Face to Face – China: Mark Tanner

Face-to-Face is a new feature from newzealandinc.com where we sit down for a chat with young business leaders from around the globe. We’ll be running a special series of these from China where we talk to young New Zealanders doing big things on the ground here.

Continuing on with the Face-to-Face: China series, we catch up with Mark Tanner, a New Zealander living in Shanghai and  running China Skinny – a company he founded to monitor western businesses over social media and provide marketing and digital advice for businesses selling, or hoping to sell to Chinese consumers. Growing up in Wellington, Mark’s desire to see the world has led him on some fantastic adventures including an 8,000km bicycle trek across Canada and leading the first team to successfully paddle from the Source of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia to Egypt’s Mediterranean Sea. Being a kiwi lad at heart though, a beer and a chat seemed like the best way to find out more about Mark’s adventures and discuss China through the eyes of someone who’s experiencing it all here everyday.

NZ Inc: So Mark – why of all places did you choose China?

“Growing up in New Zealand, we were always miles away from everywhere. Now, the centre of the world is finally moving close to us – we’re only 4 or 5 timezones away from home yet we have access to billions of people with disposable income. It’s a huge potential market for us.”

NZ Inc: Could you tell us a bit about your company, China Skinny and what they’re doing in China?

China Skinny helps western businesses develop and deliver effective marketing, web and social media strategies for China.  Marketing best practice for Chinese consumers is changing monthly, and we pride ourselves on our ongoing research to ensure our advice is some of the most up-to-date and relevant about China.  We’re also developing a social media monitor to complement these services.

NZ Inc: What excited you about the opportunities in China?

“Like everyone says, the scale of China is just incredible. We’re in Shanghai on the Yangtze River Delta and you go further upstream and along the Yangtze river alone you’ve got 28 cities with higher populations than New Zealand. There’s 700 cities here that are bigger than Geneva and as these cities grow, you’re seeing more and more people with disposable income and a love of foreign, high-quality products. They don’t trust the local product, especially when it comes to food and beverage and they’re willing to pay a premium for quality, something which is a huge opportunity for New Zealand.”

NZ Inc: What do you think New Zealand needs to be doing to maximize that opportunity in China?

“There’s all these companies in China which have a great competitive advantage against us. We’re never going to be able to compete on scale. We’re never going to be able to grow things in the volumes of places like Australia and South America. What New Zealand does have going for us is that China knows about us – they know that we’re clean, they know that we’re green and our dairy products have a great reputation. People here talk about New Zealand and they talk about it being beautiful and natural. We’ve got excellent awareness about us and so it becomes a case of capitalising on that great brand we have and then bringing in products that people are prepared to pay a premium for. China is the most hotly contested market in the world right now, so unfortunately it’s not just a case of launching a product and relying on the strong NZ brand to sell it for us.  NZ businesses need to understand what makes Chinese consumers tick and make products and marketing relevant to them.  NZ businesses don’t have the scale or budgets of many local and foreign businesses here, so we have to be innovative, which is one of China Skinny’s strengths.

NZ Inc: As a young New Zealander in China, could you tell me about some of the biggest challenges that you’ve faced since being here?

 “The way Chinese people think. Most other places I’ve been, people seem to think relatively similarly to New Zealanders whereas Chinese people are wired completely differently. They solve problems differently, they do business differently, they do just about everything in such a different way.”

“Everything you do in China, be it ordering food or running a business, you do it in a way unlike anywhere else. The only thing you can really do is approach everything with an open mind. Being prepared that things may take longer and things may work a little bit different.”

“Anyone from New Zealand is going to find this a challenge in coming to China. You can get used to it, but you’re still always going to battle with it. Things that should be straight forward often aren’t and that’s often a challenge.”

We’ll have more from Mark and all of our young business leaders taking part in our Face to Face – China series coming up on newzealandinc.com