Live Issue... Up for a fight? The 2010 battle lines are drawn

Last year saw brands across Asia squaring up to win consumers’ hearts, minds and - most importantly - disposable incomes.

Battles raged across a variety of sectors, notably the cola wars in China with Coke and Pepsi’s Beijing Olympics head-to-head continuing throughout 2009. This year should prove no different with factors such as the recession and growing consumer empowerment set to result in brands competing with one another even more fiercely.

In China, battle lines will be drawn around the upcoming Shanghai World Expo. “Brands are finding a multitude of ways to be involved, whether as official sponsors, pavilion sponsors or simply through related messaging,” says Seth Grossman, managing director of Carat China.

And it is not just corporate and B2B brands which will look to capitalise on the occasion. “You have the indigenous brands such as Shanghai’s Bank of Communications leveraging the event with their own Expo credit card, as well as global brands like Coca-Cola who have successfully linked to Chinese occasions such as the Olympics or Chinese New Year in the past,” adds Grossman.

Looking beyond the Expo, Ross Gearing, MD at Rapp China, expects the car and luxury sectors to be combative in 2010. “The car companies will be very active as they try to maintain their gains after the Government stimulus package subsidies dry up. Luxury product sales have slowed but are still positive and will fund continued marketing spend. Expect the global brands in these sectors fight to expand into the second, and possibly fourth tier cities.”

Craig Briggs, managing director at BrandImage, concurs that these two sectors - both in China and across Asia - will be fiercely contested during the coming 12 months. “More hybrid and electric vehicles will appear. So brands will look to entice consumers back into the market, and when they arrive, find out if they’ll pay more for ‘greener’ technology.” Briggs also believes the luxury sector is in a state of upheaval, which in many cases will result in the drawing up of battle lines.

“Luxury is being redefined as unique instead of expensive and this is how the brands are attempting to differentiate from one another. Pop-up shops and limited collections will battle established boxes and global lines of fashion. It’s not how much it costs any more; it’s how hard it is to get it.”

Telecoms will be another sector in which clashes will occur across Asia, with both networks and handset providers striving for increased market share. But as penetration has grown significantly - almost to saturation point in a number of markets - service providers will offer consumers better deals to encourage them to upgrade. Number-portability, particularly in India, will make retention a key challenge for the existing players. While the networks scrap, the BlackBerry versus Apple confrontation is unlikely to abate, with both offering more smartphones - notably the iPhone in China - to consumers across the region.

While this battle will rage on, so too will the ongoing clashes between the likes of adidas and Nike, and Coke and Pepsi. Briggs predicts that Coke will create some new rivals in 2010, following the introduction of its vitaminwater brand. He explains: “It will make a lot of noise across Asia, wooing health-conscious consumers to try a functional water, and challenging brands across multiple categories such as teas, waters and juices.”

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This article was originally published in the 14 January 2010 issue of Media.