Archie Hamilton, a major contributor to this site (and MD of the Chinese Communications Agency Splatter) is proud and honored to be speaking at the inaugural Transition China conference, hosted by the Entrepreneur’s Organization. His chosen topic is the Anatomy of a Chinese Music festival, and he is in quite illustrious company, so if you can afford the ticket , come along.

March 9 – 25, 2012*

China’s Biggest Open-Source Cultural Event

Get Involved!

What is JUE | Music + Art?

觉 / JUE (pronounced joo-eh) –verb: to sense; to awaken

JUE | Music + Art is an open-source urban arts and music festival in Shanghai and Beijing, presented by Split Works. Now in its fourth year, JUE celebrates the best of the creative communities in Beijing and Shanghai. For nearly three weeks every March, artists of all stripes – Musicians, Writers, Poets, Painters, Sculptors, Animators, Actors, Directors, Designers, Illustrators, Singers, Photographers (to name a few) – invade an eclectic range of venues across both cities to showcase their passion and talent in a unique and compelling series of performances, exhibitions, concerts, workshops, screenings and parties.

*dates subject to change

Here’s what we did in previous years:

All this content could be yours!

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Sponsorship Opportunities:

Please contact sponsorship@spla-t.com for more info on aligning your brand with JUE | Music + Art.

Inspiration started early as guests arrived in the beautiful environment of the Commune by the Great Wall. The Welcome Reception in the stunning Cantilever House kicked off festivities for delegates from China and around the world.

The idea exchange continued during the Roundtable Discussions, where we witnessed seamless and simultaneous discussions between delegates incorporating all three themes of this year’s conference, and B2B Sessions, where partners and participants met in an intimate, curated environment to build new connections and forge stronger alliances between the varied industries that make up the core transmitCHINA group.

At the Keynote Presentations, participants were privy to intimate stories from a wide cross-section of the creative industry leaders, ranging from social gaming, to television, to music. Delegates were witness to inspiring stories about a startup’s sharp ascent to success and dealing with adversity (from Si Shen of PapayaMobile), to perspectives on content in the age of Internet from Catherine Leung, the Head of Music and Entertainment of Baidu.

Keynote Speaker: Si Shen – CEO and Co-founder, PapayaMobile

The festivities continued into the evening with a party by the pool that featured the musical stylings of French-American chanteuse Marianne Dissard and Chinese and Mongolian folk singers Song Yuzhe and Ajinai. Not one but two champagne toasts also awaited our tireless delegates as they enjoyed one on a private stretch of the Great Wall and another to conclude the conference proceedings.

Mongolian folk singers Song Yuzhe and Ajinai

Champagne toast on the Great Wall

For those of you who couldn’t make it this year, stay tuned here for forthcoming information on next year’s transmitCHINA.

A big thanks from everyone on the transmitCHINA 2011 team!

Drop us a line at: transmitchina@spli-t.com

Alongside a heavy commitment to skate (the relatively wholesome “Ni” campaign and the very much less wholesome “Thrasher” collaboration – see Beijing Daze for more on that), the upcoming Guozao tour showcases the more avant garde side of China’s music scene. Converse will put together a 5 city tour in DIY venues yet to be decided with 2 domestic artists and the US band HEALTH.

The Split United Group also maintains ChinaMusicRadar, the most read resource on the Chinese Music Industry

See this article on China Music Radar.

The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities. But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era.

The documentary examines the breakdown of IP and the uprising of cheap and ubiquitous technology resulting in an explosion in the ability of people to be creative and to share that creativity with other people.  The flip side to this is the question, all too briefly explored, of whether or not this is taking us to a creative nirvana or down into the depths of a noisy, homogenous hell.

The documentary covers ground that has been well trodden on blogs and SNS groups that devote time to the topic. It does drag in parts, but there are moments of enlightenment and hope that spring from the mouths of some of the most creative people past and present. Particularly provoking was the notion put forward by Bill Drummond (the man that burned a million quid when he was the brains behind the KLF) that technology always comes before creativity.

