“Foursquare of China”: Interview with Jiepang Founder

I sat down with David Liu, CEO and founder of Jiepang, to talk about his company and check-in/location-based services in China.

Jiepang, which David describes as the “Foursquare of China”, is probably the leading service of its kind in the country. This is thanks to its relatively good Android and iPhone apps, huge database of locations (they added many themselves), and links to the major Chinese social networks.

Don’t DI-lete: A Weekly China Digital Influence Update

Dora Yin (DI, BJ) loves the new McDonald’s tray paper, which can be folded into a “Douban Radio”. This activity drives users of Douban into McDonald’s and is making more McDonald’s diners aware of Douban Radio — the streaming music service offered by the Chinese SNS.

Dora Yin（北京，DI）喜欢前段时间麦当劳的餐盘纸可以折成豆瓣电台的活动，它吸引了豆瓣的粉丝跑去吃麦当劳拿餐盘纸，吃麦当劳的人对豆瓣电台也有了认知。

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Jeremy is sure that “egotistical” displays of products and brands will not be shared online and will never go viral. Forget about your brand for a minute and think about what the target audience finds useful, funny, etc. The next step is then to see if any of this can be matched to the brand message. This is precisely what Lynx seems to have done with their “Wingman Academy” webisodes.

Jeremy确信“自私”的产品或品牌展示将无法在网上被分享，更不会被病毒式传播。暂时抛开你的品牌想想，target audience认为有用有趣之类的东西是什么，然后看看有没有可以匹配你品牌要传达的信息的东西。Lynx通过“Wingman Academy”网络剧集实践了这个过程。

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This Ray-Ban design competition has generated awareness for the brand on Douban. Dora thinks that a brand which attracts trendy youth and a competition which attracts young artists is a great match.

雷朋眼镜的线上印花设计大赛最近又把自己炒的火热，Dora觉得这种吸引时髦青年的品牌跟吸引文艺青年的比赛实在是绝佳搭配。

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Liza Levy (DI, SH) likes this social media campaign, which was created by a UK charity to raise money for a Royal Airforce cause. Five fictional characters are being brought to life through daily blogs and tweets, painting a picture of what life was like during the Battle of Britain.

一家英国慈善机构为皇家空军发起了一项有趣的社会媒体活动，以帮助人们提高对战争的认识并筹集资金。 5个虚构的人物每天通过博客日志和图片来描述不列颠之战中的生活是什么样，这让Liza Levy (上海，DI) 觉得十分新颖。

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Dianna Wang (H-Line, BJ) wants to share with you Intel China’s Weibo feed, Intel China Daily Express. This channel updates followers with Intel-related news and is a platform for hearing feedback from media and netizens.

Dianna Wang (北京，H-Line)认为英特尔中国官方微博“英特尔中国天天事”获得了巨大的成功，英特尔中国天天事致力于打造英特尔媒体社交平台，英特尔信息即时分享平台及与媒体、网友的互动平台。

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If you didn’t make it to the Foursquare for Business webinar yesterday, Jeremy suggests looking at the training deck online. Foursquare is blocked in China, but the strategic framework outlined in the presentation applies equally to equivalent Chinese services.

 如果你昨天没能参加关于Foursquare的商务在线会议，Jeremy建议去在线培训PPT看一下。虽然Foursquare在中国是被墙的，但关于战略结构的概述也适用于中国的类似服务。

Don’t DI-lete: A Weekly China Digital Influence Update

If you haven’t done so yet, Jeremy urges you to check out Vancl’s latest viral campaign. All an agency needs to do, according to this great summary by Rand Han, is create the first few parodies of a popular campaign… and pretty soon everyone will be sharing their own versions!

如果你还没有看过凡客的最新病毒活动，Jeremy 催促你去看一看。Rand Han 给我们一个很好的总结是，一个机构所有需要做的是为一个流行活动创造一些模仿 – 然后很快大家都会分享他们自己的变体了。

Alfreda Jia (BJ) loves this Master Kong Youku campaign so much that she wrote a page-long email to me about it. Space here is tight, so to paraphrase: “short, easy-to-share, branded clips… fabulous!”

Alfreda Jia（北京）对优酷康师傅的活动如此的喜爱以至于她写了长达一页的电子邮件给我，都是在说康师傅。这里的空间有限，简单来说就是：“又短、又容易分享的品牌电影… fabulous！”

Yalding Xu (DI, SH) deserves this plug for the Kaixin page that he and his team set up for Reebok. The campaign focuses around a new shoe technology,

Yalding Xu（上海，DI）和他的队员在开心网给锐步组织了一个活动。他们当之无愧获得这个推荐。这次活动着重于新鞋技术 — 跑步训练鞋ZigTech。

Love shoes? Love Choos? Liza Levy (DI, SH) loves how Jimmy Choo has used the current hot topic of geolocation to create a great treasure hunt campaign to launch the brand’s new trainers.

