Chinese consumerWine Intelligence China Team shares five key challenges they faced in their latest projects in China at a recent MRS event
1. The real China is a complex cultural mosaic
2. The country that likes to say yes. . .
We have been running quantitative online surveys in China since 2009, and we have found that Chinese respondents have a tendency to give positive feedback despite their true feelings. The eagerness to please or avoid giving offence might be cultural, or political – and it’s a consistent national trait, despite the cultural differences observed in (1) above. The best antidote: make respondents rank their preferences, or choose between things.
3. . . Except in discussion groups, where the answer is a definite “maybe” In focus groups, unlike online surveys, we have found that respondents like to hide in the middle of a consensus rather than be overly positive or negative. A hypothesis for this is the fear of saying or doing “the wrong thing” in a public situation, which is a strong taboo in Chinese culture. Again, the answer seems to be to get people to do comparative ranking, or choose favourites, rather than make them evaluate something in isolation.
4. Chinese like to be imaginative, and tell stories
Exercises that encourage Chinese respondents to deflect their opinions onto other objects or characters allow them a “safety distance” to express their thoughts indirectly. When we discuss wine labels in a group, for example, we now ask them to describe the labels as characters from a film, or members of a family.
5. Mobile internet research seems to work well
Chinese internet users are increasingly getting used to handling online communications through mobile platforms. We always receive prompt responses from our “online pulse panel” after sending out short questionnaires to their smartphones or tablets. The trick here is to keep questions as short and specific as possible e.g.“do you like A or B better?”