The 2025 China Brand Equity & ROI Paradox - Totem's Chris Baker & OMD's Ahle Kuang

ShanghaiZhan: All Things China Marketing, Advertising, Tech & Platforms

Welcome to Season 4! Today, we're also celebrating the 10th anniversary of the 2025 Totem China's Marketing & Media Trends Report. We hope to solve the biggest challenge in China marketing: is performance marketing, and are brands nowadays just focused on short-term sales gains? According to Totem's report, 48% of marketers plan to decrease their 2025 marketing budgets, and 31% now rank sales conversion as their top objective. Amid this, an economy that's shaping up to be the "new normal," a normal that surprisingly looks like everywhere else in the world. To discuss, Totem's Chris Baker joins us again this year, along with OMD China's General Manager, Ahle Kuang. We try to solve all the marketing problems in 50 minutes!
1. What are some of the big things that stood out for you in this year's report?
2. Are some categories safe, or are there decreases across the board?
3. Have local companies found a way to grow brands and increase market share simultaneously?
4. How do you balance the desire for short-term sales with building long-term brand equity?
5. For China, is brand equity purely driven by product innovation?
6. Do Chinese products need to live beyond a certain period to be considered a brand?
7. Are there things brands should avoid doing in the 2025 context?: Positioning is Everything
8. Can signature global brands in China grow with products designed for a global audience?
About Totem Media: https://www.talktototem.com/
Download the Totem 2025 Report Here: https://www.talktototem.com/china-insights/2025-china-marketing-and-media-review
About OMD: https://www.omd.com/
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