Loyalty According to Tweeple

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A while ago, I created a search column in Tweetdeck to see what people have to say about loyalty on Twitter. To my surprise, once the column was created, tweets just started flying in. There has been rarely a day when I do not see at least a few hundred public tweets containing the word “loyalty”. Apparently, loyalty is on people’s mind often. Out of curiosity, I started to dig a little deeper and more systematically into what is being said about loyalty in these tweets. While I’m not quite done with my analysis yet, here I’d like to share some of my initial discoveries.

What/Whom Are People Loyal to?

When we talk about loyalty, we usually imply an object or person that we are loyal to. From the tweets that I have analyzed, here are the most often objects of loyal passion:

  • A romantic relationship or partners in the romantic relationship
  • Friends and family
  • Sports team
  • Brands/products
  • Co-workers/boss
  • Dogs’ loyalty to their owners (such as this touching story from Wikipedia about this Hachiko dog)

Interestingly, when specific brands or products were mentioned as objects of loyalty, mobile products such as cellphones and mobile providers were the most frequently referred-to product category. For instance, earlier today, there were a few retweets of the message by @Natemz below.

Loyalty Tweet

In this case, the tweet is actually a counter-loyalty message, where product features beat loyalty. But it still implies loyalty that some people used to have for BlackBerry before they switched to Android. Continue reading “Loyalty According to Tweeple”

The New Rich in China

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As I stood at a busy intersection on People’s Avenue South in Chengdu, China, I am dazzled by the high-end designer labels I see. Louis Vutton, Dior, MaxMara, and many other luxury brands all opened up shop here. With the fast economic development during the last decade, there has arisen a new class of rich Chinese consumers who spend their money generously on these luxury goods.

 yacht
Photo by Flickr user yachtfan | CC 2.0

Of course, those who can afford to buy luxury brands are still far and few in between. According to the World Bank, 1% of Chinese families now possess 41.4% of China’s wealth. This represents a bigger gap than that of the United States, whose corresponding number is 5% families owning 60% of national wealth. The Gini coefficient, an index used to measure income inequality, has also surpassed the warning level of 40 in China ten years ago to reach 47 today. Continue reading “The New Rich in China”

China – An Update

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I am spending a few weeks in China. This time, I sense a really big change in the Chinese marketplace. Not only has income level risen dramatically since my last visit a few years ago, but the Internet has become an even more pervasive force in Chinese consumers’ daily life. I confess that I have not done extensive research about marketing and consumers in China. But there are a few notable observations that I would like to share with my readers.

Discretionary Spending on the Rise

When I graduated from college in 1996, I was paid slightly over 1000 Yuan (about $140) a month as an assistant editor at a publishing company in Beijing. Today, my college classmates are often paid more than ten times that working in their professional jobs. Without a doubt, the standard of living has increased dramatically in China. As the cost of basic living items (excluding housing) is still pretty low, Chinese consumers in metropolitan areas are enjoying more and more discretionary income. This has boosted spending on discretionary items such as travel and automobiles. A lot more consumers are traveling both within China and aboard. Having a car is also becoming more commonplace.

Housing Gap

With the high population density in China, housing (sold by square meters) is still expensive and is one of the largest expenses in many consumers’ budget. In popular metropolitan areas such as the capital city Beijing, condominiums cost from a few thousand yuan (= a few hundred dollars) per square meter to upwards of $10,000 per square meter, which puts the price tag of a 2000sqft condo at $1.8 million. Continue reading “China – An Update”