The 6th Butter Youth Conference will be held on 14:30 – 16:00PM, June 27th (Sunday) in Qing Gong Guan (our office), Beijing!
Welcome to come listening to the stories of 6 young people, sharing questions/ thoughts/ ideas, and catching up with youthologists. ‘Let’s spread!’
(Douban page of this event:http://www.douban.com/event/12110493/）
WHAT IS BUTTER YOUTH CONFERENCE?
Butter Youth Conference is monthly held events for youth to talk about what they aspire, what they fear, what inspires them&hellip It is not a gathering of elites, but a platform for diversity of youthfulness, and hopefully a platform for marketers to know more about what youth care to talk about.
More info: http://chinayouthology.com/blog/?p=869
Why Butter? Check out an video introduction about Butter Youth Conference here: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTU3MjU5NjIw.html
The slides below are the presentation China Youthology did on the preconference ‘US & Global Youth & Youth Marketing’ of Ypulse Mashup Youth Marketing Conference 2010 in San Francisco.
With this 20-min speech, we talked about current youth marketing communication messages and how deeper cultural understanding of youth can lead to communication messages that resonate.
Aside from the ‘dreams and desires’ of youth, it is equally important to understand the ‘anxieties and contradictions’. Insights into the macro context is especially critical to understand youth, especially in a fast-changing society.
Thanks Ypulse for inviting us to the conference. It was a lot of learnings!
It was already late evening as a taxi drove me from an airport in the city of Xuzhou. From a hotel we stayed about five minutes walk, there was a construction site at one corner of an intersection where I saw a white logo growing in the dark said ‘Wal-Mart.’ I shouldn’t surprise anymore seeing a global corporation like Wal-Mart in the low tier cities of China (Wal-Mart now has over 146 stores in China, covering 86 cities). After my first couple days in Xuzhou, I came to realize that my presumption of Xuzhou in many ways of an ‘underdevelopment low tier third city’ didn’t quite fit.
In fact, the city still remains being underdevelopment in terms of its infrastructure, economy, transportation, as well as city culture such as nightlife, entertainment, dining and etc. But what went wrong about my prejudgement revealed some of the fast growing youth culture in Xuzhou. I met a bunch of hi-hop dancers, skateboarders, a freestyle rapper, groupies, and rollerbladers. Besides this, a boy at a local music contest, who wore colored contact lens, and high school kids hanging out in a TV idol shop raised my awareness of the city’s growing potential for the youth culture.
While young people in Xuzhou enjoy more matured youth culture than some of previous cities I visited, the city has one mutual thing, that keeps discovering in every low tier city. It’s a circumstance, in which youths get confused about their life, and lack of a dream or aspiration while living under continuous pressure from their parents. This absence of a sense of purpose deepens their inadequate self-esteem, motivation, and confidence. As the city develops, enriching social life and entertainment, there might be counter increase of youths, who feel being left out or get lost in the fast transforming city.
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01. Wang Lu Qiao, 16, a freshman of Xuzhou Wenhua YiShu Xuexiao high school, stretches her body at the end of her gymnastic class in the afternoon. In the school, variety of dance lessons are offered such as hip-hop, ballet, and Chinese national dance.
A graveled and muddied path on the way to Jilin from Changchun airport made me wonder more than once that if I would ever get to something like a ‘city.’ This may be an exaggerative explanation, but without speaking a local language and driving the dirt road of bumps and potholes in between fields and mountains, you may ask the same question I did; Is there Tier 3 city in the road ahead of us? About forty minutes later, a friendly driver jumped on a highway, which seemed lots more legitimate road to the city we were supposed to go.
To me, the city of Jilin gets more colorful, vibrant, and exciting especially at a night. It starts with a sunset at the dusk. A river running along the city reflects warm pinkish sunset orange, which soon fills the entire city. Meanwhile, the city neon begins to grow, giving the city more primary color of the red, green, and blue against fading pink sky. In the city, after around 6 p.m., a night bazaar stretches several blocks long reaches its peak, satisfying all kinds of visitors’ appetite offering with seafood, noodle, BBQ, and more.
So far, lower the size of city is, more valued the traditional cultures are. For instance, an arrange marriage and family oriented decision making are the value still remain firm in a low tier family. Nevertheless, the value of a relationship has begun drifting by the youth, who can independently find a love and start dating in their earlier age. A student from Dangbei Dianli Xueyuan told that one third of his classmates are currently in the relationship.
As the city develops and its society becomes matured, I would assume that we will see more of those cultural and social value that will shift accordingly. And in China, once it gets on a track, it will go really fast.
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01. The elderly Jilin locals gather in a park early morning to do dancing and exercising. Nearly 50 participants with colorful costumes try to stay active and healthy.
