Media and Advertising

"Trading Up" to luxury

JDM051123tradingups.jpg
High fashion on Trading Up.

This is the inaugural issue of the new supplement to Lifestyle magazine (精品购物指南, "Select buyers' guide"). Included with the 31 October issue, Trading Up (品位) is a magazine for the "new luxury" set. From the mission statement at the front of the issue (the "Advocate" column):

Our solemn declaration: We disdain those who live lives of mere material extravagance.

But we esteem those high-quality, deeply meaningful luxuries that follow society's economic development and technological progress. They excite a desire in people to pursue lives of beauty, and to use this desire to create wealth. This is the "new sumptuousness" - concern for social responsibility,attention to quality of life, a bright and healthy consumer outlook, and a physical-based mental enjoyment with which to share the material satisfaction and spiritual wealth that come from luxury goods....

We offer this to all those pursuing a life of high quality.

Inside the magazine are product reviews for brands like Bvlgari and Poison, a fashion spread featuring designs by Gucci, Versaci, Tiffany, Armani, and Dior (and, as you can see in the image above, the peculiar Mickey Mouse hairstyle so popular these days), a history of luxury automobiles through the ages, exotic travel destinations, and interviews with people living the life of luxury.

JDM051123porche.jpg
Ad represents 10% of Porche's annual sales in China.

Advertising, too, aims high. Porche, Audi, and other automakers share space with home furnishings, 88-in flat panel TVs, and the type of CBD furnished apartment that offers 2% discount to Fortune-500 employees. Turns out that the Bvlgari and Poison features were paid spots; according to the magazine's rate card. Mixed in with the glitz are ads for English training, EMBA programs, and pizza buffets, aimed at the same readership but not quite conveying that sense of "Accented Grace, Understated Luxury."

"Trading Up" comes as part of a rising tide of luxury-related publications. Even Shanghai paper National Business Daily has gotten into the act with its recent launch of a "luxury channel" - basically a buyers' guide.

Links and Sources
Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
090609guardian2.png 090609CNN3.png
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
The latest recommended blogs and new media
laomo2010x80.jpg
From 2008
Books on China
The Eurasian Face : Blacksmith Books, a publishing house in Hong Kong, is behind The Eurasian Face, a collection of photographs by Kirsteen Zimmern. Below is an excerpt from the series:
Big in China: An adapted excerpt from Big In China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising A Family, Playing The Blues and Becoming A Star in China, just published this month. Author Alan Paul tells the story of arriving in Beijing as a trailing spouse, starting a blues band, raising kids and trying to make sense of China.
Pallavi Aiyar's Chinese Whiskers: Pallavi Aiyar's first novel, Chinese Whiskers, a modern fable set in contemporary Beijing, will be published in January 2011. Aiyar currently lives in Brussels where she writes about Europe for the Business Standard. Below she gives permissions for an excerpt.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Korean history doesn't fly on Chinese TV screens (2007.09): SARFT puts the kibbosh on Korean historical dramas.
+ Religion and government in an uneasy mix (2008.03): Phoenix Weekly (凤凰周刊) article from October, 2007, on government influence on religious practice in Tibet.
+ David Moser on Mao impersonators (2004.10): I first became aware of this phenomenon in 1992 when I turned on a Beijing TV variety show and was jolted by the sight of "Mao Zedong" and "Zhou Enlai" playing a game of ping pong. They both gave short, rousing speeches, and then were reverently interviewed by the emcee, who thanked them profusely for taking time off from their governmental duties to appear on the show.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky rsschiclet2.png (on the mainland)
or Feedburner rsschiclet.gif (blocked in China)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Top Links: Links from the top bar
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Jobs: Want ads
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30