爱鞋吗？爱Choos吗？为了推出新跑鞋，Jimmy Choos用当下最受欢迎的地理位置代码文件话题创造了一次“大寻宝游戏活动”。这让Liza（上海，DI）多感动呀！

Our colleagues in the US helped Ford reveal the 2011 Explorer exclusively on Facebook, posting videos, photos, and live chats from the New York event to their Ford Explorer page.

我们的美国同事帮助福特在facebook上独家推出了揭示2011这项活动，他们将纽约聚会的录影、照片、电视频发布到了福特Explorer的facebook网站。

My dissertation: As a platform for unorganised individual Chinese expression, how is today’s internet denocritising China?

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A colleague last week asked to see a copy of my 2008 undergraduate dissertation. So, rather than email it to him, I thought I would persist with my “digital douchebaggery” (Kuo, 2010) and share it through social media.

Although my thesis seems a bit obvious now and at times my writing seems gimmicky, my main points were sound and still seem relevant. I would also like to point out that putting “2.0″ at the end of things was not a cliche back then.

Here is the extract (I’m not sure if it will work, but for obvious reasons I have changed the spellings of certain words):

At the turn of the twentieth century, conventional wisdom dictated that the Internet would be the harbinger of denocritic revelution in authoritirian countries such as China. A decade later, the “Web 2.0 Revelution” holds new promise for real world revolution. However, Internet-assisted revelution in China has been limited by a lack of cyber-disidints and stymied by a cinsorship system which has adapted to meet the challenges of Web 2.0. At the same time, discussion on both Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is facilitating an increasingly powerful representative public opinion and is nurturing denocritic values. As such, this online discussion holds significance in its potential for “Denocritisation 2.0”; denocritic evolution rather than revelution.

Don’t DI-lete: A Weekly China Digital Influence Update

Two teenagers have caught the attention of Dora Yin (BJ) with their iPhone speed test video. Social media makes anyone an influencer and means that highly influential content like this can appear at any time. For this reason it is essential for brands to constantly monitor what’s been said about them online.

两个英国小青年自制了一部测试四代iPhone速度的视频引起了尹禾（北京）的注意，老中青幼四部iPhone同时运行程序耗时对比明显。视频发布三天就已经被广泛转载传播。在这个草根阶层也可以产生巨大影响的今天，品牌需要更加时刻关注社会媒体了。

Huang Chao (SA, BJ) and Jeremy Webb this week met some guys from Jiepang – China’s leading check-in service. They talked about one of the first check-in marketing activities in China, a campaign that generated interest by inviting users to check in to the soon-to-be-launched Shanghai Apple store.

黄超（SA, BJ）和Jeremy Webb 昨天约见了街旁网的人- 他们的定位签到服务在国内领先。他们讨论了在中国的第一次签到营销活动之一，邀请用户去即将开业的苹果上海专卖店签到，这个项目吸引了大量眼球。

For those of you that haven’t yet read OgilvyOne’s Connected, Sarah Guldin (Corp Comms) has an even easier way to understand the report’s Chinese social media research: check out these YouKu videos for an explanation from OgilvyOne’s very own Chris Reitermann. 

对于还没有看到OgilvyOne’s Connected的人，Sarah Guldin (Corp Comms)提供了一个理解该研究中国社会媒体报告的更简单的方法：看看这些来自奥美自己人Chris Reitermann的说明片段。

Plenty of campaigns use pretty girls to get our attention yet few are managed as well as this online sensation from Acer laptops, thinks Liu Yan (DI, SH). Users of Sohu Microblog were asked to help a journalist track down a girl met in a chance encounter during the World Cup. Since the laptop left behind by the girl was one of the only clues available, the Acer Laptop enjoyed enormous exposure as it became the focus of this “romantic manhunt”. 

记者南非酒吧偶遇中国美女，燃生爱意。女孩的笔记本被遗落，记者在网上发帖寻人。在十万网友帮助下，女孩终于现身，未完的感情得以了结。刘燕（DI Director， SH）：类似借助美女炒作的营销案例不胜枚举，网民的眼睛更加雪亮，不少人只是“配合一下”。该案例值得借鉴的是其完整清晰的炒作脉络和过程管理。

The Red Chair Series: Interview with John Bell

Don’t DI-lete: Weekly China Digital Influence Update

Seen sand painting online? Well, Liu Yan (DI, SH) has seen something she thinks is even more impressive: water ink art. She hasn’t seen this turned to commercial use yet and thinks it would be great for a brand that wants to be seen as being “with the times”.