02. A couple tries to take a picture of themselves beside the monument, Qingchun (youthfulness), in a river bank park.
In growing low tier cities, people are looking for different ways to spend their money. Why wait for international brands and franchises? Enterprising locals are already providing enticing new products and services.
Local businesses that establish new categories in low tier cities currently represent a small market. But these entrepreneurs are testing the waters, and when they succeed, leading trends.
We interviewed owners and managers from fitness centers, luxury salons, outdoor adventure tours, break dance studios, and cafes, as well as their customers and potential customers, to find out what makes new categories work in small cities.
Deluxe Individuality
No matter what new product or service arrives in low tier cities, a certain demographic is going to be attracted just because it’s something different.
“My friends and I been to every café and restaurant in Yiyang,” says He Xingwen (30), Yiyang native and foreign- educated marketing professional. “If Starbucks came, of course we would go there.”
The problem is the significant drop off in purchase when something else comes along.
So how do local entrepreneurs earn loyalty? By educating their customers in new behaviors, behaviors that create a sense of self worth and individuality.
Since when do low tier youth care about individuality? Low tier youth may tend to prefer blending in with peers to standing out, but that seems to change fast with marketization. In Xuzhou, where the retail scene is very developed, youth we surveyed valued being special, specifically having a special personal style.
Guest blogger Zhi: Zhi was born in Shanghai, but moved to the U.S. as a baby. After a two-decade hiatus and finishing up his undergraduate studies in Boston, he has returned to his birthplace to get in touch with his native roots. Currently in the first year of a Master’s degree in Sociology at Fudan University, Zhi is working on a thesis project on hip hop and street dance culture in China.
Hangzhou, January 2010.
A huge crowd of Chinese breakdancers (b-boys and b-girls), hip hop dancers, and stylish hipsters has gathered in the cold waiting to enter Reggae Bar, a smoke-filled dive bar replete with Bob Marley memorabilia and Jamaican flags; the occasion is the second installment of the City Kingz competition, attracting top dancers from across the country. These young Chinese dancers are rocking colorful Puma Suedes with the ever classic fat laces, rainbow-psychedelic Nike high tops, a plethora of t-shirts from the online store of the properly-named bboyworld.com website, piercings, tattoos, the whole bit. These attendants are some of the best-dressed individuals I’ve seen over here on the Far East Coast - the Freshest Kids in China.
Although the competitors were almost entirely Chinese (with one exception being me, a Chinese-American b-boy from the outskirts of Washington, D.C.), the organizers of the event were a transnational melting pot of ethnicities. D’Roc, the host and main organizer of the competition, is a b-boy, DJ, and Hangzhou native. The judge of the competition, Miego of the internationally-renowned Soul Kingz Crew, is a Korean b-boy who has studied abroad in Shanghai and New York City. Caution, a Filipino-American DJ from Los Angeles, dropped ill vibes on the turntables alongside Shin, a New York native who provided rhythms on an electronic drumset to complement Caution’s scratching. A number of other dancers, including Albert, a hip-hop dancer from France residing in Shanghai, and Danny, a Russian b-boy working in China, performed showcases during and after the competition.
Make it boogie!
The wooden dance floor was dirty and dimly lit. When I arrived at the jam, the participants/observers had already formed a circle around the floor, the type of circle commonly referred to as a “cypher” in hip hop language. B-boys and b-girls took turns dancing inside the circle in a dance conversation, with seasoned veterans more willing to get down and dance. Often times, there were breaks in the cypher (no pun intended), during which noone was dancing and everyone was waiting for someone else to step in and rock the beat. Many of the dancers seemed to be hesitant to showcase their moves, waiting for the organized battles to begin and saving their best material for the actual competition.
In more than three weeks, we visited three cities – Tangshan, Guangan and Yiyang. We met dozens of friends and really touched by the stories they told us. Through the portraits I hope to give you some vivid ideas about the ‘common sense’ about youth in lower tier cities.
Portrait I - ‘My dream is to find a good job in Chongqing and then buy an apartment there with my parents.’ (Guang’an, Tier 4, Sichuan province)
Xiaoli, 22 years old, is a student in Guang’an Technical College. She is from a village near Guangan. Her parents started to work in Chongqing when she was a little girl, and thus she became a ‘left-behind child’.
‘I started to cook since very young…we were living on ourselves (she and her little brother), because all my cousins are left behind, our grandparents couldn’t take care of so many kids…’
When she was in middle school, her parents bought an apartment in Guangan so that she can enter a school in the city. She invited us to her house, which was quite big but empty. ‘My brother and I lived here for several years…although I have a dorm in school, but I go home everyday and cook for myself.’
Actually, she has very little consumptions. She has many part-time jobs to support her tuition and all the cost.
Talking about her dreams, she said, ‘I hope to find a good job in Chongqing and then buy an apartment with my parents there.’
