Navigating China’s Rapidly Evolving Consumer Tech and Fitness Landscapes

Hello and welcome to the Rich Robinson Show. I'm your host, Rich Robinson. Over the past 25 years, I've been an entrepreneur, investor, advisor, and professor here in Asia. After nearly a quarter of a century in China, I'm now based here in Bali, Indonesia, the island of the gods.

Asia is my home now.

60% of the world's population also lives here, but I would contend 80% of the world's dynamism and opportunity is right here in the region. On the show, you'll hear candid and fun conversations with some of my friends and colleagues, people I've met along my journey, entrepreneurs, operators, experts that will help you unlock actionable insights around the Asia region and the entrepreneurial agility that actually defines it. This first season, season 1 of The Rich Robinson Show, is titled At the Speed of China. Like, wait for it, at the speed of light. Things happen fast in China, and in this season 1, we're gonna take a deeper look at that. The rapid economic development over the past few decades, as well as the speed and cycles of innovation taking Race all day, every day, right now. Let's go, Jio!

And we are back. Welcome once again to Rich Robinson Show Season 1, At the Speed of China. I am in my base in the Island of the Gods in Bali, Indonesia. And joining me here in the south of the equator is Olivia Plotnik, who is normally based in the Middle Kingdom and is going to share with us her heroine journey in the Middle Kingdom. Welcome, Olivia.

Thank you so much for having me, Rich.

Wonderful. I'm really glad there's a lot more people that have taken the red and white pill, as it were, the Indonesian flag, and come down here to warmer climes, 8 degrees south of the equator, and kind of splitting time between here and the Middle Kingdom. And I was very pleased to hear that you were part of that exodus.

Yes. It's hard to stay away from somewhere so warm and beautiful, right?

Bali is a very, very special place. I just had my 4th anniversary after a quarter century in China, and you're still spending time in China. Tell our listeners out there what you're working on, you know, day to day, and then we'll go back to your origin story, please.

Yeah, so I work in marketing and communication, particularly in the field of social media, China social media. I run a social media marketing agency which is based out of Shanghai. We help foreign brands with their social media in China. So everything from strategy to account management, if it has to do with social media, that's what we're doing. So we produce a lot of content for brands. We also produce a lot of content, thought leadership, just coming out of our own agency about consumer trends, what's happening with the different social media platforms in China. So all of this keeps us pretty busy on a day-to-day basis. In addition to that, I'm also in the process of writing a book about marketing in China. Hopefully coming out later this year. So keep an eye out for that one.

Fantastic. Excellent place to put a flag and build a business around. Can you share the types of clients and maybe the names of some clients that you work with?

Yeah, mostly we work with B2C brands. And one of our biggest clients actually is a very popular app worldwide. It's called Notability. So it's an app for iPad. You might've heard of it. Note-taking app. They're really popular in China. They, I think, entered the market around 10 years ago, and about 3 years ago, we launched all of their social media channels in China. So WeChat, Xiangsu, Douyin, we manage for them. We manage their influencer outreach. They're a really fun client to be a part of, really great to produce content with. And so we've, we've helped them grow across different social media verticals.

That's great. That's also unusual. There really aren't that many apps that have come into China and able to defend their moat and Continue to be successful. So that's quite remarkable.

Yeah, it's something that we deal with them a lot, actually. There's a lot of copycats. Obviously, there's a lot of people, you know, posting hacks around because they're subscription-based models. So a lot of people like to post hacks, you know, how to get around the subscription or, you know, copycat models. And so that's something that our team tackles every day. But I think something really unique about the brand and something that we've really thrived with them as a client is building a very strong community around their brand. And it's something that I'm working on right now, actually, in the book that I'm writing, is this whole idea of brand building versus sales in China. It's a really interesting concept. I think a lot of brands go into China with this push to sell, sell, sell as much as you can and kind of neglect almost the brand building side. And that's really where we come in, creating the content and understanding what consumers are going to resonate with and what's going to really build that long-term relationship with them.

Fantastic. Love it. How long have you been running the agency now?

It's been a little over 4 years. I started it in 2019. I left Ogilvy and I thought, you know, what's the worst that could happen if I started my own business? And it's been going, you know, I can't complain since then. It's been going pretty well. It's been quite an adventure.

