China Developer Couple Gets Visibility

At least two factors are at play that have dramatically increased awareness of the benefits of visibility and building personal brands in Asia. Personal visibility and a strong personal brand help distinguish talented individuals from other competing individuals in a particular sector business, medicine, law, investment banking, or academe for instance. Although Asia is full of opportunity, it is also full of highly talented individuals competing for those opportunities.
The factors that are driving the quest for personal visibility are: 1) integration into the global economy; and, 2) new communications technology that spreads information around the globe instantly. Integration increases familiarity with accepted business practices in target markets. Striving to attain and sustain visibility is one of those practices. New communications technology assures that visibility aspirants have constant access to success stories and evolving practices that they can adapt to their own special circumstances.
In the course of our usual research into visibility, we came across an interesting example of the quest for visibility in Asia that has received quite a lot of attention in the past few months. In involves real estate developers and spouses Zhang Xin and Pan Shiyi. This married couple has built an empire on an acute understanding of their market s desire for celebrity, exclusivity, and class. They ve recently been profiled in The Asian Wall Street Journal and Time Asia.
In a country newly fascinated with glitz and glamour, Ms. Zhang and Mr. Pan have become something novel in China: a hot celebrity couple. i The couple has studied Donald Trump s playbook carefully the U.S. developer that has made personal branding a core business strategy and is among the first in their industry in China to understand the power of personality-driven media exposure for promoting their projects. As a result, they ve opened their lives to the media in a way that few Chinese business people and entrepreneurs until very lately have been willing to do.
The couple is adored by their market not because they have money which many successful entrepreneurs in China now have but because, They have taste, ii according to one budding media personality. Demographically, the couple understands that China s emerging middle-class is looking for something more much more than the standard condos and apartments offered by most developers. They borrowed Japan s Soho (Small Office, Home Office) concept the combination of living quarters and office from Japan, but marketed it as Soho China, evoking New York s Soho art district. iii
Analyzing market expectations, the couple has further refined their value proposition to appeal to Chinese sensibilities. Even if Chinese don t know what they need, we are pretty sure we know what they want, Pan says, sitting in his own airy home in Soho New Town, which feels like a cross between Scandinavian modern and Ming minimalism. It isn t a style copied from the West but a style that represents a whole new China. iv
That s the value proposition. The couple also understands that their non-traditional developments should be marketed non-traditionally, and that they can leverage their own visibility for this purpose. So they regularly produce star-studded events and actively court media to publicize their projects, instead of the usual advertisements and flyers. It s not unusual for Ms. Zhang to sweep into a combination project launch-fashion show and draw attention away from celebrity guests including film stars, business elites, and Western diplomats.
Other brands hoping to appeal to the same demographic help defray costs associated with the events. One recent fashion show was sponsored by Valentino, whose business development manager said she was trying to reach significant people by tying up with Ms. Zhang and Pan. Finally, the couple understands that long-lasting celebrity needs personal as well as business substance on which to anchor, and for Ms. Zhang and Pan, that s family. For many Chinese, the couple represents an admirable balance between work and family. Ms. Zhang tells media that her most prized possessions are her two sons.
Ms. Zhang and Pan are only the latest examples of the effective use of personal brands in business development. Malaysia s Tan Sri Francis Yeoh, YTL Corporation Group Managing Director, early on realized the benefits of personal visibility and non-traditional communications channels. His public relations department sends weekly e-mail blasts to key constituencies that provide updates on Yeoh s latest projects and events.
Over the past several months the charismatic businessman has sponsored The Glittering Show 2004: The Breast Cancer Care s Fashion Show; The Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix Ice Gala, which included an auction to raise funds for tsunami victims; and, a dinner with Formula One driver Juan Pablo Montoya at his exclusive restaurant, Shook! By associating himself with high profile events and other personalities, Yeoh stands out from the crowd. By assuring a steady stream of interesting and credible information, Yeoh achieves high recall among deal makers when opportunities arise.
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i Kathy Chen. China s New It Couple Becomes a Hot Property on Lots of Front Pages: Soho Stars Who Change the Face of Dwellings Are at Home in the Media, The Asian Wall Street Journal, July 22, 2004, pp. 1 and A2.
ii Ibid.
iii Ibid.
iv Hannah Beech. The Bright House: Developer Pan Shiyi is bringing color to China s drab homes and offices, Time Asia, http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/china_cul_rev/developer.html, viewed June 7, 2005.
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing director of TeamAsia and the author of three books on Asian economies and companies. His latest book is Marketing Asian Places, and he is currently at work on High Visibility. Write him at mahamlin@teamasia.com.).