刘燕（DI，上海）建议我们看“水影画”，这是一种比沙画更震撼的瞬间艺术形式，而且目前尚未发现比较成功的商业运用，比较适合一些追逐时尚感和艺术范儿的品牌采用。相信你看了后，也一定被震撼到！

Jeremy Webb (DI, BJ) thinks it’s worth keeping an eye on which foursquare check-in service will triumph in China. Jiepang and Lashou are just a couple of the individual competitors out there, US-based Gowalla is yet to be blocked, and internet giants like Sina are likely to come out with contenders at some point. With great “geomarketing” campaigns in the West, there will be huge opportunities for brands in China as soon as these services gain critical mass and a winner emerges.

Jeremy Webb（DI，北京）觉得我们应该关注究竟哪个定位签到服务将“赢”在中国。 已经有街旁、拉手多等众多模仿美国foursquare模式的独立网站，美国的Gowalla还没被河蟹, 而且新浪、搜狐等国内互联网巨头很可能快会出类似服务了。有这么多相关案例在西方，Jeremy估计一这些服务有一定的活跃性，一个“冠军”出现，品牌的 机会就会增多。

Want to ensure the biggest online influencers write about your campaign? Liza Levy (DI, SH) thinks Old Spice has the perfect “recipe”: Use a good advert as your base then mix in some personalized videos responding to messages you have received through social media. Once risen in popularity sprinkle in some personalized videos made just for the highly influential. Serve hot.

Liza Levy (DI, 上海): 你想要保证网上最具有影响力的人来为你写你的提案吗？这就像烹饪一道美食：一个好的广告就像一道烹饪所需的基本食材；然后通过社群媒体，用个性化的视频来 回复给你留言的人，这便是在你的原料上调配的完美比例；这些有个性化的人物视频将提升影响力，就像在一道菜上撒上调味料一样使食物更加鲜美。Old Spice Guy.

Joyce Qiu (DI, SH) came across this hilarious video of a group of university students performing Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. By noticing this kind of online sensations early on, brands could gain huge exposure through sponsorship of their clothing, shoes, etc.

Joyce Qiu （DI，上海）遇到了这个很有趣的一支MV，由一群大学男生组成的The Rocks Performs组合翻唱了Lady GaGa的著名歌曲《Bad Romance》，并拍摄了这支影片，他们歌声动人、舞蹈动作十分滑稽，都让这支视频非常受到年轻人的欢迎，至今已在YOUKU上被播放了7万多次。如果 能够适当地在这则视频中赞助他们的服装、帽子、鞋子等，相信都会产生非常好的营销效果。

Dora Yin (Beijing) has seen lots of companies working with a growing online phenomenon in China, Groupon-style group-purchasing websites. A good example is how Meituan helped a little know gaming bar rocket to fame.

尹禾（北京）看到今年出了很多团购网站，企业可以跟团购网站合作，推出各种优惠，同时也大作广告。 例如 http://www.meituan.com/beijing/deal/spacebar.html 这一次团购就让这个桌游吧知名度大增，1000个团购名额迅速卖光，相信这样一次团购不止多了1000个盈利机会。

Cartoons of Chinese microblogs

Scroll down to see cartoon character representations of Chinese microblog sites.

This is all over Sina Microblog right now. Unfortunately I haven’t yet worked out who deserves credit for this, and have only managed to trace it back as far 可可mars.

The World Cup on Weibo

Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, is now allowing users to show support for their favourite football team by adding that country’s flag to their profile.

After selecting from a list of all participating teams, the flag appears both on the profile and next to each Weibo update:

Weibo did something similar during the recent Yushu Earthquake, allowing users show their respects by displaying a ribbon.

The vast majority of users view Weibo through their browsers instead of a desktop client, which makes this kind of innovation more successful since Weibo has more control over how users view their feeds.

I love this about Weibo, and it should probably be added to my list of things Sina Microblog (Weibo) has that Twitter doesn’t.

Weibo’s World Cup activity also allows you to see, at a glance, which teams are most supported by the Weibosphere. England tops the table, followed by Argentina and then Spain:

RenRen shifts marketing focus to social gaming

If their latest ad campaign is anything to go by, RenRen – China’s answer to Facebook – seems to have shifted its marketing focus to social gaming:

The animated animals, vegetables and furniture are references to China’s leading social games, which allow users to manage virtual farms, vegetable patches and restaurants.

The message and tone of this campaign contrasts with its campaign last year, which showcased ‘real-life’ stories of people using RenRen to connect:

Adquan.com (Chinese) claims that this shift is RenRen’s answer to the much-discussed question of whether China’s online social networks are for meeting new people or allowing existing friends to play.

This might be going a little far, since Chinese social networks can provide both services simultaneously. For me, however, the new campaign at least highlights one thing: that social gaming is currently far more important to Chinese online social networks than their Western counterparts.