Even though it's going well, it's still much worse than you thought, right? Because of course it's always It's always, doesn't matter how delicious the sausage tastes, don't go into the sausage factory. The sausage factory is always a mess, right? And those 4 years, you've really had probably something like 16 years. That's my thesis. 4 years outside of China is a year inside China. So you've compressed a decade and a half.

The pandemic threw a fun curveball in there as well. Not something that I was expecting 6 months into starting my own agency. But I'm a sucker for a challenge. And so it's been really rewarding, I can say. And I have an incredible team in China, which there's no way I would be able to do any of this without them. So I really owe everything to them.

Yeah, that's one of my biggest takeaways is how strong Chinese people are in terms of being able to contribute. It's just amazing. It's really remarkable. Let's go back to the origin story. Tell us about your path. to China? What brought you to the Middle Kingdom and where did you grow up and what's that kind of thread to now?

I'm from Oregon in the US on the West Coast. And in high school, my high school is actually one of the first ones to offer a Chinese program, Chinese language program. And at the time I was taking, I think I was taking Spanish and Latin. And when Chinese became available, you know, I, I knew nothing about China really. And I just thought, wow, that sounds Really difficult and it sounds like it's going to set me apart. No one else is doing it, so sign me up. Those are kind of the guiding principles that I've had throughout my life. But I started studying when I was a sophomore in high school, and I had the opportunity to come to China with a group of students through a government-sponsored program. 2007 is actually when I made my first trip to China. And this podcast is about the speed of of China, right? So 2007, I came to China. It was the first time actually that I had left the United States, first time out of the country. So I had no idea what to expect and it was completely different, you know, even though it was a kind of a government-led operation. So obviously what we did see were definitely the highlights. You know, you could tell that there was just this incredible energy and the pace of things. And we were high school students ranging from 15 to 18 years old, spent the summer traveling around China, spent 2 weeks in Kunming, which at the time in 2007, you know, there was not a lot there. So we spent about 10 days at a university there and, you know, talking with the students. And at night we would sneak out and go to some nightclubs. Sorry, Mrs. Hunter, our chaperone. Nothing bad happened, but it was just the freedom and the energy to be able to experience that, that was so incredible at the time. And when I think back about that, it was such a unique time to be able to have that snapshot of China. You know, everything— there was no WeChat. Basically all of the digital platforms that are ubiquitous in daily life today in China Really did not exist or were not even close to being mainstream at that time. I came back to China in 2012 to study in Beijing when I was in college. I studied at Beijing Yuyan Daxue, and it was 2012. WeChat had just launched a year prior, and so people were saying, "Okay, you know you need to get on this messaging platform," but it was still just that messaging. You know there were no mobile payments. I think you probably still remember the feature where you could. Shake your phone and it would give you people around you who you could add and things like this. But cash was still used. You know, people weren't using debit cards. I remember being extremely sick by myself and I had to go buy water, right? And so it was middle of winter, Beijing, freezing, had to walk, you know, 10, 15 minutes, bundle myself up. Walk down the street, go to an ATM, get cash out so that I could then buy water at the bottom of my apartment complex. 3 years later, coming back to China, I could have been laying in my bed and ordered through my phone with just a few clicks and I would've had water delivered right to my door, basically. And so the speed at which things have changed is just incredible, just within those kind of I think timelines or snapshots that I've been able to experience. So I went to university in Beijing, went back to the US for a couple of years, and then came back to China in 2015. And I started working in marketing for an agency, small agency at first. And at that time we were helping international brands come in. And a lot of what we were doing was helping them with their website at that time. And also WeChat. Were kind of the 2 primary channels that we were working with. Nowadays, I think it would be very rare for an agency to say, hey, let us set up your China website. Now there are so many apps and different platforms, but I think coming back in 2015 and starting to work in social media at that time was also just really such an amazing time to get my foot in the water because so many of the platforms that are now used today were just starting or just about to really take off. And so my career has really spanned kind of the rise of the most popular social media and e-commerce apps in China today. And I was really fortunate enough to be able to have a role in an agency. And also during that time, while I was living in Shanghai, I was helping to run and grow several nonprofit organizations where I was running their social media accounts. So learning everything from scratch, getting out there, you know, talking to Chinese individuals, producing content around their stories. And so really learning how people respond, how people use social media and e-commerce to engage, grow communities, shop, discover things. And so that was how I got started in my career and how one year in China turned into 2, 3, 4, 5, now going on 8 years.

