The growing influence of Chinese brands

Continuing from last time, we introduce the top 10 digital trends for 2018 from the "TOP 10 TRENDS" report released by Kara of Dentsu Inc. Aegis Network.

Chinese brands are beginning to exert significant influence in Western countries through investment and acquisitions, as well as by having their groundbreaking ideas adopted by Western companies.

While people in Western countries often discuss GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple) or FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google), the companies to watch in China are BAT: Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent. Tencent recently acquired a 12% stake in Snapchat and may intervene in app development going forward. It also already owns shares in Spotify and Tesla.

China's taxi app Didi Chuxing has invested heavily in Taxify, a new app competing against Uber, which is used across Europe. Musical.ly, one of the apps that sparked the global expansion of Chinese apps, was acquired for over $800 million in November 2017.

But most significantly, Western companies are observing and learning from China's groundbreaking ideas, such as Singles' Day and Lunar New Year celebrations.

Facebook has integrated many elements of WeChat into Messenger, including video calls, money transfers, and Uber app integration (in China, users have been able to hail taxis via WeChat for years).

While debatable, one potentially instructive idea for Western apps is "social credit." This system calculates user credit scores based on social connections and consumption behavior, currently being trialed by Tencent and Alibaba.

Observing BAT's actions to discover new ideas and trends, and seeking diverse partnerships not just in China but worldwide, will be key moving forward.