How British brands are beating the Brexit blues by luring discerning Chinese buyers – with Weibo and WeChat
Marks & Spencer and Pret A Manger may have flopped – but brands from Burberry to Rolls-Royce and Whittard are beloved in China for their bold, barmy, British heritage
Thinking of Brexit, a classic Tom and Jerry episode springs to mind: “The Cat Concerto”. It is on YouTube if you haven’t seen it, but – spoiler alert – the highlight of this 1947 animation is the ending, when Tom thinks he has finally come to the end of the tune, but Jerry’s antics force him to keep going, and going, and going. By the end, the whole thing is a comical mess and the protagonists are in some pain. Brexit in a nutshell.
While at times all you can do about British political brinkmanship is laugh, Brexit is too boring to be labelled a disaster. Yet, while it shows my country in anything but a good light, things could be much worse, if US President Donald Trump is any sort of yardstick. As national public relations go, Brexit has indeed made us look a bit silly – but then hasn’t eccentric, tally ho charm always been a key ingredient in the export that is “Brand Britain”?
As it stands, that brand retains a chummy popularity in the hearts and minds of the Chinese – a crucial audience, visitor, student and business partner demographic for Britain in the current simmering hotpot of international relations and potential Euro exit.
So how exactly has Brand Britain managed to rise above Brexit?
First of all, that popularity is no idle assumption. Take the stat that while foreign purchases of US homes have plunged 36 per cent as Chinese buyers flee the market (according to CNBC), they are keen investors in Britain, now accounting for about 20 per cent of new residential property transactions in London, compared to just 5 per cent three years ago.
Data from the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that Chinese students accounted for 35 per cent of applications in 2016 – up from 15 per cent in 2010 – with a further 17 per cent year-on-year increase in 2019. ONS data also shows that in terms of workers, expats from China working in the UK enjoyed the highest median pay of any expatriate group during the years 2012 to 2018.
British brands are also flourishing in China – at least, when they make the effort. At the affordable end of the spectrum, Marks & Spencer and Pret A Manger are two seemingly robust brands. Yet, they entered China with zero localisation, the wrong locations (didn’t M&S realise Shanghai customers might expect a convenient, mall-based parking and shopping experience instead of stand-alone, “you find us” venues?) and assumptions about the Chinese enjoying sandwiches. They soon left, hurt that the brand name alone was insufficient to grab the free-flowing Chinese yuan they had heard so much about.
In the luxury tier, however, for those willing to enter humbly, localise respectfully and pinpoint the key characteristics that play up to all things British, there are ripe opportunities to excite Chinese consumers who are into UK style and flavour.