Larry Namer's Blog

More and more content is becoming available and being streamed online…

According to the research done by China Film Copyright Association, Chinese youth watch movies primarily online. The young generation aged between 18 and 35 watch 50.5% of their movies through the Internet. The average amount of movies they watch online per year is 31.1, and the maximum amount is over 500.

Source: 08-01-2010, Hainan Daily http://www.dayoo.com/roll/201008/01/10000307_103067747.htm

Chinese youth also have greater spending potential for the film industry. A survey conducted by AC Nielsen and Nielsen NRG revealed that Chinese Internet users also went to the movie theater every 6 or 7 weeks (7.5 times a year), a little bit more frequently than the U.S. movie audiences’ 6 times per year.

1000 internet users, between 16 and 34 years old, from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, responded to the on-line survey.

According to the survey, 40% of the respondents would make the decision on which movie to watch a week before they actually went to the movie theater. One reason was that the movie ticket price was still a little bit high for them. Secondly, those new movies’ DVDs were relatively cheaper and accessible as well. Therefore the audiences would do some homework before stepping into the movie theater, prepared to make their money worth while.

The survey also suggested that 50% of audiences went to the theater for a specific movie, 21% went for the big screen experiences, and 20% for date or other social purposes.

42% of the respondents expressed no preference between Chinese and Western movies. 71% thought Western movies were better produced. 48% considered that Chinese movies had better story lines.

Respondents’ preferences of movies also differed with their ages. 14% of the above-25 audiences preferred Chinese movies over their US counterparts. However, among those audiences equal to or younger than 25 years old, 25% liked Chinese movies better, 36% didn’t care how huge the Western movies’ investment was, and 31% thought that it was difficult for them to build a connection with Western movies.

Source: 08-31-2006 http://www.sccm.gov.cn/show.asp?id=11397

In an online discussion surveying how young people in China watch movies, the average response was: “For myself, watch online; for a date, go to the movie theater; for more than 3 people, buy a DVD.”

China Youth Music Preferences

In an ever-changing world, we’ve found some interesting information on young culture in China. Chinese youths are receptive to international influences and brands. Urban Chinese youth are generally receptive to international influences enjoying foreign movies, brands and other products from Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and the West.

Musical tastes are evolving to even include rock and hip hop. Rock music was always popular in China’s larger cities, but now hip-hop and R&B are growing in popularity as Western influences spread in China. In Shanghai, 37.1% of the young people among 15-25-year-olds prefer Rap/Hip-Hop. Western musicians such as Coldplay, Britney Spears, Linkin Park and Eminem were cited as favorites by Chinese youth, according to The Pearl Research.

Though foreign brands scored near the top in many survey categories, music is one area where they fell short. Asian, not Western, musicians are viewed as cool by this generation. Though language may play a factor in music selection, culturally, Chinese pop music is preferred to Western.

http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/public/0407/smith.html
http://ce.tekrati.com/research/9469/
According to Liang Chen, the post 80’s generation loves Jay Chou and Hongkong/Taiwanese musicians; and the post 90’s generation has started to admire Korean/Japanese/Western musicians.

They are not willing to pay for the music or to purchase the CDs; most of them download music illegally online. What music device they choose is dependent on their family income. Youth that come from wealthier families use ipods and youth from lower-income families use cell phones as their method of playing music.

Some interesting facts:  (Music Matters Consumer Survey 2009, Synovate)
·        68% of Asian youth say music is very important part of their lives
·        Computer is the most popular device for them to listen to music
·        11% paid to download music online

http://www.slideshare.net/splitworks/music-matters-consumer-survey-2009

When the Korean all-girls group, ‘Wonder Girls’, debuted in the US market, Chinese netizens started an online debate of when it was ‘their turn’ where the US would embrace such a creation coming from China. Oddly enough, those arguments eventually evolved in how to group together an all-girls group of Chinese ‘hotties’ and make their own similar business model in the US – but that’s for another conversation at another time. It dawned on me while reading this big online hoopla – the Chinese youth really have really evolved from the days of the old school business mantra ‘made in China’. No longer are they content that 80% of iPhones and Xbox 360s are manufactured in China. Now they want to see China as the epicenter of the world and especially so in the creative industry. Unfortunately, all those thoughts came to a screeching halt after the premier of ‘Avatar’ (which lifted China box office by 86% last year) when even they knew China could ever create or replicate the quality and output of the movie.

Still, this whole thought of creative epicenter CAN be changed in a different direction… in the form of media formats.

