There’s nothing quite like a global pandemic to test the value of a brand. Some brands have increased in value by virtue of their category; others have become more valuable by adapting swiftly to changing consumption priorities, differing usage occasions, and shifting customer journeys. Yet in this untravelled COVID-19-influenced world, the underlying trust and connection that consumers have in brands has never been more important.

Although China may have the second highest GDP of any country, when divided among its 1.4 billion citizens, it ranks down at number 65, just under Mexico and below the global average according to IMF 2019 estimates.

As protests in Hong Kong enter their 10th week, the violence continues to intensify, leading to Monday’s closure and yesterday’s mass cancellations at the eighth busiest airport in the world. Many miles away, some of the world’s most aspirational brands are having their own set of issues recognising the Special Administrative Region.

To many readers, video gaming may seem like pastime reserved for a small tribe of socially-awkward folk with Vitamin D deficiencies. Yet any marketer in China should be paying attention. China’s $36 billion video gaming market is four times larger than its movie industry and a driving force behind the inclusion of eSports as a medal event in the 2022 Asian Games, and even a possible demonstration sport at the 2024 Paris Olympics as the IOC wrestles between tradition and appealing to vast new audiences.

Since Australia established formal diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China in 1972, the country’s fortunes have become increasingly linked to the Middle Kingdom. No Western country’s economy has benefitted more from China’s rise than Australia. Much of China’s unprecedented economic growth has been built with Australian iron ore and powered by Aussie coal and liquified natural gas. In a way, Australia’s resource traders blazed a trail for Australian exporters, teaching cultural lessons about doing business in China, and raising China’s profile as a destination for exports.

Fancy a tonic favoured by Chinese emperors that cures painful joints, frail kidneys, and weakness and anemia in women? Or how about a milk beverage that will enlarge your breasts from an A-cup to a D? Perhaps a coconut drink that whitens your skin and will make you more buxom?

Chinese buyers have been the top foreign buyers of US residential property for six years straight. Similarly, no other overseas vendees buy more in Australia, New Zealand and a host of other countries. One common characteristic purchasers share is a preference for the shiny and new over the battered old character home.

There has been much uncertainty about China’s new ecommerce laws which will launch in earnest on 1 January 2019. The unknown direction around cross border ecommerce and the daigou trade is likely to have kept a few businesses up at night.

Alibaba and Tencent have done it again. They’ve delivered record-breaking profits that blew past analysts’ forecasts, signalling just how healthy China’s consumer market remains, particularly for the digital sphere. Alibaba’s profit almost doubled to ¥14 billion ($2.1 billion) and Tencent’s grew 70% to a handsome ¥18.2 billion ($2.7 billion). The results have seen their respective stock values soar into the $400 billion-plus-club, which was formerly the sole domain of American tech giants Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon.

The glimmering prize of the China market has led many foreign brands to make sacrifices in their pursuit of Chinese wallets. The $50-billion-plus beauty industry is particularly symptomatic – a field dominated by international brands. Chinese females, and increasingly males, are avid cosmetics consumers spending a much larger portion of their incomes on it than their Korean, Japanese and US equivalents – some shelling out as much as 30% of their take-home pay.

Beijing recently acknowledged that it needs to attract more foreign talent to help its transition to an economy led by consumer spending and innovation. It has even announced plans to set up its first immigration office to assist.

Just as we've heard of many successful Western brands in China, most of us are aware of the folklores of failures from those who entered ill-prepared, naive and even arrogant. From Home Depot burning through $160 million chasing a market not interested in DIY, to eBay blowing an 85% market share after hiring a local CEO and CTO who didn't understand China; there are plenty of examples we can learn from.

For the longest time, China was a society where it was advantageous to fit in. From an early age, children were taught to conform. However, as China aspires to transition from assembling products to designing them as well, there is much incentive to create free and creative thinkers to drive China's businesses up the value curve.

As recently as 2012, most Chinese consumers considered international labels categorically better than local alternatives. KFC was a good example: although consumers knew deep-fried drumsticks weren't a super-food, they were from an American company so must be safer, and therefore healthier, than Chinese options that could be cooked in gutter oil, with additives like melamine. That perception helped fuel more than two new KFC restaurant openings a day in China that year.

In 2012, less than 5% of China’s online shopping was done on a mobile. Nowadays, more than half of all sales in China’s massive ecommerce market are made though a smartphone. China’s shift to smartphones has taken online shopping by storm – and all aspects of the Internet, with 89% of China’s 668 million internet users accessing through a smartphone.

There was once a time when Chinese consumers would simply buy the biggest and most expensive model to show off their status. How things have changed.

New Balance has done some great work positioning itself as an aspirational, but affordable fashion brand in China. It’s hard to walk a block in China’s hipper urban suburbs without seeing young fashionistas sporting NB shoes. But for those sitting in the Boston HQ, that success would have been slightly tarnished by the recent ruling that New Balance’s Chinese brand name, XīnBǎiLún, was violating a Guangdong businessman’s trademark.

The differences between Mainland China and Hong Kong consumers are again illustrated in recent travel research by Ruder Finn and IPSOS. Where Mainland Chinese tourists cited various types of shopping as the three most common activities on their last leisure trip, holidaying Hong Kongers weren’t as bothered about visiting a store.