China’s Beauty market is #2 behind the US at US$71 billion (Euromonitor 2020), and it’s expected to be the world’s biggest in 3 years. Chinese women today are notably confident and embrace their own identity and style. Popularly we call this C-Beauty as it competes with the more identifiable ‘J’ & ‘K-Beauty’. ShanghaiZhan welcomes Carol Zhou, Sr. Vice President for Innovation & Investments at Shiseido China to talk to us more about defining Chinese beauty and the big trends for the upcoming year.

In this episode we talk about:

1.  Our newfound stardom as KOLs by hitting over 8000 downloads

2. Carol’s 2022 beauty resolutions

3. Carol’s journey to becoming a beauty expert and having the best job in the business

4. The rise of C-Beauty, beauty diversity & what Chinese women want?

6. Global brands balancing act in China: girl with freckles are to be celebrated

7. The “clean beauty” trend in China: What it is and what it is not

8. “Adjacent spaces”: Shiseido’s innovation growth plans

9. “Medical beauty” & why is it growing so quickly?

10. Global vs. local beauty brands: who is leading where and why?

11. Offline or online? What’s the future of beauty offline as online continues to grow?

12. Are brand stories still important for C-Beauty or is the market still highly imitative?

13. How has Covid affected the China beauty industry?

14. Beautiful men

15. C-beauty in the metaverse. Believe it or not, there’s an App for that! (and yes, metaverse made it into the conversation)

Welcome to Shanghai Zhan, aka. Shanghai Station. The only station in Shanghai’s world-famous metro that only exists as a podcast. Listen to Bryce Whitwam and Ali Zein Kazmi debate with guests on their experiences and aspirations for marketing in China. Bryce & Ali are well connected to China for over 20 years and still work in the industry in Shanghai. They are both fluent Mandarin speakers, with Bryce reading and writing, while Ali gets away with using his thick Beijing accent.

Music: “Bad Cough Syrup by Bryce Whitwam

https://soundcloud.com/bryce-r-whitwam/bad-cough-syrup?si=cfb30a6e0c0e459da78b912bf60825ac