What are Formats

Simply put, formats are copyright protected programming ideas / templates versus that of a finished product. Read more…

Ugly Betty translates to all countries

On one of my frequent extended stints in China, I had a quiet evening to kick up my feet and to peruse the hundreds of channels Chinese television has to offer (for pure market research purposes of course). Admittedly, I have a short attention span already as-is, so you can imagine the flurry of remote clicking that occurred if the myriads of soap operas and variety shows did not catch my eye. Then, “it” hit me… “It” is like a bad automobile accident you see by the roadside – you know you shouldn’t turn your head to see, but out of pure curiosity for the wicked, you simply cannot help yourself. “It” is, at the rawest and most basic form, a great sociological study on everything that is wrong with fame, relationships, and greed… in other words, “it” is great TV.

I’m talking about the hit phenomenon program, “If You Are the One” that is taking water cooler chatter by storm in China. To give context to anyone who has not heard about this program, it’s a match-making reality show where singles meet singles in front of millions of people each show (talk about pressure). And the hook for the whole show? The often questionable money-driven (aka “Gold-Digging” antics) requirements that this now very relevant generation of singles are looking for in their soul mates.

The show has taken notice even of the Chinese government prompting them to immediately shut down production and exhibition of the show due to the often sexual innuendos and references to a very anti-traditional moral basis where money is the main driver for many of the singles. Watching this show, it’s not that difficult to understand why the government would be concerned with the way the program portrays this new up and coming generation of singles.

Girls’ Perspective

On the show, girls are depicted as ‘gold-digging’ animals – only attracted by the number of RMBs that are attached to the suitor’s name. Read More

…And the hits just keep on coming.

In today’s interactive society, a cross-platform or multi-platform strategy is necessary for a business model in any industry, let alone the media industry.

The inception of Metan Development Group saw a focus on television and online platforms. After a year of expansion, the company has grown to develop entertainment across other platforms, including print, music, and now, feature film.

The article below is more press we’ve garnished due to our recent deal with China giant, Ruyi Media Group:

http://www.worldscreen.com/articles/display/26366

Metan in Chinese Film Initiative

By Mansha Daswani

Published: July 21, 2010

LOS ANGELES: Metan Development Group has announced an alliance with China’s Ruyi Media Group to collaborate on feature film development.

The strategic relationship with Beijing Ruyi Xinxin Film Investment Company (Ruyi Film) will see the companies working together on various forms of content, with a focus on films.

Larry Namer, president and CEO of Metan, commented, “Metan is delighted to collaborate with Ruyi Film as we uncover new strategic ways in which we can work together, as we reach out to global markets and develop the highest quality TV and film projects.”

Ray Lei, CEO of Ruyi Media Group, added, “Since our foundation, we have aimed to become a leading entertainment company in China with an international vision. By working together with Metan, I believe that we can provide more TV series and films of excellent quality to Chinese audiences.”

Metan Development Group has really been getting a lot of press lately. As you may have heard, our company recently finalized a deal with Ford Motor Company to name the Ford Fiesta the official vehicle of Hello!Hollywood.

Read up on the deets here:

Ford Says ‘Hello! Hollywood’ to Reach 20-Somethings

Partnership With Metan Development Group Brings L.A. Vibe to Young Car Buyers on TV and Web

by Normandy Madden
Published: June 30, 2010

‘Hello! Hollywood’ host Andy Dong in a Ford Fiesta

SHANGHAI (AdAgeChina.com) — Ford Motor Co. is partnering with Hollywood veterans to elevate the revitalized image of the New Ford Fiesta brand among hip, young Chinese car buyers.

Starting in mid-July, the U.S. auto company’s Fiesta brand will be the title sponsor of “Hello! Hollywood,” a half-hour weekly Mandarin-language entertainment program filmed in Los Angeles and mainland China.

Metan Development Group, an entertainment production and distribution company started by Entertainment Television founder Larry Namer; former News Corp. executive Martin Pompadur and Amerilink founder Jean Zhang, created the syndicated show that debuted in January 2010.

Hosted by Chinese radio personality Andy Dong, “Hello! Hollywood” broadcasts celebrity and lifestyle news, including red carpet events, award shows, interviews with stars and features on Hollywood hot spots. And for Ford, episodes feature reporters driving the car on assignment and a New Ford Fiesta in music countdown videos.

“This is not a cut-and-paste version of a foreign show. It is being made specifically with the Chinese consumer in mind and the actual vehicle will be in the format. That was attractive for us,” said Mike Nash, Shanghai-based director in charge of JWT’s Ford business in China.

Segments highlight relevant connections between the American and Chinese film industries. A recent episode featured four stars of the Chinese remake of Disney’s hit High School Musical, which was shot in Shanghai and will be released next month.