Amazing. Yeah. Tell us a couple of anecdotes. Like, first of all, you and I met through my lovely wife, Em, because I know that you were involved in all of these women's groups doing their social media, which I think early on in your career is a fascinating and really powerful way to grow out skills and network and make yourself well known in the kind of put a flag in the sand, kind of an expert. I think that's great. Share an anecdote about that and also about kind of bridging the East and West because you're working with these international brands and they have these different expectations and there's China reality and it's much more like cartilage than it is like some sort of smooth bridge. So tell us just some stories around those 2, please.

Yeah, I think one of the more interesting stories, so one of the communities that I was helping to build out was Fit Fam. So it's China's largest free fitness community started in 2015. And when I joined at the beginning of 2016, we were a few hundred members. We had a few, I think, 100 followers as well across our social media accounts. And within one year, I was able to grow those accounts to over 10,000 followers just in my spare time, with of course a great team helping me as well. And that really helped me understand everything from how the backends of all these platforms work to how to produce content, to how to get out there and talk to people and how to translate that into, you know, from an offline experience into online and back and forth again. And one of the really interesting things about Fit Fam as well, and building up that following in that community was I think a lot of brands were also trying to do this at the time as well. You have Nike, you have Lululemon who were trying to build out communities and we actually ended up working with Nike and Adidas because we had done such a great job of building community through having these offline events and through our online presence as well. And so I was able to learn what content resonated with people, how to change that very quickly. We went from being a very international group, so we had at first a lot of people who were coming out to do these workouts with us were foreigners. And slowly but surely, we started getting more and more Chinese participants. And so changing the content, changing how we led workouts, things like this. And really, it was about empowering people to take charge of their own fitness journey. And so learning how to mold our messaging around that for China at a time when health and fitness were starting to become very mainstream in Chinese culture. So that was a really interesting time.

Tell us a little sidebar about that is that I feel like health and fitness have really accelerated as well too. Is that group still going? How big is it now? Do you know?

Yeah, Fit Fam is still going. It's all over the world now and it's in, I believe, 10 or 12 cities around China. And actually in 2018, we developed a mini program, which was monumental in, I think, Helping more people access our workouts, which is another really cool project that I got to be a part of that kind of helped me understand things from the backend and from a very kind of grassroots level about how to actually build out an app within the Chinese ecosystem. And so before we had this app, we were basically registering and signing up people on like events. So they had to enter their email and all their details and they had to go to a website and It was completely not user-friendly. And then we were able to develop this mini program. And there were several people on the team who were instrumental in helping with this as well. But we developed it in a way that was so customer-centric to the community that we were building. And so having things like, you know, counting the number of workouts that you've been to or showing the faces of other people that were also attending the workout and just making it so community-oriented and community-driven within the WeChat platform and WeChat ecosystem. Now, WeChat is a very popular app in China. Obviously, most people will have heard of it. They launched the ability to create mini programs in 2017. Nothing basically happened with those until the end of the year, until really the beginning of 2018.

But then it really happened.

And then it really happened. Now there is No brand in China basically that doesn't have a mini program. A mini program basically is your China website, right? I think we launched ours around September of 2018. So we were still really early to the game. And now I believe there's been over 100,000 users of this WeChat mini program to go on and schedule workouts and sign up for the workout. So it's, it's really been a pleasure.

Originated in Shanghai, the whole thing. Is that right? Amazing. Yeah. So I think the mini program, I mean, I know Telegram is launching that now and I think Elon Musk has an eye on that for X in the future, but once you get a taste of that and everything is integrated within your focused community, but the broader community as well too, then it just becomes so incredibly convenient. And I think Chinese consumers are the most demanding and spoiled in the world by a mile. And it's not even close to what you can experience in other even more advanced places like Japan or the US or Europe, other parts of Asia. It's incredible.

And that's what I think takes a lot of brands by surprise. And again, coming back to your theme of the speed of China, right? When I was saying, when I visited China for the first time in 2007, I signed up for Facebook in a Chinese government university, basically. And Facebook has existed— that was 2007. WeChat didn't launch until 2011. And if you look at the host of features and capabilities that WeChat has developed out, you know, in such a shorter amount of time than Meta has for something like Facebook or even Instagram now, it's just incredible.

Indeed. And I think the other backdrop too is how rapidly society has changed in embracing fitness in China. It was definitely not a thing. It was very fringe. And when I first got there and then even 10 years ago, it was still not mainstream, but I feel like it's become a lot more mainstream. And that's almost the flex in a way. Like you have to show that you're putting time and energy into wellness.

