FEATURE INTERVIEW
Consumer Insights

What is the Chinese middle class? Helen talks about the amazing changes that have been witnessed in the past few years. In Tom and Helen’s opinion, when multinationals adapt their business models in China, they should note that Chinese consumers are always focusing on their relationship to society, a concept that many companies simply don’t grasp. Tom adds that they also tend to underestimate the costs of building a brand, and bring up Groupon as a case in point. Watch to get the full story…

Consumer Insights Host
Kerry Kennedy
Founder/CEO, iTV-Asia
Kerry Kennedy has more than 20-years of marketing/media experience in Asia Pacific - including print media, database/direct marketing, internet website development and internet webcasting. He was president of Direct Marketing Services Japan, one of Japan's first direct marketing agencies and conducted direct marketing for many leading companies including American Express, General Motors, Newsweek, Time Magazine and Northwest Airlines. Since doing his first webcasting in 1999 he has been one of Asia's leading pioneers in the development of streaming media/webcasting through his websites, ITV-Asia and ITV-Japan. ITV-Asia is the largest Asia-focused business/video website and contains more than 400 interviews on the subject of doing business in Japan and China. Beginning in 2010 the site will start adding content on Southeast Asia and will provide its video content to websites in China, Hong Kong and Japan. Kerry is from Hawaii and first visited Asia as a high-school student and then studied at the University of Hawaii, Sophia University (Tokyo) and National Taiwan University and the Japan-America Institute of Management Science. He currently resides in Shanghai, China.
Consumer Insights Panelist
Tom Doctoroff
CEO (Asia-Pacific), JWT
Tom Doctoroff, author of Billions: Selling to the New Chinese Consumer, Asia-Pacific CEO of JWT Advertising and frequent iTV-Asia guest and presenter talks to iTV-Asia editor and host Nicholas MacDonald about the influence of his book five years from publication, new trends that have emerged in advertising and marketing, selling to China’s graying generations, Doctoroff’s personal plans and thoughts about China. Don’t miss this talk with a living legend among China advertisers. Tom completed his undergraduate studies at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) in 1985 and his MBA at the University of Chicago in 1989. Having started his advertising career at Leo Burnett (Chicago) in 1989, Tom jumped ship and joined JWT Chicago in 1992. In 1994, Tom moved to Hong Kong as Regional Business Director, managing several of JWT's largest multinational clients across Asia Pacific (including Pepsi, Philip Morris/Kraft and Citibank). In 1998, he landed in China as the Managing Director of JWT Shanghai, an agency that is now recognized by the marketing and communications industry as one of the finest on the Mainland. In 2002, he was appointed Northeast Asia Area Director (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea) and Greater China CEO.
Consumer Insights Panelist
Helen Wang
Author of The Chinese Dream
Helen Wang is a Forbes columnist, business consultant and noted expert on China’s middle class. Originally from China, Helen has lived in the US for over twenty years, where she works for Menlo Park, California based think-tank the Institute for the Future and has consulted for leading companies, including Apple, Bank of America and Oracle. In 2004 she founded a social venture, e-Mobilizer, to help woman micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries using mobile phone to access online markets, which was nominated twice for the San Jose Tech Museum Award.