‘Why an apartment?’
‘Because our children can go to school in Chongqing in that case…’ (To move to higher tier cities, one need to have a ‘Hukou’ which usually requires ownership of property in the city)
After a long winter in Beijing, a research trip down to Yi Yang in Hunan province, which falls in subtropical humid climate, excited me at the very beginning. Within the first couple days, my long-waited wish for spring like weather with comfortable night breeze was finally fulfilled. Besides the weather, I enjoyed the social environment with everything less than that of Beijing such as a number of cars, people, shops, and the level of stress as well as the cost of living.
On the way to Yi Yang from a Hunan capital Chang Sha airport, I witnessed a vast number of ongoing construction site for condominiums. When driving into the Yi Yang city central, Lisa, a funder of China Youthology pointed out a huge sign hanged above the street level said “Fu Ren” (Rich Man) place, which is a current development district attracting foreign investors. With over 4.63 million of population, the Tier 4 city of Yi Yang is developing quite rapidly.
In many cities whether small or large, I see fast food restaurants- KFC and/or McDonalds.
The most surprising for me is the locals, who support the junk foods by paying almost twice more than a regular Chinese meal. The obesity in U.S. has been problematic social phenomena long before the documentary film, Super Size Me. If this trend of the fast food lover kept increase in China, one of the world’s longest lifespan that this country is proud of, would be in an immediate threat.
Throughout a week of my stay, I clicked my camera for whatever attracted my set of eyes. For Yi Yang, the color and vibe of energetic people stood up. But for more than anything, I tried to capture the cultural life, which has evolved uniquely in their best of catching up with the rapid development. I hope you all enjoy. Thank you.
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01. A contestant performs on an outside stage set in front of a shopping mall in the Yi Yang city center. Read more of this article…
China Youthology was honored to be invited to speak at Ypulse Mashup 2010 on May 24-25. Below is the interview originally posted by anastasia on Ypulse.
In today’s Ypulse Interview we check in with Lisa Li, Founder & CEO of China Youthology. To get around time differences, we caught up with Lisa over email for a brief Q&A.
Below we ask her a few questions about Chinese youth today and what sets them apart from past generations. We also touch on some of the latest global youth marketing trends that Lisa and her co-founder Zafka Zhang, among our other international speakers, will explore during the U.S. & Global Youth By The Numbers preconference session at the Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup next month. To hear more on China, Canada, Mexico, Europe and beyond register now for the Ypulse Mashup and save your seat today!
Ypulse: Could you describe some of the recent emerging tech and media trends you’ve seen spreading among Chinese youth?
Lisa Li: From top tier cities to lower tier cities, mobile Internet has become an important part of daily life for youth. We are visiting quite a few lower tier cities in China now, and high school/university students rely on mobile phones for entertainment and information. Social games, online books and news browsers are particularly popular. (Of course, online instant messenger has been a must-use for youth for the past several years.)
For youth in top tier cities, social networks (Kaixin001.com, Renren.com, etc.) have become the most important platform for information, networking and entertainment. Recently, Sina microblog has become popular among opinion leaders and celebrities. With the mobile applications of micro-blogging, the influence of social media is soaring. To marketers, they need to learn the best ways for daily conversation with young consumers.
YP: What are the biggest difference between today’s Chinese youth and the generations that came before? What hasn’t changed?
LL: In top tier cities, the biggest change is the evolving individuality – the construction and representation of individuality goes from surface to substance. Youth seek to identify themselves through exploring the meaning of life, re-investigating traditional culture and collective memories, investing/geeking out in hobbies, and seeking/experimenting with creative expression. Similar to the developed market, Internet and social media are the driver for community-powered learning/networking and diversity. Different from the developed market, the dramatic surge of economy and globalization put today’s youth in a very different context as compared to people that are five years older. See China Youthology for more.
After talking to dozens of youth in low tier cities, from middle school students to middle class working adults, we found some interesting trends to share.
1. No Starbucks, But Plenty of Third Places
Starbucks isn’t the only third place away from home and work. While the global chain has not reached China’s fourth tier, even cities bereft of other leisure options have pricey coffee houses where people go to hang out.
Why the popularity? Low tier youth have less demanding jobs and schools, and more intimate peer groups. Time to kill and needy friends add up to a market for third places.
But there are differences. Tea and other sweet beverages are bigger sellers, and ‘coffee houses’ are often full- fledged restaurants. The word ‘coffee’ advertises a comfortable, premium environment more than actual coffee.
“I don’t like coffee,” says Li Ye (24), English teacher in Yiyang. “But I like the atmosphere [in the coffee house I frequent]. It’s peaceful.”
Low tier coffee houses are most often organized as private rooms and isolated booths, offering more privacy. Why? Smaller communities mean more acquaintances to potentially overhear your conversation.