Yeah. I think in 2015, I was living in Kunshan outside of Shanghai. And I remember going for runs around my—

You were living in Kunshan?

Yes. Wow. Who else was living—

why were you living in Kunshan? I've been there once.

It's a beautiful place, Rich. I was living in Kunshan because at the time I made the decision in 2015 to Leave the US and get to China any way that I could. I think I was 23 years old. And the first job that I could get was teaching English for 6 months in Kunshan. So I did a little stint out there, improved my Chinese a lot. Sure.

That's China with a capital K.

That's China.

I think there's one other Law Y there and they're in the witness protection program.

So that was a real experience, but I remember going for runs around my compound, which, you know, middle of nowhere. And there obviously weren't that many Chinese people running around, but there were a few and they would be in jeans and not workout gear, right? Fast forward 2017, this is 2 years later. I did a few marathons and half marathons and 30,000, 20,000 people dressed in every single piece of sports equipment that you could Possibly purchased high-end gear, everything, the special bottle around their waist. And literally, you know, and I'm like, oh, overgeared, totally overgeared.

Yes.

We're, we're doing 42 kilometers. These people could have survived for at least 200 kilometers with all the gear that they've got on. So just the speed at which that really took over habits and consumer behavior and what people are shopping for. And certainly. The pandemic accelerated that even more when people started working out at home and really opened up a whole new kind of vertical for at-home products and at-home workout gear. And so I think that the growth has been really interesting for a lot of sports brands to be a part of.

That's great. And tell us a little bit more about this east-west bridging. I think it's a good positioning for somebody like yourself who's Bicultural, bilingual. I think on one hand, you need somebody to be a Sherpa to help decode what's happening in China and to bring brands in. So I, I'd love to hear an anecdote on that. But also on the other hand too, I think that there is this kind of rapid change in China now that a lot of brands are becoming more localized and maybe international brands are less sort of admired. At least that's in my perception. What would— can you talk a little bit more about that? Like some of the challenges in bridging and then also some of the changes in the market?

Sure. So a part of what I do and what I used to do regularly in Shanghai pre-pandemic, now starting to do more again as people come back in, was talking to a lot of organizations and groups that would bring delegations over to really understand China and what's going on there. And I think one of the most interesting aspects of it and something I tried to highlight was that even if you're not trying to enter China, you're not going to do business there. Just understanding how social media works, how people are shopping, what functions the e-commerce platforms have was really important. And now that's playing out. I was telling people 5 years ago, what's happening now with live streaming, this is probably 5 years away from your market. And so to be able to understand this now, to be able to have a grasp on it is, even if you're not going to do business in China, is going to help you actually do business better in your own market. And so I did quite a lot of work and presentations for groups coming from Brazil about this. And now Kuaishou is very active in emerging markets like Brazil. And so live streaming has become very popular in those types of markets, and those are Chinese apps. And then another shining example is TikTok obviously has entered the US market and global markets, and they have recently introduced TikTok Shop. I was just having a conversation with someone about this yesterday, about the ability and traction people are just starting to get and the opportunities people are just starting to understand that live streaming e-commerce has in these Western markets. And so it's been, I think, really Interesting to watch that really come full circle now of what's happened in China 5 years ago and what was popular is now really starting to become popular in U.S. and European, um, and Latin American markets. So that's been a really cool part of my journey.

Fantastic. Yeah, I have some similar experiences as well too with a lot of organizations, delegations coming to China after having gone Silicon Valley for many years. Looking for innovation, looking for insights, and China's really become this place where they can see the future is already here. It's just unevenly distributed, and there's a lot to be learned from China, and being able to effectively channel that to people is is pretty powerful. I was back in China a number of times last year, right after it opened up in March. I still teach at Peking University. I taught my ninth year at the Guanghua. MBA program. I teach a course, Entrepreneurship in China. So I was back for an extended 2 weeks in December, and I was in Shunyi in northeast Beijing. And 2 things that I really noticed is, number one, there's a lot of Meituan robots on the road. I was driving my old minivan. My friend who I sold it to let me borrow it, and I was doing 40 kilometers on the road, and there's these 3 different fairly large robots, smaller than a smart car, but quite big 4-wheeler going 40 kilometers an hour next to me going all different directions, right? I mean, that's a big change. But I also noticed on the road fewer Teslas and a lot more local EVs. And in some ways I feel like there's a little bit of a change where there's a lot more local competition, not just in the EV market, but Across the board and what are you experiencing?

