What US policy decisions will do for the innovation and competitiveness of its auto industry and carbon emissions, based on feedback from industry leaders

It's a lot cheaper to retain a customer than acquire a new one, so the old adage says. Many marketers in China don't seem to have got that memo, with marketing plans based around increasingly expensive livestreams and KOLs for sales, with limited initiatives to retain those customers once they've transacted.We track many loyalty initiatives at China Skinny, but one of the most exciting we've seen lately is from Chinese EV brand, Nio. Car sales have been one of the brightest categories in China's retail sphere, last month growing 17% year-on-year. As we noted in July, Beijing has been strategic in putting its weight behind car sales - it takes a lot of packaged goods or shoe sales to match that of a single car in making retail sales look rosy.

Over the years, China has made the headlines for its cottage industry of fakes, from infant formula to condoms to fake zoo animals. This has left many with an impression that China is a nation of copycat producers. But in reality, China has been busy beavering away for years coming up with innovative ideas that change the way people live, consume and market.

Andy Lau is one of Greater China's most celebrated and distinguished actors, singer-songwriters and film producers. The 60-year old Hong Konger has acted in more than 160 films, while maintaining a successful singing career. Hundreds of awards have borne his name - more than any other male Cantopop star.

It was March 2021 when the EU-China agreement protecting geographical indications (GIs) came into force. This aimed to recognise and protect around 200 distinct agri-food producing regions. It included well known specialties such as Feta, Prosciutto di Parma, Irish whiskey, Münchener Bier and Ouzo from Europe and Pixian Bean Paste, Anji White Tea, Panjin rice and Anqiu Ginger from China.

Chinese beauty brands are spending more than 2/3s of revenue on marketing, whereas foreign brands are under half that, and holding strong

By every measure, winter sports are booming in China leading into Beijing's Winter Games, presenting a multitude of opportunities for brands

China's Xpeng plans to start production of the flying car in 2024. Check out the video, it is very cool!

Besides Covid, the three terms that cemented themselves in the Chinese vernacular last year were PPE (个人防护), lockdowns (隔离) and livestreaming (直播). Over this time, there have been few articles talking about marketing in China that didn’t praise the wonders of livestreaming. The buzz around livestreaming has been infectious for both consumers and brands, with 30,000 new Taobao Live accounts opened by merchants in February 2020 alone.

Not long after the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, Chairman Mao declared motherhood to be a patriot duty to build manpower. Whilst there was no official policy, government propaganda rallied couples to reproduce. It condemned contraceptives and even banned the import of some. By the 1960s the average Chinese woman had six children.

Back in August 2018 we were happy to report that China’s seemingly impenetrable ecommerce duopoly had fallen. In less than three years, ecommerce platform Pinduoduo (PDD) had come from nowhere to surpass JD.com’s daily user count.

It’s been three weeks since Singles’ Day smashed records with sales topping $116 billion just from Alibaba and JD. At China Skinny, we’ve been busy analysing the results and trends – many of which apply to year-round marketing strategies to reach and connect with Chinese consumers.

China's bottle water giant Nongfu Spring provides some good lessons on how to succeed in China, even after its share of scandals

The telltale sign that China had contained the coronavirus was when children were allowed back to school. It began out west as early as mid-March as schools in Xinjiang started opening their doors again. It was a little longer before schools in China’s wealthy coastal cities were operating again – in April, one Beijing mother whose child had been at home for almost three months noted a popular sentiment in her WeChat mums group was “if the scientists don’t hurry up and develop a vaccine, the mothers will!” Thankfully, by May, most schools across China had welcomed students back, albeit with reduced class sizes, shortened lessons, staggered arrival times and the looming presence of thermal scanners.

Xinliangji is a Beijing-based seafood supplier, founded in 2015. Until recently, the company had earned a pretty penny supplying products like frozen crayfish and basa fish to restaurants such as fish hotpot chain New Spicy Way. But like almost every business in food service in China, its income sources fell off a cliff from mid-January with the abrupt closure of China's restaurants.

China isn't out of the woods yet, but there have been a number of positive developments over the past couple of weeks reinforcing China as one of the most, if not the most, promising market this year.

The start of the year has been accompanied by the usual slew of big China numbers and never-ending growth stories in China. Yet while 'China' and 'growth' have been synonymous with much of the last four decades, one rather large category just clocked its second year of contracting sales dragging down China's overall growth story - the good old-fashioned automobile.

It wasn't long ago when doing any daily task in China was a chore. Queues at banks rivalled wait times of popular Disneyland rides, supermarket checkout staff seemed to work in slow motion, and buying a train ticket felt longer than the journey itself. Then, almost overnight, day-to-day activities in China became some of the most convenient on the planet.