There are some stirring moments too, such as the live montage at the end of the film. An artist we work closely with in Asia, Olafur Arnalds, is heavily featured, and there are vignettes that round off the whole experience and make the film recommendable.

The main reason that we are featuring Press Pause Play here is because it seems to encapsulate in extremis what is happening here in China at the moment. Not only do we now have cheap tools and distribution methods, but in China we are also unrestricted by convention or precedent while there are very few trusted filters to help us wade through the morass. This results in a completely unique period of unbridled creativity allied to a needle in a haystack phenomenon that is finding those diamonds in the rough. It is happening though, and we are now seeing Chinese bands and artists that have been around for a decent amount of time getting real attention both at home and abroad. Reading the Beijinger today, we were touched by a photo in their 10 year anniversary feature “Now and Then” of a band that we have worked with for the last 4 years. PK14 are standing outside of Beijing’s Scream Club in 2001 looking young and ever so slightly awkward. This contrast with the huge contribution this band have made over the last decade, both on the stage and off it, a reminder of how far we have come in a relatively short space of time.

You can download a high res version of the full length documentary HERE under the creative commons license

The Split United Group also maintains ChinaMusicRadar, the most read resource on the Chinese Music Industry

See this article on China Music Radar.

At Splatter we LOVE hearing about successful brands who have followed the road less traveled so in this edition of THE SOUND we are exploring the Swatch Art Peace Hotel project with the aim of finding the Key Success Factors so that we might all learn from other brands success in this complicated country, rather than just learning from others mistakes…

Firstly, a bit of history.  In the two decades since Swatch launched its first wristwatch, the Swiss product has become one of the top sold watches worldwide. First conceived of in the early 1980s, the Swatch brand and later group was originally created to re-capture the market share Swiss timepieces had lost to Japanese brands such as Seiko and Citizen beginning in the 1960s and to re-introduce the appeal of analog watches during a time period where digital watches had gained the lion’s share of popularity. Launched in 1983, the Swatch brand relied on fresh styling, design and marketing to quickly vault back into consumers’ consciousnesses and onto their wrists.

The Swatch Group brands arrived on the shores of Mainland China in 2006. After lucrative and brand-building deals such as sponsorship of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and celebrity spokespersons and fans who range from swimmer Michael Phelps and footballer Michael Owen to actress Zhang Ziyi and television presenter Kevin Tsai (蔡康永), brands under the Swatch Group enjoy some of the highest profiles and largest market shares in the ever-growing Chinese luxury goods industry.

On the heels of billion-plus profits every year and not giving in to the temptation to play safe or to rest on their previous success, in May 2010 the Swatch Group formally launched one of its most ambitious projects yet, the Swatch Art Peace Hotel.

Success #1:            ALIGNING WITH ART

Housed in the former quarters of the South Building of the Peace Hotel, a historical landmark built by Victor Sassoon on Shanghai’s iconic Bund, the brand-new Swatch Art Peace Hotel contains four flagship boutiques for Breguet, Blancplain, Omega and Swatch, seven luxury hotel suites, an artist residency programme, Shook! restaurant, and multi-purpose event space.

Swatch has, right from the beginning aligned itself with contemporary art.  Swatch watches are inspired by popular culture and in 1984, the famous French artist Christian Chapiron (known as “Kiki Picasso”) was asked to design the first ever Art Special. The relationship between Swatch and art has since produced a fascinating series of Swatch Art Specials by some extremely talented and well-known artists.

Nevertheless, Swatch’s focus on art through this historic venue is at a time that creative industries in China have also seen significant growth, prominence and influence, from grassroots creative bazaars to large-scale government organized expos.  According to China Youthology, major factors contributing to this exponential growth are :

Success #2:            CEMENTING THE LINK BETWEEN THE HOTEL AND THE WATCH

After the formal launch in May of 2010, the Swatch Art Peace Hotel has hosted several events that place it firmly on the China luxury-goods map. To consolidate the relationship between the Peace Hotel and Swatch, in December 2010 the company debuted two commemorative watches called “Peace Hotel” and “Bund 19” to highlight and celebrate the union between Swatch and one of Shanghai’s most iconic buildings.