Yeah, something similar. I think when I've been in China the past times this year, the number of EVs on the road is astounding. And like you said, it's not just Teslas, it's tons of different—

What's that logo? I never saw that logo before. I have to take a picture and look it up. I don't even know what car that is, right?

Exactly. I think more than any other city that I've been in over the past 2 years all over the world. The amount of EVs in China is just staggering, which is really cool to see. And to your point about local brands, that's not just something I think in the auto industry, but all across FMCG, automotive technology, Chinese brands are really starting to take center stage, which has been really, I think, a cool thing to watch. There's a few things that I like to think about and talk a lot about too. global brands when they're thinking about, okay, what is the competition? What do we need to be thinking about when we enter the market these days? And domestic brands are certainly something that is top of the list. I think with a lot of the domestic brands though, what has been interesting to watch is they're extremely good at moving fast, right? They can develop and test and put new products to market at an insane speed.

Like, can you give, can you give an example? Do you have any specific case study in mind around that? Put you on the spot.

So I think— I forget the exact name of the fashion brand, but there's a fashion brand that had WeChat group chats, and they had thousands of these group chats available, and they were able to actually poll and ask and talk to their customers really in real time about what types of products they wanted. And within a matter of months, those products were already out to market. And so the time and the speed at which they're able to move is just much faster than an international brand, right? And so that's really appealing to consumers is to be a part of that and to get new products all the time.

You know, it's not, not even about the speed, but it's the speed of collaboration as well too, right? And you feel exactly, you have a horse in the race and you're like, yeah, I'll buy this.

I was actually part of the, the creation of this product that I want and see it.

Yeah.

Obviously coming from an environmental point of view, not the greatest. That's another conversation, but just the speed again, at which these companies are able to put things out. And also a lot of their ability to market a lot better to Chinese consumers than global brands, I think speaks quite volumes to that as well. You know, a lot of the campaigns that have gone viral over the past year, if you think about the one that was Most buzzed about when I was just there a few months ago was the Luckin Coffee and Moutai.

Share that with the people out there in podcast land who may not be familiar with what a crazy combo, but it went, you know, absolutely on fire.

And it also, you know, just shows you the speed and scale at which things happen in China. So basically Luckin Coffee is a domestic coffee brand, which has gained a lot of attention because they've really started to come neck and neck With Starbucks in the past few years, and they've opened thousands of stores across the country, they are really at a much lower price point than Starbucks. So I think when you think about how to compare these, Starbucks offers a very lifestyle concept, right? Where Luckin is, you're ordering a cheap cup of coffee, it's going to get to you quickly. It's not like you go into the store and sit down and meet somebody for coffee and have this experience. It's more, you're getting a coffee and you're going to get it right now. So they've been able to grow quite quickly piggybacking off of this growing coffee culture in China. And what's become really popular in China as well are brand collaborations. And it feels like every brand collaboration is just trying to out-crazy the next one. What is the most bizarre concept we can come up with of 2 things that definitely do not go together?

It's almost as if it would be like a Saturday Night Live sketch or something like that, right? Moutai is like Chinese rice liqueur, right? And it's like, you can get absolutely wasted on it. And it's like super high end, very expensive, but you can also use it to remove wallpaper. Like it's like, it's like so harsh.

And your stomach lining.

Yes. Right. Everything.

Yeah. It's just, it'll clear you right out. You know, just, you got a scratch on yourself. Just pour that over it.

Kahlua and coffee, or maybe even like an Irish coffee. This is like taking like moonshine and like Dunkin' Donuts and like putting it together and it being like an absolute phenomenon.

