Jan Van den Bergh, the Shanghai-based president of i-merge/ boondoggle, has published key findings of an online survey that his company and Sinomonitor recently undertook to examine the phenomenon of brand and product recommendation on the Internet in China–something all of us are keenly aware is happening, but for which systematic studies are still rare. Download the .pdf file here. A guy like CIC’s CEO Sam Flemming, of course, has forgotten more about this topic than I’ll ever know; I’d be interested to see what he thinks of the i-merge/Sinomonitor findings.

Van den Bergh concludes that “marketers in China (like probably in the rest of the world) continue to underestimate the power of customer recommendation and
overestimate the power of advertising (and)(in) old media,” and asserts that “…evangelists, influencers, advocates seem to become the real driving force behind big brands. In reality “human media” dwarf what we usually call “media”.

Some of his findings (quoted from the study except for my commentary in italics):

  • On average, a Chinese consumer communicates in one month with 8 people about brands. 17% of the consumers however talk about brands with more than 10
    people monthly.
  • Women communicate more than men, but men have a higher influencing power. (That second part strikes me as somewhat counterintuitive!)
  • 31% of all respondents in the study are sure their peers bought something that was recommended by them.
  • 26% are sure they convinced their peers not to buy a certain brand or to give up [a brand].
  • A satisfying brand experience (or a dissatisfying one) is a lot more powerful than positive or negative brand reputation.
  • The vast majority of the communication about brands is face2face. Nearly 90% is communicated during conversations.
  • Using instant messages and phone calls are also common ways people communicate.
  • 80% of the consumers think that the Internet is the most essential medium in their life (followed by 15% for mobile phones).
  • The Internet is the most important medium for consumers to learn -for the first time- about a new brand or a new product, followed by TV commercials. (This finding should be good for business!)
  • Comparatively, male consumers tend to choose the Internet and the newspapers. Women are a bit more TV-minded.
  • Again a vast majority of the respondents also want to stay informed about a brand after they bought it. Again it’s the web that is their preferred medium. (91% of respondents listed the Internet as the preferred medium to stay informed post-purchase, in what was evidently a multiple-answer question)
  • [The Internet is] also the most effective medium when they decide to buy a brand. The second most influential medium being their friends.

The survey involved 1200 Internet users ranging in age from 20-24 at the young end and 40-45 at the high. Glancing at the sample, it’s skewed male (59%, whereas according to the last CNNIC survey there were some 47% female Internet users), and older than what would be truly representative; well over half of Chinese Internet users are under 25, but the survey’s sample is only 17% 20-24. It’s also biased toward upper-tier cities; 3rd-tier city respondents account at most for about 14% of the sample, while more than 20% of Chinese Internet don’t even live in cities. And not surprisingly, it’s weighted heavily toward more educated users, with 72% of respondents holding bachelors degrees, and only 28% with junior college or below. Not that there’s anything wrong with this somewhat unrepresentative sample: By my lights it’s a good cross-section of the people most marketers really want to reach by the Internet.

Thanks to Jan–whom I met for the first time at Ad:Tech in Beijing recently, though regrettably we didn’t have much of a chance to speak–for permission to share his report on this blog. He tells me he’ll be sending along the complete report toward the end of the week, and I’ll share some additional findings when I get that.