Both models were priced at RMB 410, a moderate price point suitable for Swatch’s many younger fans of less means, while the “Peace Hotel” model was also limited to a manufacture of 888 pieces total, creating a scarcity that could only increase its cachet.

Success #3:            Limited-Edition Commemorative Watch Launch

In addition to the launch, which featured appearances by Swatch’s Greater China CEO Susan Chen and Vice-Director Tang Jie, the Swatch Group sponsored a “Back In Time” contest during the event that awarded 8 lucky fans first opportunity to purchase the limited-edition timepieces. Again drawing on the history of the building the Swatch Art Peace Hotel is housed in, the South Building of the Peace Hotel was the site of many important moments in Chinese Republican history. In 1909, it hosted the First International Opium Conference, as well as an early address by Dr. Sun Yat-sen soon before he became the provisional president of the Republic of China. The design of the “Peace Hotel” commemorative watch also draws inspiration from the conference, with the name of the conference printed in English and Chinese on the watchband.

July 2011: Michael Phelps Appearance at the Omega Flagship Store

As part of his time in Shanghai for the FINA World Aquatic Championships in Shanghai in July of 2011, 14-time Olympic gold medalist and longtime Omega spokesman Michael Phelps visited the Omega flagship store housed within the Swatch Art Peace Hotel.

At the event, Phelps conducted a meet-and-greet with local youth swimmers and took on the challenge of putting together a disassembled Omega watch. Phelps has been an Omega brand ambassador since 2004 and Omega has been the official timekeeper of both the 2008 Summer Olympics and 2011 World Aquatic Championships. The luxury brand, owned by the Swatch Group, counts actress Zhang Ziyi and pro golfer Michelle Wie amongst its other brand ambassadors.

August 2011: Kidrobot x Swatch Global Launch at Swatch Art Peace Hotel

The Swatch Art Peace Hotel was chosen as the site for the global launch of the Swatch brand’s latest artist collaboration with the New York-based toy and clothing brand Kidrobot. Swatch tapped eight artists to design wristwatches featuring their interpretations of Kidrobot’s iconic “Dunny” toys. At the launch, Swatch global president Arlette-Elsa Emch joined contributing artists Frank Kozik, Tara MacPherson and MAD as well as celebrities from the Asian arts and fashion world, including singers Pace Wu and Mavis Fan, TV presenter Kevin Tsai, model Qin Shupei and composer Zhang Yadong.

What sets this event apart from your average star-studded product launch in China is that Swatch specifically chose to hold the first launch in Shanghai at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel. Swatch plans to launch its Kidrobot x Swatch collaboration watches in 12 other cities around the world in the next year, including Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, Liverpool, Amsterdam, Milan, Basel, Paris, Madrid, New York, Singapore and Lisbon. With Chinese creatives and consumers firmly on the fashion and luxury map, and more global collaborations with Shanghai-based designers such as fashion designer Uma Wang, we expect to see even more high-profile Swatch events and launches in Shanghai, at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel.

CONCLUSIONS

The Swatch Art Peace Hotel is the Swatch Group’s most prominent and ambitious project in Shanghai and Greater China. Projects like Swatch Art Peace Hotel commemorative watches cement both the relationships between Swatch, Shanghai, the Peace Hotel and China whilst other events and celebrity appearances at the flagship stores housed within the hotel continue to build brand awareness and exposure.

Although we would classify this as a clever and well-executed campaign, certain aspects of the concept remain unfulfilled which leads us to question internal commitment to the project.  The artist residency programme, heavily advertised on the hotel’s official website and press materials and supposedly occupying two floors of the hotel building, has yet to begin. For a company with as long and storied history of artistic collaboration as Swatch, this delay is curious to say the least.

That said, as a prominent jewel in the crown of the Swatch Group, a brand already well-established in the Greater China market, the presence of the Swatch Art Peace Hotel and the events and products coming from the building serve to house a luxurious yet accessible physical manifestation of Swatch’s position in China.

