Following the opening of Apple’s flagship store in Beijing’s Sanlitun Entertainment District, Apple has appointed Hong Kong based brand agency Eight Partnership to handle their creative marketing in Asia.
As with the iPod, sales and marketing strategies through mainland distributors have not yielded the phenomenal successes in Asia that they have seen in other markets. Apparently, consumers in Asia are unwilling to pay the premium when a similar local product is available. According to Shanghaiist.com, Apple passed over a bid by global marketing leader TBWA, choosing Eight Partners, an agency headed by Managing Director Charles Brian-Boys, the man responsible for the Guinness Book of Records, record for the world’s largest outdoor advertisement (when he wrapped the IFC2 Tower with the Financial Times newspaper in 2004), to handle Apple’s Asian branding.
According to Shanghaiist.com, as part of Apple’s strategy in the mainland and in a bid to overcome its failure to compete on price with cheaper Chinese equivalent products, it will aim to position itself as a luxury product. Brian-Boys state that, “Apple’s move to represent itself as a luxury brand has become obvious as its retail approach is different to the traditional way of marketing electronics and computers.” Additionally, Marketing-interactive.com reports that Upstream Asia will oversee Apple’s public relations.
With the roll out of 3G services in China just around the corner, a strategic plan by Eight Partners and Upstream Asia to win over the vast cellular market is inevitable. With Brian-Boys at the helm of the project, we shouldn’t be surprised to see the Apple logo emblazoned on the moon by year’s end.
via Shanghaiist
