ALIBABA, BAIDU, TENCENT, OH MY!: #MediaSnack Ep. 97

Never miss your #MediaSnack - subscribe for updates every FridayOn this week's #MediaSnack we take a look at what it takes to market successfully in China and how the landscape is increasingly dominated by platform giants such as Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu. These three giants are frequently compared to the famous Western (American) platforms like Google, Facebook and Amazon but there lies the challenge. China is a major consideration for most global marketers, not least because it represents still a significant growth opportunity, averaging 7% GDP growth per year and with the total spending power of middle class growing even faster still. Goldman Sachs estimate that China's online retail market will more than double in size by 2020 - to $1.7trn so for western marketers this growth is too good not to take seriously, but for China the same rules of digital marketing do not apply largely because the platforms you need to use are different in China that most Western markets. We consider what's commonly referred to as BAT:Baidu - web services (search engine / video / translations/ mapping) - valued $64.7 billionAlibaba -E-commerce - c2c + b2b + b2c - valued $424 billionTencent - investment holding corp (social networks/ gaming/ e-commerce/ web portals) - valued $469 billionThe 3 Chinese tech giants are broader business than their Western counterparts, notably perhaps because they face less internal competition, largely because the Western brands themselves (particularly Google, Facebook are not active in China). For example, Tencent's business splits out into many other operations including:Social NetworksPaymentEntertainmentInformationUtilitiesPlatformsArtificial IntelligenceThe other main differentiator is their scale, Alibaba dwarfs Amazon in so many metrics:Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce group, handles more transactions each year than do eBay and Amazon combined 2016 Prime Day vs. Singles Day = $1 billion rev vs. $17.8 billionAdding revenues from Prime day + Black Friday + Cyber Monday = 43% of Singles' Day revenueFurther reading:https://www.warc.com/NewsAndOpinion/News/Alibaba_takes_on_Amazon/39449https://digiday.com/marketing/chinese-tech-companies-venture-unmanned-convenience-stores/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171023https://www.ft.com/content/d5397a08-4667-11e7-8d27-59b4dd6296b8?mhq5j=e7http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world/china-watch/technology/new-technology-giants/http://www.campaignasia.com/article/alibaba-looks-to-cross-border-orders-as-next-avenue-of-singles-day-growth/440730Good Week:It's a great week for media transparency in the UK - https://gcs.civilservice.gov.uk/news/media-buying-framework-update-draft-framework-agreement-shared/Bad Week:A bad week for you digital evangelists, prophets or whatever you tiresome echo-chamber dwellers call yourselves now. Watch out you crazy kids, Professor Byron Sharp has you firmly in his sights. In an awesome paper Prof Sharp and friends dispel some of the myths you’ve been spouting on conferences stages and in agency pitches for years. Including ACTUAL FACTS! Read this and hang your well-gelled heads https://www.marketingscience.info/are-big-brands-dying/