Yeah, that'll put hair on your chest for sure. So Luckin, this coffee brand, mixed it, you know, they came out with this special and they mixed it with basically this rice wine so you could have coffee. And this is not a Baileys, like This is some strong stuff. I never actually got around to trying it because I'm not a coffee drinker. And, you know, I've had experiences which I would say I don't need to experience drinking motai anymore. I think once was enough. So I was like, at what time of day should I even drink this? You know, do you drink this in the morning? Do you drink this in the evening? Like, it was just a lot going on, but this went completely— Of course. Viral in China, right? And these are 2 domestic brands. So I think on some level as a marketer, this was something really cool to see. It was, you know, these 2 domestic brands producing this kind of insanely popular marketing campaign for whatever it was worth. And they sold millions and millions of RMB throughout the time that it was running and it gained a lot of attention. But Things like this are coming up more and more often. And so I think a lot of people previously would say China is not creative. They have no creativity. Chinese brands aren't creative. But then you have something like this and it shows they're really starting to kind of think outside the box. And you asked a question earlier. I can't remember if I answered it or not, but you're kind of alluding to how are things changing and the fact that there is more competition, the economy has slowed down a bit. And so when I talk to global brands about entering China or driving business results in China, if they're already there, it's no longer about if you're a foreign brand. I think there were many brands that came in from the period of 2005 to, you know, even 2018. That came in at the right time and they got very lucky and the economy was doing very well. And it was, I would say, relatively easy for a foreign brand to just show up, open a store on Tmall, get a WeChat account, gain traction. Now it's very difficult and brands have to be so much smarter about where they're putting their money. You can no longer just open up. a store on Tmall. Customer acquisition costs are incredibly high, and you're going to have so many other touchpoints and able to start driving people to that Tmall store. Having your goals of why you're entering China, a lot of brands are still under the mentality of, I want to enter China because it's a huge market and I just want to test it and see what's going on. You're going to end up wasting so, so much money. You have to be able to think, okay, in 5 years, I'm entering China today and I'm willing to spend at minimum $100,000. And $100,000 is absolutely nothing.

Those are table stakes.

And you're going to have to say, okay, in 5 years, I'm entering today because I want to build a factory in China, or I want to build out a local team in China. You have to be incredibly clear on what your goals are for the next 5, 10, 15 years in China. Because it's just, there's no longer this golden opportunity. There's no longer this, I think, ability for brands to get lucky. You have to be really smart. And, you know, as within any market with an economic downturn, consumers are going to turn to brands and they're going to continue to purchase brands, obviously, that have a great price point, but that they really resonate with. And so now more than ever before, you're going to have to understand who exactly it is in China that you're targeting. And that's another big problem is that China is so massive and it's so diverse that somebody from Shanghai is a completely different consumer than somebody in Beijing or Guangzhou. And I think this is something that is not fully appreciated to the extent by, by most France.

Amazing. Love it. And I think one of the reasons for the book is to let people know that there's a lot to be learned from China. And I think that's what you've shown some delegations, but also coming to China, of course, you should look to make money. You should be very rational and realistic about it. You have to know that you have to invest, but I think there's so much to be learned from the peace and pulse of China. And I think If I look at Starbucks, I think, or Luckin Coffee, whenever I go to China, I always get Luckin. For me, I grew up in Boston, Dunkin' Donuts. I think the coffee is fine. It's very reasonably priced. I think it tastes good, right? But it's incredibly convenient to get it. And I think Starbucks was informed by that. And I think the rest of the world has been really informed through Starbucks China about how to order things on mobile. I think China really—

Convenient.

That, right? Also the way that delivery and e-commerce works in China, the frictionlessness and the speed and the way that it's really the white glove touch as well too. I think that's all going to inform the rest of the world. And if you're not competing in that arena, if you're not in that, you're not a gladiator in that battle, then you're not going to be able to build up the muscles and skills to be able to compete well. And I think that's one of the best reasons to come into China.

Yeah. One that you reminded me of when you're talking about Starbucks and delivery, they just launched a campaign. Actually, we just published on our newsletter this morning about a campaign that Starbucks just launched and came out with because there's this problem they realized with delivery that by the time your coffee gets to you, even if it could be 30 minutes, of course, in China, if you order delivery, it's going to get to you very quickly. Right. But still there was a problem with the ingredients mix, or it's not frothy anymore, or the temperature is a little bit cold. And so they came up with this new kind of system and technology of delivery where they're keeping, and I think they're only doing it with one drink right now, but the way that they, this drink works and that they developed the delivery system was that so that it still remains frothy, the temperature is still ice cold or hot. And it still gets with you within the delivery window, but this is a brand like Starbucks who is continuing to innovate and continuing to say, we probably in China have a delivery and a mobile logistics system set up better than anywhere in the world, but we still need to make it better to be competitive. And so they've come up with this whole new idea and delivery system to solve those pain points even further. Listening to customers' feedback and then implementing it. And so it just shows that brands, even if you have a massive market share, even if you are Starbucks, you have to be continuously innovating to the next level in China.

