I totally agree Nan Chen’s idea in her blog “ladychacha’s Blog”. As we all know, Asians are used to drink tea everyday and Western people have been considering coffee as their part of life for a long time. However, with the rapid growth of economy in China and other Asian countries, Starbucks has become a favorite affordable luxury lifestyle brand from Chinese perspectives. In fact, the actual price of Starbucks in China is pretty much the same to the price in North America. The reason why people call it “luxury” is the price of Starbucks coffee is comparably high with the Chinese people’s average daily consumption, which basically means a cup of Starbucks coffee equals a fairly good meal (or at least at fast food chains) for a middle-class Chinese on average. You would not be surprised if you know that a bottle of water is 2 yuan in China, which is almost 6 times less than that in Canada.

Source from Google

According to the journal, Starbucks China utilizes good sources, including Weibo, Wechat and Renren (Chinese Twitter and Facebook) to help promote their products. In North America, similarly, the brand posts their advertisements on the public media, give away free trial with coupon provided and send away paper ads to attract customers to go in their store to appreciate their “masterpiece” (according to the ads I got today). In addition, it is a great idea to do co-branding with Duetto to make a special credit card so that people can get more points on that card when using it. That would create a large amount of loyal customers as well.

I read an article “Lego’s Asian Building Block” saying that Lego is going to open a factory in Shanghai, China, where they plans to fulfill three quarters of all production for sales in Asia. Like the author said, I was very surprised that there was no Lego factory located in China. The reason is when I was little I played lots of Lego with my friends, or maybe they were not titled with Lego, which were some else brands with similar building block-like toys.

Image from Google.

Although Lego launched its first flagship store in Beijing couple of years ago and its sales increased a lot in the past few years, it is still hard for it to actually dominate the toy market in China. There are some challenges and opportunities listed below that Lego may have in the near future. 1. Price. There were many choices of toys when I was young. And normally, they were cheaper than the imported toys like Lego. However, I am sure the price will go down when Lego has its own factory in China because there will be lower manufacturing costs and distribution spends, which may increase the sales for Lego. 2. Competition. It can be a threat that there are even a lot more choices for young people to be entertained than before, such as Apple products and Disney Dolls. Personally, if I have children I prefer them to play Lego instead of computer games because Lego is physical and approachable blocks that will help them develop their brain and foster their handcraft ability. 3. Awareness. Lego has already built its brand extensions, such as online games, cartoons and etc., which allows customers especially parents to learn their brands and then purchase their products for their children. The new released Snake set is on air in order to celebrate Chinese New Year. It is a good idea to draw people’s attention and some people like me would like to collect the whole set of 12 animals as long as they will produce them. It would be great if Lego has chances to place their products in the Chinese Dramas and movies, which will help audience recognize their products and brands. 4. Environment. Hopefully, there will be some recycling places for those who are conscious about the environment and willing to recycle the broken or worn out Lego blocks due to the damage of plastics. Overall, Lego has a great opportunity to expand in China and Chinese people would appreciate the creativity of the block building toys.

Image from Brandchannel.