“Hello! Hollywood” also provides background that would bore U.S. audiences. A planned two-minute segment about the new 3-D King Kong ride at Universal Studios, for instance, was stretched to six minutes to explain the King Kong character and the history of the studio to Chinese.

The show’s reporters cater to Chinese interests when interviewing celebrities, asking more questions about their lifestyles and background.

“The Fiesta target market is young vibrant Chinese, so obviously things like fashion, music and red-carpet events are areas they are interested in. The content was a perfect fit for the passion points of the Fiesta consumer,” Mr. Nash said.

Fiesta has younger target market than Buick and Cadillac
The New Ford Fiesta was launched fifteen months ago by Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Co., a joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and Changan Automobile Group. The car is one of Ford’s most youthful brands in China — with good reason.

Ford Fiesta ads by JWT, Shanghai depart from standard lifestyle images.

White-collar 20-somethings are a vital market for Ford in China. The company’s two other models manufactured there, Buick and Cadillac, are aimed at older drivers. In the U.S., roughly 800 out of 1,000 people own a car, but in China, that number is just 80 out of 1,000. Most growth for foreign car makers in China today is coming from buyers in their 20s and 30s.

Fiesta is already a success for Changan Ford. The joint venture reported a 17.8% jump in sales in May 2010 to a record 23,742 units. Sales of Fiesta sedans soared nearly 50% year-on-year to 6,547 units last month, making the car the biggest contributor fueling Ford’s strong sales.

The sticker price for the eco-friendly Fiesta ranges from $11,500 to $16,400, making it affordable for young adults buying their first car, often with financial assistance from parents who have never owned a car themselves.

Ads feature digital media
Designed and priced to appeal to young Chinese, the car is also marketed to them with a bold, sexy and mostly digital ad campaign connecting the brand with entertainment and music.

Ford’s association with the “Hello! Hollywood” series will, the company hopes, expand the brand’s awareness among young consumers who watch the show on TV or online. “Hello! Hollywood” airs on 47 city and provincial TV stations reaching 250 million households throughout China. During its prime-time Saturday night slot, it reaches an estimated six million viewers, mostly 16-to-30 year-olds.

An average of 300,000 web users watch the show online each week on one of the dozen web portals and video-sharing sites that carry the series. The show also airs on local TV channels for the Chinese community in New York, San Francisco and Vancouver.

“Hello! Hollywood” premiered in January 2010 with sponsorship by brands like Colgate and Philips Electronics, but their involvement “is not even close to the same level” as Ford’s deal, said Mr. Namer, Metan’s president & CEO in Los Angeles.

Fiesta will sponsor segments featuring the car
As title sponsor of “Hello! Hollywood” starting in mid-July, ads and on-air billboards for the Fiesta will air at the beginning and end of the program.

Changan Ford and the Fiesta will also be integrated into each episode, and the car will be featured during the five music countdown videos in each episode. Reporters will drive a New Ford Fiesta to events they cover in China.

The sponsorship will also extend to Metan’s online video portal partners, as part of the “Hello! Hollywood” digital program.

Ford will co-promote the show on its Chinese web site (www.ford-fiesta.com.cn), “but I’m not particularly worried about there being too much activity on the Ford web site,” Mr. Nash said. With more than 400 million Chinese now online, “we want to be a part of what our consumers are doing day-to-day online.”

Ford wants to connect Fiesta-sponsored segments on “Hello! Hollywood” with its other online campaigns and marketing events, like sponsorship of foreign music acts playing in China.

Ford sees the deal with Hello! Hollywood as part of a bigger activation program for the New Ford Fiesta that also includes events, said Bryce Whitwam, Shanghai-based general manager of Wunderman, Ford’s direct marketing agency in China.

“There are a lot of different opportunities to expand on it and the show is well done. China needs better content,” Mr. Whitwam said.

“Our deal is not just about TV program sponsorship, there’s a fairly large digital element. That’s definitely an area we see ourselves playing in,” Mr. Nash said. “The plan is to build the relationship long-term and be looking for other opportunities.”

‘Icons’ will offer a new perspective on the true stories of some of the world’s most well-known personalities,” said Metan prexy and CEO Larry Namer who is in Cannes for the Mip TV mart. “The series is being created specifically for the Chinese viewer in mind.”

Subjects will vary from sports superstars David Beckham and Tiger Woods, to A-list film stars Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie to music legends Luciano Pavarotti and Madonna to business leaders Warren Buffet and Walt Disney.

“Icons” will debut in July on Tianjin Satellite TV and Tianjin’s Binhai Channel.

