5 Ways Innovation in China Can Help Your Business

Evolving From Factory to Lab to Studio, China Is Becoming a Center for Creativity, Says DDB's Dick Van Motman

by Dick Van Motman
Published: October 28, 2009

SHANGHAI (AdAgeChina.com) -- Most people believe China is the factory of the world, a sweat shop where quantity, rather than quality reigns. But China is developing fast from being the world's factory to a place at the cutting edge of technology, creativity and innovation.

What are the implications and opportunities of this transformation for western companies?

First, don't look at innovations found in China as unique to that market. Figure out how they can be transplanted back to more developed markets.

An example is Electronic Arts, one of the world's leading game designers.

The company has adopted its free-to-play model in China for the global launch of its Battlefield Heroes online game. Playing the game is free, the revenue comes from optional micro-transactions for buying merchandise like avatar weapons and costumes.

A second possibility is creating in China, for the world. Not as a goods factory or even as a cyber farm handling coding and programming for western companies like Microsoft Corp. But by creating ideas, concepts, designs, art that leverage the melting pot of nationalities now found in China's largest cities.

An example of this is a company called Cmune, a 3D social platform founded in Beijing two years ago by a combination of western and Asian executives such as Ludovic Bodin, Shaun Lelacheur, Yong Joon Hyoung and Benjamin Joffe.

A truly multicultural company, it launched Paradise Paintball, a browser-based 3D multi-player game in November 2008. It was ranked No. 1 worldwide on Apple's Dashboard for two months and became the first 3D multi-player game on Facebook.