
22 Tea with the Brothers
23 Animated Guangzhou
24 Trouble on the Farms
25 Christmas in Haerbin
26 Dave pops into Tesco
27 A Breath of Fresh Air
28 The Boys from Brazil
29 Rolls-Royce on a roll
30 The Great Exhibition
31 Spreading the Word
32 On Top of the World
33 Moonlight Madness
34 Beijing's Wild West
35 Avatar vs Confucius
36 Brand Ambassadors
37 Inspiring Adventure
38 China's Sweet Spot
39 Spinning the Wheel
40 Winter Wonderland
41 The End of the Sky
42 Ticket to Ride High
43 Turning the Corner
44 Trouble in Toytown
45 Watch with Mother
46 Red-crowned Alert
47 In a Barbie World
48 Domestic Arrivals
49 Tale of Two Taxis
50 Land of Extremes
51 Of 'Mice' and Men
52 Tour of the South
53 Brooding Clouds?
54 The Nabang Test
55 Guanxi Building
56 Apple Blossoms
57 New Romantics
58 The Rose Seller
59 Rural Shanghai
60 Forbidden Fruit
61 Exotic Flavours
62 Picking up Pace
63 New Year, 2008
64 Shedding Tiers
65 Olympic Prince
66 London Calling
67 A Soulful Song
68 Paradise Lost?
69 Brandopolises
70 Red, red wine
71 Finding Nemo
72 Rogue Dealer
73 Juicy Carrots
74 Bad Air Days
75 Golden Week
76 Master Class
77 Noodle Wars
78 Yes We Can!
79 Mr Blue Sky
80 Keep Riding
81 Wise Words
82 Hair Today
83 Easy Rider
84 Aftershock
85 Bread vans
86 Pick a card
87 The 60th
88 Ox Tales
CHARTS
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2018
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2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2001 to 2007
BIRDING in CHINA
PORTS of CALL
FROM BEYOND THE WALL
ABOUT

Standing Out in China

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Sizing up the brand

These days, some Beijing taxis come equipped with a small TV screen housed in the back of the front seat passenger's head rest.  Just the thing to while away the hours when stuck in one of the capital's infamous traffic jams one might have thought.  Well, one would have been hopelessly wrong... the programme schedule actually consists of ads, ads, and a few more ads thrown in for good measure.  The notion that content is king and that advertising should be a light seasoning sprinkled on the daily viewing meal, and not the staple diet, has somehow escaped the attention of the media company that owns the screens.  And so, after a few seconds, I lost interest and turned my attention to something more interesting – the intricate stitching on the headrest cover.

  

   Then something caught my attention.  People wearing just their underwear and a brave face were being pelted with snowballs and blasted with snow from a snow machine.  The thought that I was watching some new, sadomasochistic winter X game was dispelled when I caught the point of the film.   It was a technology commercial no less.  But a technology commercial with a difference.  The technology is Omni-Heat, the brand is Columbia Sportswear.

  

   There was also something about little silver dots, heat retention, and other high-tech stuff, but the words were less striking than the product demonstration.  People, still in their knickers, who were by now turning various hues of blue, were donning Columbia jackets, and instantly thawing out.  This is a product demonstration right out of the marketing manual:  Dramatise the problem (life-threatening hypothermia is a particularly eye-catching dramatisation), and then a quick cut to the surprising solution (in this case, the life-saving 'Omni-Heated' Columbia jacket).

  

   After getting out of the warmth of the cab, and heading into the biting northerly breeze that was whistling around the high towers of Beijing's Central Business District, my thoughts returned to Omni-Heat and, more to the point, my realisation that the 'feathers' in my synthetic down jacket were far less 'advanced' than they should have been.  I concluded that I was wearing yesteryear's winter-protection and that my discomfort  (now that I knew about the life-saving advantage of Omni-Heat) was self-inflicted.  Resigned to my fate, I pushed on, head down; while cursing the Beijing climate and the manufacturer of my jacket with equal vehemence.

 

   I then turned the corner and was astonished to see that some of the people from the ad I had just watched had, by some quirk of fate and otherworldly portal, been teleported to Beijing and were standing naked before me.  Naked, that is, except for their Omni-Heated jacket which was held in front of them.  "Feathers!?" they seemed to be mocking.  "Serves you bloody well right!". 

 

   It was not until I got closer to the shop window that I realised that the figures were actually cardboard cut-outs.  From the startled reactions of some of the people who caught the cut-outs out of the corner of their eye, it was clear that I wasn't the only one to be fooled by the window display.  I managed to snap several shots of the reactions of passers-by before the cold got too much, and I just had to move on.

 

   Columbia Sportswear have been around in China for many years, but this is the first time that they have grabbed my attention.  Then again, according to Dan Hanson, Vice President of Marketing at Columbia Sportswear, it would have been hard for me to miss it.  He told Business Wire that “...We will be telling the Omni-Heat story through a vast array of media channels and creative executions that will make it nearly impossible for any consumer to miss the significance of this innovative warmth technology.”

 

   'Innovation' is clearly something that Columbia take very seriously.  The company, which has its headquarters in Oregon (harsh winters spring to mind), has even created the position of "director of global innovation".  That post was held by Michael 'Woody' Blackford, before he was promoted to the position of Vice President of Global Innovation in August last year.   The affable Woody told Outdoorindustry.org, a trade news website, that innovation was the difference between success and failure in the highly-competitive sports apparel category.  He likened the brand drivers of the category to that of the computer category's: 

 

   "We don't want to be stuck in the position of PC makers who are essentially at the mercy of Microsoft and Intel to bring innovation to the market... You do that and you find yourself in the commodity business.  We are more attracted to what Apple has done, where they control both the hardware and software and have happy customers," said Mr Blackford.  It is clear from this analogy that Columbia regard Omni-Heat as the brand's proprietary software.

 

    It is not surprising that, as the brand has become more high profile and better able to command higher prices, it has been increasingly targeted by unscrupulous manufacturers in China looking to cash-in on its fame and fortune.  Columbia realise that brand-building through innovation is only sustainable if the integrity of the brand name is not compromised by the evils of counterfeiting.  It has therefore focussed on working with the Chinese authorities in an effort to cut off the supply of knock-offs. 

 

   As well as waging war on the companies that manufacture the counterfeit items and the retailers that sell them, Columbia has joined forces with other high profile brand names in an effort to target the landlords who knowingly lease retail space to unscrupulous traders – such as the landlords of the Beijing Silk Market, one of the main counterfeiters' trading centres in China (and one of the most glaringly embarrassing contradictions to the Chinese authorities' claim that it is doing all it can to protect intellectual property).  

 

   Last winter, in the war to defend the integrity of its intellectual property, Columbia Sportswear participated in more than 50 factory, warehouse and retail raids across China.  Let's hope that, this winter, Omni-Heat’s "distinctive reflective silver-dot lining", which a spokesperson for the brand went on to describe as "...The most innovative warmth solution to hit the outdoor industry in decades and allows consumers to see the technology as well as feel it”, doesn't become an even bigger target for the apparel category's hardware and 'software' fraudsters.   

 

   There is at least one aspect of this category that is not analogous to computer hardware and software though: wittingly or unwittingly, purchasing a counterfeit item in this category could lead to a slow, painful death. 

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Getting noticed