Executive message

People who may not be familiar with China tend to label it an immature market. The fact is, many of its major cities like Shanghai and Beijing are at least on par with the world's most developed cities. When this market chooses to embrace a concept, it does so at breakneck speed. Today, it has more mobile phones than fixed lines, ranks world second in the number of internet users, and two thirds of internet access is through broadband.

Similarly, although advertising started in China only in the late 70s, by last year, China had already become the third largest print advertising market, and second largest TV advertising market in the world. In major cities where mainstream advertising clutters every conceivable space, marketers find themselves fighting a familiar battle – more media inflation and declining recall rates.

With globalization comes individualism. Chinese consumers especially those in more mature cities choose how and when they want to receive information. Marketers who stick to strategies and tactics normally applied to immature markets may be in for a surprise. It is for this very reason that TNT introduced its direct marketing solutions to China in 2005.

As a Fortune 500 company with its roots in the postal business, TNT has been in direct marketing for over a quarter of a century. Here in China, we focus on helping marketers to complement their mainstream advertising investment with effective direct marketing.

To do so, we've leveraged our core competency in data to build a unique consumer preference database EYE™ which provides unprecedented consumer insights and targeting precision. Today, EYE™ covers 1 in 5 households in Shanghai and is growing in size in the three other cities of Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

With our end-to-end direct marketing solutions, marketers can now measure the effectiveness of their marketing dollars and accumulate knowledge from which to continuously improve their return on investment. In mature markets like the US and Europe, direct marketing accounts for about 30% of total marketing investment as opposed to 5% in China. In a market where consumers' media consumption habits are fast individualizing, direct marketing can indeed become a powerful channel to prospect, convert and grow customers.

I am sure you are faced with tall orders to capture the huge opportunities that China presents. If you are looking for that edge over your competitors, then leverage direct marketing - while it's still under-utilized.

Eric van den Berg
CEO
TNT Direct Marketing Services