Weekly Update

The UK Pavilion at Shanghai EXPO:
The Expected Cock Up

Global Crisis Joke of the Week:

Man walks into a bank and asks how to open a small business.

“No problem sir”, says the business adviser, “just open a big business and wait”.

And now the long awaited details of the great Shanghai EXPO 2010 UK Cock Up...

In the midst of the credit crunch, the rather pointless EXPO in Shanghai in 2010 has become a punching bag for just about every issue that runs through British politics, like Brighton runs through rock.

This week’s intro is a little longer, but then the cock up over EXPO is a little dodgier than normal too!

So here are the issues, we love so much, as they relate to the UK’s EXPO shambles:

Troublesome Scots – the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh’s (House of Jocks) has overturned an earlier decision to invest half a million quid for the Scottish element in the UK pavilion at Expo. This has rather upset Lord Steel, the former presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament, who only found out about it when the UK Consul General in Shanghai (herself rumoured to be of the Scottish persuasion) told him, according to the Glasgow Herald. In an argument that will be grist to the mill of the English press, the Scots say they won’t pay but still expect Scotland be represented in the UK exhibit as they already pay through the UK tax base. Now a spat (or as the Scots would probably say a ‘stushie’) has started in the letters pages of The Scotsman. Former First Minister Jack McConnell (who knows Beijing well, and once went for a long stroll and a beer at a certain once notorious Ritan Park bar in Beijing many readers will know – so long in fact he missed his flight to Shanghai the next day!) is trying to get Scottish Nationalist leader Alex Salmond to reconsider. It’s handbags at 10 paces up north over the EXPO.

Disinterested Cockneys and Scousers – The attempt by the pro-EXPOers to interest UK cities in the EXPO has failed ignominiously. The only two to sign up are London (obviously the capital) and Liverpool (a twin city to Shanghai). But London’s participation is far from sure (as previously reported) as Mayor Boris Johnson knows that with the Olympics coming to the wastes of Stratford in 2012 he could well be hung, drawn and quartered if he asks Londoners to fund an EXPO stall in a city most couldn’t care less about. And according to the Liverpool Echo, Scouse councillors are worried too – An internal Liverpool City report reveals that the council plans to put forward an initial £300,000 and expects other partners (i.e. companies) to produce the rest of the cash. But what if the recession-hit partners don’t stump up? The report also notes “failure to attend could result in compensation being paid to the organisers for wasted costs in respect of the provision of exhibition space” (i.e. the council and their taxpayers will get lumped with a bill from Shanghai). To add to the problems Liverpool’s Green Party councillors have questioned whether the money spent will create even one job in Liverpool. As yet nobody has been able to give a good answer to this question. So in a country with roughly 50 cities, only two are interested and both of them have severe reservations.

Jumped-Up Self-Appointed Cultural Commentators – In this case, an old friend of the Weekly Update, Philip Dodd, former head of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), one of the founders of the risible China Now organisation and nasally blocked BBC radio host. Dodd was creative consultant to the UK Pavilion which is being designed by architects Thomas Heatherwick, who’s most famous building to date appears to be a glorified chip shop in Littlehampton (a run down English seaside resort). Dodd wanted to plant seeds from Kew Gardens' millennium seed bank in the building's 60,000 spines and to commission dramas from five British filmmakers to be screened in the structure. Now Dodd has walked out in a huff while UK Trade & Investment and the Foreign Office (the final overseers) have OKed the seeds but nixed the big TVs. This is the second walk out by a creative consultant to the UK Pavilion – Dodd replaced Casson Mann, who walked out in a huff earlier after being accused of failing to come up with a “big idea”.

Lack of Joined Up Government – Huffy creative consultants are perhaps to be expected, but it seems that most people blame the government. Peter Higgins, creative director of the British pavilion at the 2005 Aichi Expo in Japan, told the UK press, “Thomas Heatherwick is a superbly clever designer, but the Government is not managing the process well”. As reported here previously on several occasions the UK has been laggard at best when it comes to the EXPO – late to apply, late to set any sort of budget and late to appoint anyone to oversee the project.

Moody Architects – There’s nothing the UK press like more than moody architects who claim no one understands them. And it seems Pavilion architect Thomas Heatherwick is fulfilling all the criteria – falling out with his team, talking concept rather than concrete, creating an image rather than something useful, etc. Heatherwick wants a low-tech building (hence the nixed TVs) and claims that, “we (the UK presumably) can’t possibly compete with the sort of electrical wizardry that the Chinese can do better than us. [Ed. Wasn’t the computer invented in Manchester?] Whether people understand the UK pavilion is another matter.” Surely people understanding the Pavillion is rather the whole point, dare we suggest its raison d’être?

So Who’s Going to Pay? – British taxpayers, already likely to get clobbered with higher tax bills to host the Olympics in 2012, are not much in the mood to fork out for a trade show in a far away country the tangible benefits of which are far from obvious [Ed. In other words, nil]. Corporate sponsors are hard to find (not just in the UK but everywhere now), and many, even if they have any spare money, are finding it hard to make a good business case for the EXPO given advertising restrictions and a lot of bureaucracy around promotions. Many large corporations have decided to go for their own corporate pavilions to get more control. So where does that leave a UK pavilion with little central government money, virtually no money from the regions, few sponsors and a major shortfall on the US$82mn required funding?

Well, rumour has it that the Shanghai government is offering to loan the UK the funding for the building of the pavilion on a refund basis. Sort of a new version of the sub-prime mortgage, really. As well as being mega-embarrassing to the Brits, the Americans and others don’t like this idea much, as it looks like UK PLC will end up being bailed out by China Inc in order to cover up the almost total lack of interest in EXPO in the UK, and thus save Shanghai’s great ‘coming out party’ from heading straight to the discount bucket. Frankly it’s a shambles.