At Splatter, we challenge the conventional celebrity-as-mouthpiece strategy. In comparison with stars manufactured by big agencies, we prefer talented musicians who insist on blazing their own trail. Splatter designs unique celebrity advocate strategies to help brands exploit new, rich potential markets, and identify previously unlabelled target groups. In the upcoming emails, we will be introducing you to a series of highly talented, burgeoning artists and helping you facilitate co operations with them. This time, we present you an American alternative rock band that enjoys tremendous popularity among Chinese youth – THE PRETTY RECKLESS.

In September this year, THE PRETTY RECKLESS toured China extensively. They played at the Inner City Music Festival in Beijing’s Chaoyang Park, and headlined several concerts in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Their packed shows attracted a huge crowd of spirited young people who love both fashion and rock.

Shanghai was SOLD OUT and the other cities had great reviews and near full venues.  Although only 600 fans on their douban artist page, both their EP and LP have over 3000 listeners.  But don’t let these numbers affect your opinion, with more than 888,000 views of their Music Video on Youku.com we start to get a better idea of their growing popularity.

One main reason for THE PRETTY RECKLESS’s great popularity in China is the hit American TV series Gossip Girl, which stars THE PRETTY RECKLESS lead singer Taylor Momsen in the role of Jenny, a rebellious teen Just 15-years-old when Gossip Girl premiered in 2007, fresh-faced Taylor became a fan-favourite for her manifestation of youth, fashion, and urban cool. But it wasn’t long before Taylor started to turn her sights toward conquering the world of rock music.

Formed in 2008, THE PRETTY RECKLESS immediately attracted the media’s interest, with their young starlet front woman. Taylor is a far cry from her Gossip Girl character; since launching the band, she has toughened up fresh-faced ingénue image to appear more as a hard-as-nails rocker chick, attracting plenty of controversy along the way for her overtly sexual appearance.

THE PRETTY RECKLESS was scooped up by Interscope Records in 2009, and their 2010 single, “Make Me Wanna Die” stayed firmly in the #1 place on the UK Rock Chart for six weeks.

Despite their youth and potential to become a group of pop icons, THE PRETTY RECKLESS aren’t afraid to take risks, and they never limit themselves to  an “accessible” sound. Heavily influenced by classic and alternative rock groups like Led Zeppelin, Oasis and Nirvana, THE PRETTY RECKLESS does not play safe: you can easily detect the hard rock and punk elements in their debut album Light Me Up. The heavy guitar riffs and Taylor’s signature vocals have won the band critical accolades from mainstream media and promise great possibility for the band. After several years of non-stop touring, their performance has evolved considerably. We have every reason to believe that this outstanding young group has great things in store.

The brands are starting to see the opportunities, with international brands such as John Galliano, Material Girl and Samatha Thavasa all having worked with THE PRETTY RECKLESS.

The is an opportunity for a brand in China to align themselves with this celebrity and ride the increasing fame of not only the band, but also the TV series Gossip Girl.  Speak to Splatter if you would like some more information.

THE PRETTY RECKLESS – “Make Me Wanna Die”

When we talk about “interconnectedness,” what we are really talking about is influence. How do your preferences and passions, online and off, affect the people around you?

In the BI (Before Interweb) Era, gauging individual influence was restricted to your immediate circle: close friends, family, mainstream media and consumer reports. Mainstream media in particular had a close stranglehold on influence leading to huge valuations and exorbitant advertising rates.

This has all changed irrevocably. Each individual now has access to their own personal broadcast media (blogs, microblogs, SNS, LBS) and they can be creators, adapters and editors, all from the comfort of their preferred device. Of course, not all netizens are created equal. Some have disproportionate amounts of influence over people in their networks, and oftentimes this influence level has very little to do with whether they have 1,000,000 Kaixin001 friends or 100.

This begs the following questions:

• How do you identify the key influencers?
• How do new behaviors, practices, opinions, conventions, and technologies spread from person to person through a social network?
• How are people influencing their friends to adopt new ideas?

The understanding of these questions and their answers is essential to any marketer, particularly when seeking to understand the popularity of brands. Let’s explore…

Forrester have kindly drawn up this infographic, detailing the different kinds of influencer, and how they influence.