Tianjin Satellite TV has a national reach of 600 million people across China with strong emphasis in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai, while Binhai Channel has a local reach of 20 million viewers across Tianjin.

Metan also holds broadcast rights outside of China for Mandarin-language TV stations, and plans to air the series in the U.S. and other markets.

Metan was set up last year by industry veteran Martin Pompadur, E! Entertainment Television co-founder Namer and Amerilink founder Jean Zhang.

Source: www.variety.com

The other weekend, I went out to dinner with my good friend from college. Big reason why was because she was breaking the news to me that her and her fiancé were taking the big plunge and moving back to China for better career prospects.

Then she asks me, “Will you be able to ship baby formula for me in the future?” I can’t say that this caught me by total surprise – after all, she was the third person already who has asked me to do the same thing. Logically speaking, it does make perfect sense. Especially after the 2008 melamine contaminated milk scandal that killed six babies and sickened 300,000 others across China has possibly permanently ruined parents’ faith in domestic Chinese dairy products (I know it has for me).

Safety and Quality Concerns

Unlike the US market, the Chinese baby market is still underdeveloped. First main focus for any associated products is quality and safety. This is quite evident in the advertising industry for the baby market since the ads are focused on not the product benefits, but the product safety.

“If you look at international brands, their advertising is based around the fact that their milk powder is imported,” says Kelvin Gin, director of Synovate in Shanghai. “Local brands say their product is natural, and they have government certification. Consumers are looking for reassurance.”

According to a recent survey by Sina Baby channel, up to 81.1% of consumers are worried about product safety, 63.2% of the consumers cannot distinguish between good and bad quality of the product, and 34.6% of them feel the baby products currently in the market lack scientific guidance. Looking at these facts, it’s no wonder why the market is focusing so much on quality concerns above all else.

Read more

We started our online marketing campaign for our entertainment show, ‘Hello! Hollywood’ a few months ago. As most of the Chinese online websites don’t have a conventional way to treat traditional online marketing techniques (for example, pre-rolls / banner ads / etc. are charged on a per day basis), we put our thinking caps on and thought about spreading the word virally. Needless to say, we had our ups and downs, but here are some of the few things we’ve learned along the way:

Fan-base VS Friend-base

We first tackled the social-networking sites as a way to promote our program online After all, with sites like RenRen and KaiXin001 is really one of the birth places of viral marketing. It starts here, it lives here, and it grows here.

Before we started any social-media initiatives, we did a best practice study on our competitors’ shows. Initial results show that having a television show on-air does give you a certain advantage online. However, notoriety is just one half of the equation… (to be discussed in a little bit).

Back to the social-networking sites. Just by being part of these social networks and continually updating it with fresh content, news stories, ‘tweeting’, etc., will continually grow the fan base. I equate it the way you would treat a plan – you water it everyday, give it the sunshine it needs, and it’ll eventually keep growing.

After a few days of us on the social networks, the number of ‘friends’ steadily grew… unfortunately, that is not a direct correlation with our online viewership of our program. More so, as soon as we stopped adding ‘friends’ to our profiles, the ‘steadily growing’ rate slowed down to a trickle. Yes, we had a few comments, few revisits, and few re-tweets from ‘friends’. And yes, we tried different content, increased our update frequency as well as match content with our ‘friends’ interest, but the awareness and the branding of ‘Hello! Hollywood’ was still low.

We were not alone in this endeavor as our competitors exhibited the same folley – large ‘friend’ base doesn’t always translate or convert into a large ‘fan’ base.

Read more

By Gordon Chu | Tuesday, March 23, 2010

For those who follow the stock market, there was a flurry of action in Shanghai this past week in the media and telecom sectors. Why you ask? It was mainly driven by optimistic news on the Chinese government looking to invest and push the convergence of television, internet, and phone – otherwise more commonly known as triple play network.

From a purely technology perspective, triple play is really a no-brainer decision for the respective industries. While each of the three industries often operates separately and with different business models, all of them have the same technological backbone. More than just a technology benefit, triple play is really a natural evolutionary convergence of television (IPTV), internet, and telephony as it adapts to how consumers consume media. Especially now with multiple platform content that can exist online, television or mobile, triple play offers the perfect one-stop shop solution for all the viewing needs.

So far, the commercial success has been a great case study in the United States. It’s been having an enormous amount of success here in the States and on can theorize it will similarly have the same impact in China as well.

In the United States, elements of triple play’s full functionality has been available to consumers for several years, but since the launch of the bundled service in 2008, the market has seen tremendous growth in adoption (and this is just the beginning).

Read more