When I first moved to Beijing back in 2000, I went to a talk at a Traditional Chinese Medicine clinic led by the husband of a friend of mine, Alex Tan. What I heard there shattered some of my life-long held dietary convictions. It appeared that the Chinese, for example, did not consider Muesli and fruit as a healthy breakfast habit at all ! The Chinese tradition, heavily focused on balance and constancy as a key to a healthy body, would favor warm foods, easily digestible textures and relatively bland flavors (though sometimes highlighted by pickles or condiments) for breakfast.
It was no wonder for me henceforth, that my clients at work - Western food manufacturers like Nestle and Kraft foods, had some difficulty penetrating the Chinese food market. This is also what sparked my interest, as an advertising professional, in cultural consumer insight.
The talk on Nov 6th will focus on cultural insight and food marketing : the importance of cultural insight when localizing products, as well as local foods going global.
TO GET YOUR TICKETS : https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cultural-insights-and-marketing-tickets-48269215523
Felicia Schwartz has pursued an international career in branding working for global communication agencies Ogilvy and Dentsu. Her work took her to China, where she spent 13 years and specialized in strategic planning and consumer insights.
Currently based in London, Felicia helps brands and companies understand the Chinese consumer through cultural insight research and achieve effective business objectives through cross-cultural communication training. She has experience across a number of sectors such as automobile, luxury, cosmetics, retail and fast moving consumer goods.
Felicia is a graduate with Dean’s list merits, from Duke University in North Carolina, USA. She obtained her Master’s degree from Sciences Po, the prestigious Institute of Political Science in Paris, France.
Serdar Patkin is a semiotician and strategist providing brand semiotics, concepts and meaning as well as creative strategies for communication at PAKT insight+imagination. As Co-founder of Temaset Event Agency, he takes part in creating gastronomical movie experiences under a multi-sensory format: Tasty Cinema. He worked as a cultural/political editor for magazines such as Arena and Luxury Files, and contributed as a writer to GQ, XOXO, Akşam, Yeni Harman, and Perspectives magazines among others. His articles have been published in academic books such as Internet and the Streets and Inter@aktivist. He speaks and trains at conferences and private training institutions. He also teaches 2 courses at Kadir Has University, “Online Reputation Management” and “Communication for Social Good”. Serdar received his Bachelor’s Degree from the American Studies Department of Dokuz Eylul University in Turkey and studied for his Masters as a Fulbright scholar at The New School for Social Research in New York.
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