To find the key influencers in the English-speaking world, specific tools have been developed to come up with easily digestible influence rankings. Take for example Klout, which describes itself thus:

The Klout Score is the measurement of your overall online influence. The scores range from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. Klout uses over 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score.

Unfortunately, none of this hard work is done for us here in China. Although CIC have created a dashboard and have their own analysts trawling data from the web, according to social media expert Rand Han of Resonance China:

In the end it’s pretty manual. The most relied upon channel is the professional influencers due to predictability. My unverified guess on how to go viral is to first tap the professional influencers with interesting content, and hope that content catches with the organic influencers for further ‘viral’ spread.

However, things are about to change at Splatter.  Long time friend of Splatter, Dr Louis Yu has a PhD in social computing. One of the case studies that he used to attain this distinction was an investigation into the ‘diffusion theory’ of influencers and its application on the Chinese social network, Douban (豆瓣).

In essence, Dr. Yu and Splatter are now able to locate the most influential users on social networks and statistically show how many people each can influence, depending on the product or interest – music, brands, books, events etc. Obviously, finding these key influencers and influencing them should be a key part of a brand strategy.

Dr. Yu’s study tracked the activity of 10,000 individuals, focusing on their habits, likes, group membership and newly added friends on Douban for a period of 4 months. Here are some of the results:

What is the probability of influencing friends?

• 12% of people adopt the same music as their friends
• 9% of people adopt the same books as friends
• 14% of people adopt the same movies as friends
• 5.24% of people adopt the same brands as friends.

What does this mean for marketers in China?

Friends do influence friends, but the level of interest varies depending on the area we’re looking at (music, movies, etc). It seems that friends actually have lesser influence when it comes to brands. However, we do not believe this is because Douban users are anti-brand, nor are brands less relevant to Douban users, nor are brands less integral to peer group interactions as other interests, but rather brands are not leveraging this medium enough through relevant and interesting engagement.

Other findings include what the patterns of influence actually are.  Dr. Yu’s study found averages for how much people influence their friends. On average:

• 2.3 people must list a book before a friend will adopt the book.
• 2.6 people must list a CD or artist before a friend will adopt the CD or artist.
• 8.23 people must list an event before a friend will adopt the event.
• 8.6 people must list a brand before a friend will adopt the brand.

Dr. Yu’s study also showed an interesting statistic regarding individualism:

• 85% of people only adopt a Douban interest (books / artists / brands etc.) if at least 1 of their friends already has adopted said item.

This means that as a brand, you very much need to work with people that understand this concept of identifying the influencers and understanding ROI as it relates to influence level. Hence, a tech evangelist may not be the best person to help you sell soap.

Finally, just knowing who these influencers are and how influential they are isn’t enough. Once you find them, you must engage with them. And that, dear friends, is a topic for another day, but we will leave you with this:

“Recognition is a start. Reward is a gesture. Engagement and reciprocity is how we christen relationships.”  –Brian Solis

Key Figures:

• Cities: 2
• Weeks: 3
• Performing Artists: 74
• Visual Artists: 95
• Musicians: 133
• Events: 91 (Concerts, art exhibitions, performance art, workshops, film screenings, parties and more)
• Attendees: >32,000
• Eyeballs (online and offline): > 5 million
• Unique visits to www.juefestival.com: Average >29,000 / month
• Marketing ROI: 193 X (Marketing ROI = Media Coverage Advertising Cost Equivalent Value / Marketing Spend)

JUE | Music + Art is produced by, with and for the music and art communities in Beijing and Shanghai. We want to say a sincere thank you to everyone who contributed to the festival’s success, and look forward to a bigger and better JUE 2012!

Check www.juefestival.com for photos, reviews and our wrap video, and a big thanks to our partners this year, including Indigo Hotel (Shanghai) and Hotel G (Beijing).

JUE | Music + Art will be back 3/9/2012 – 3/31/2012. As always, if you are interested in getting involved we can send you the Wrap Report, email us at info@spla-t.com

There are other partnership opportunities for interested brands available: info@spla-t.com