Influx

A great slide from Hugh Hendry's presentation that shows just how tough it is for steel companies to make money. Hendry points out that because of this situation China's Wuhan Oil and Steel has been forced to diversify to such an extent, that it's now selling wine and olive oil.  Posted by Ed...

The Economist in it's usual style, had a great piece in last week's issue on the current state of America, suggesting that the country can emerge from the current economic malaise, stronger, if it does certain things right. One real highlight of the piece was a great dose of reality concerning...

The latest McKinsey Quarterly is a special China edition. It has some great articles including a piece on the future of China's cities. The scale of here is quite incredible- McKinsey's Global Institute predicts that if country trends continue China's cities by 2025 will break down into the...

The National has an amazing story about the South China Mall. It was planned to be the world's largest and it now sits under-used (planned to house 1,500 stores and currently has just 12), the victim of a dream that failed to materialize. Many speculators had big plans for China and wanted to...

McDonald's Chinese workers get their own branded jeans. Via McChronicles. Posted by Ed Cotton

In their original incarnation, brands were signifiers and guarantees of quality, something consumers could rely and depend upon. In the later part of the C20th, two forces emerged that changed branding.The first was the drive by marketing experts and ad agencies to suggest that brands needed...

The great Core 77 has a chat with photographer Edward Burtynsky and the film maker Jennifer Baichwal who made Manufactured Landscapes, the film about Burynsky's work and his recent trip to China. There is no film that quite captures the contemporary scale of China like Manufactured Landscapes.The...

Crocs have been a fashionable thing to write about recently,I wrote a post a few days ago, Rob Walker wrote his Consumed column about them, so I am sure people are sick of hearing about the ugliest brand of shoes in the world. However, this isn't really about Crocs, instead it's about an email I...

Some interesting research from the University of Chicago on cultural differences. Asia thinks about "we" and America thinks about "I"."Keysar believes the Chinese students had an easier time understanding the director’s perspective because they come from a more collectivist society than their...

...it actually wasn't meant rhetorically in a recent survey by the Pew Center in Washington.The conclusion was that there is a 14% increase in the proportion of Americans who say environmental problems are indeed a major global problem (23% in 2002 to 37% in 2007). U.S. concern is low when looking...

Almost overnight, Chinese goods have crept into our lives, so much so, we’ve become dependent on them.It’s likely consumers used to believe big brands who manufacture in China and those retailers importing from China, operated some kind of quality checks. We also probably never thought...