And that's, it's a forcing function. You talked about running marathons and I ran the Beijing Marathon and Beijing, not exactly the best place in the world to train for a marathon, although the pollution is better, but I also ran the New York Marathon before that, and I remember it was '07, and I could see through the fence on Staten Island all the elite runners, and Lance Armstrong was there. And it was before his fall from grace. But no matter what you want to say about Lance Armstrong, and it's true that he openly admits that he used steroids and other illegal substances, he's a phenomenal athlete, and he just has this incredible genetics. To be able to have his VO2 max at a crazy level. And that was his first marathon. And I learned that at the end of the race and he finished it in 2:59:39. And his idea was, I wanna do a sub-3 marathon. And it was his very first marathon. He hadn't trained properly, but he had 3 pacers with him, 3 different female and 2 males who had all previously won the New York Marathon. And they were just like, stay at our hip. You don't need any supplements. You don't need any water. You don't need a watch. All you need is your singlet and your shorts and your shoes and just run with us and stay at our hip and we'll get you across the finish line and we'll give you whatever. And he's like, I did it.

I finished it.

I did it in my time. And man, I really hated it. I don't think I'm ever going to run a marathon again.

Right.

It was so painful, even for that super elite athlete. My point there is I want to incorporate that into the book somehow without people saying, oh, Lance Armstrong is a cheater and Lance Armstrong is. The point there is that even these elite athletes, even these elite companies like Starbucks, they need to get their ass kicked. They need somebody to pace them. They need to be pushed outside their comfort zone. And that's exactly what China and Luckin Coffee and everybody else is doing. So then China becomes this innovation center for them to be like, what's next? What's next? What can we do? And the consumers are so receptive and the infrastructure is all there. So I think that's one of the best lessons, I think, from the speed of China. It's not that I'm trying to, of course, I love China just like I love America. Joe Wong, this comedian, said, China's my mother and America is my wife. And now I'm hiding in the kitchen because my wife and mother are arguing because my wife and mother both have nuclear weapons. Right. But of course, broadly, I want America and China to get along. But I also want them to compete well too. And I want the West and America to understand exactly what's happening in China, encourage people to engage and not people like, oh, I'm going to get pirated or, you know, I'm going to get copied in China, or I don't want to be able to deal with that hassle of being in that environment. I think it's a completely false premise, right? I think you need to be in China so that you can really, you know, train in that gym.

Yeah. at least having the openness to, regardless of politics, just having the openness to understand what is happening there.

Yes.

And I think that's something that I will take away and something that I am able to approach other markets with is regardless of what's happening, just being open to see how people are living their lives, how they're interacting with companies, how they're using the technology today Is so important to be able to come up with new business ideas or see how markets are moving and see how brands can be taking advantage of that.

Totally. Like you said, I love working with Chinese people. Chinese people are amazing, right? And at the federal government level, everything becomes tribal and impersonal and just ridiculous, right? You know, in the US or Indonesia or China or whatever, right? But on a person-to-person level, wow, it's really amazing. And people need to understand that, I think. And that's one of the, another reason why I'm writing this. So, man, thanks for sharing anything. Any other anecdotes or anything that comes to mind that you'd like to share with people about your experience?

You know, I think just to close it up, like we were talking, be open to understanding what is happening in China and be looking at What's happening now with e-commerce around the world and understand, okay, this isn't something that is new. It's not working. You know, the wheels aren't greased yet for social commerce in the US and Europe, but understanding how that evolved in China.

It's coming.

It's coming. It's definitely coming. It's not going anywhere. And so being open to understanding China, I think, is going to be really important, even if you don't plan plan to enter China or to work with any Chinese companies, it's going to be to your advantage.

That's great. How do people learn more about you, get in touch with you?

Easiest way, LinkedIn. I'm very active on there, so you can connect with me. And we also send out a biweekly newsletter with campaigns or category advice for brands. So I can send you the link for that if you connect with me on LinkedIn.

Wonderful. Olivia, Plotnik, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much. That was wonderful. Really enjoyed hearing about your journey.

Yes, thanks for having me on.

That's a wrap. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Rich Robinson Show, season one at the speed of China. Visit the rich robinson dot com forward slash. Show to smash that subscribe button. Please also go to iTunes or whatever platform of choice, rate and comment. And until next time, thank you very much. Zaijian. Cheers, y'all.