Bob the Builder Heads to Shanghai – Among all these spats – curmudgeonly Scots, incompetent FCO and DTI officials, politicking metropolitans, huffy creatives, Prima Donna architects and desperate Shanghai officials – is the big problem of resolving all these issues ASAP. The pavilion’s construction is due to start early next year, and so far funding, concept, point and purpose are all up in the air. Expect this mess to run and run.

Thomas Heatherwick: Reluctant ex-smoker with concept hair. 

Philip Dodd: Champion of the smoking jacket, and
the man who threw his toys out of the EXPO pram.

The planned UK pavilion (which we still think looks rather cool – with or without “electrical wizardry”)

And so welcome to this week’s fully interactive, seeded and tastefully-landscaped Access Asia Weekly Update. As well as more about our Youth in China report, we’ve got more recession anecdotes, the Access Asia guide to China’s bankruptcy laws, those dodgy British Business in China awards, the credit crunch hits North Korea and a highly suspect Dutchie brand extension.

New Report from Access Asia
Youth Consumers: A New Date For Your Diaries

That’s diaries, as in the notebook you write your appointments in, not somewhere that molests milk!

This Tuesday was the 11^th of November, when the Western World traditionally observes a minute’s silence in remembrance of the people who died during the utter ghastliness that was the First World War, and subsequent wastes of human life and endeavour. Not so China! Oh no! Thanks to a bunch of students from Hangzhou a few years ago, China has added 11/11 as a new non-official “Day” to its diary.

To compete with the glutinous and embarrassing mess that is Valentine’s Day, Chinese youth now has Bachelor’s Day. This is the day when all China’s sad men, who can’t get a girlfriend because the gender split is so skewed, or because they simply don’t consume in the prescribed way shown in the adverts, will get to do whatever bachelors do when they are feeling a bit lonely. A possible marketing opportunity for the disposable paper products manufacturers, perhaps?

Chosen to be on this day because four “1s” represents singledom (apparently), it is unlikely to be made an official holiday, as with Valentine’s Day, but it will probably develop into a marketing opportunity for someone. Hallmark cards will no doubt find ways to get Mr. Nofriends to buy himself a card celebrating his solitude, whilst we suspect the fast-fat industry will see potential in promotions of special sad-singleton meals, to help these lonely hearts get fatter, spottier and even further removed from a position of attracting a mate.

And, yes, of course there is the inevitable “recent survey”, conducted by the China Youth Daily and Sohu.com, which found that nearly 80% interviewees don't think “bachelordom is the substitute name for loneliness, solitude and boredom”. The survey also found that those singletons interviewed believed that being single provides them with more “independence, freedom and unrestrained life planning”.

Your mind can convince you of anything when you are alone and nobody loves you!

For more about our research into China’s youth, and their various hang-ups, contact us by return e-mail.

Access Asia’s Recession Anecdote Corner

Another 5 recession anecdotes heard this week:

[       The overstuffed China conferences sector is taking a hit as, despite reduced prices, ‘early bird’ discounts and two for ones, getting people to shell out for conferences is getting harder;

[       Among the retailers, footwear stores seem to be taking the hardest hit as people decide to make that pair of shoes last a bit longer than they did last year, or simply go barefoot;

[       Record number of bars offering free food if you keep drinking – promotions offering us basically a free dinner of nibbles if we keep buying the high margin booze are omnipresent now;

[       Freelance journalists are finding work harder to come by and word rates are cut as magazines lose advertising and subsequently cut back their word counts on editorial;

[       Fakes are back in abundance on China’s streets as struggling factories turn to piracy to keep the machines running as the orders fall away.

Dodgy British Business Awards in China
The Results are in!!

We noted previously how the British Chamber of Commerce in China was running what appeared to be a highly suspect British Business Awards competition. We predicted dodginess, and that’s what we got.

CSR Programme of the Year (actually spelt in their email ‘Program’ – which shows how British this whole thing was!!). And the award was given to GlaxoSmithKline.

Could this possibly be the same GlaxoSmithKline allegedly involved in the shenanigans over the UN's oil-for-food programme, and who the UK’s Serious Fraud Office asked to hand over confidential documents to find out what the hell went on? Surely not. And yet it does seem so!

Access Asia’s Guide to China’s New Bankruptcy Laws

(As based on reality rather, than the advice of high paid lawyers)

1.       Switch off the lights;

2.       Lock factory gates behind you;

3.       Run;

4.       Eeerrr, keep on running.

Just How Bad is the Global Crisis?
North Korean Smugglers Unemployed...
That’s How Bad!

It seems the international meltdown is affecting even those bastions that have resisted the evil tentacles of finance capital, such as North Korea. With construction activity slowing in China, and demand for commodities reducing, so cross-border smuggling is taking a hit. For years, desperate North Koreans have been able to eek out a living smuggling timber and scrap metal across the Yalu River to China where there were always hungry buyers. But not now so it seems.

Additionally, China is reducing its import orders from the DPRK and North Korea doesn’t really export to many other places – according to the Institute of Far Eastern Studies, ‘the DPRK have been shutting their doors as a result of the financial crisis.’ These must be the best factories, as most factories in the North would consider themselves mightily honoured to still have doors!

On another DPRK issue, we are also digesting the news that Dear Leader Kim seems to be suffering from a rare skin condition called pixel foot, which causes sufferers’ feet to look pasted-in, alters the cant of their legs’ shadows and obscures features of objects immediately behind them. We wish him a quick and full recovery.

And Finally...
Brand Extensions You Might Not Expect

When is a Dutch electrical appliances manufacturer a motorbike company? When it’s called Phillips and seen in Hangzhou apparently.

It’s a Phillips but so much more than just a teasmade

The Phillips in all its design and colour glory

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