Pacific Epoch retail analyst Marie Jiang caught up with Tor Petersen, the CEO and Founder of Eno, a creative lifestyle fashion brand that targets 18-24-year-old Chinese customers with its innovative designs. Petersen is the co-founder of Zou Marketing, China’s premier sports marketing agency, and previously worked at both NIKE (NYSE:NKE) and Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) doing China manufacturing, operations, marketing, sports marketing and Asia-Pacific branding.

Why did you choose to leave your previous positions, as a professional manager in Nike and Coca-Cola, and go out on your own as an entrepreneur?

When I joined Nike in China in 1990, they were in the process of setting up their business infrastructure and were much smaller than they are today. I enjoyed the process of building the ship and solving problems during the early stages of the business. When I eventually decided to start my own business it just felt like the right thing to do.

“Eno” – the brand is “One” in reverse. Can you tell us more about the origin of the name?

Exactly, eno is “one” spelled backwards. We felt that the word eno could reflect the dual meaning of “one”. “One” can mean one individual (a focus on individualism) or one group (a focus on collectivism). We think this concept accurately reflects the character of Chinese youth today. Chinese youth crave individualism, but can’t live without a group. “One” is so commonly used across sectors as a slogan that the law actually prohibited us from registering it as a trademark; that’s one reason we chose “Eno.”

How do you see Eno’s position in the future?

I believe that casual fashion will be the fastest growing apparel sector in China over the next few years. Nike entered China in 1985, and the sports market began to develop in the early ’90s. Fashion has lagged far behind the sports sector, with brands like H&M, Zara, Vans and others beginning to enter China only in the last few years. Even though new brands like H&M, Zara, Uniqlo, Vans, Quiksilver and others have partially filled up the vacancy in the market, China still doesn’t have many youth fashion brands, and both retailers and consumers are demanding that they have access to more choice in this sector. We believe that Eno is well-positioned to expand as the overall casual fashion sector grows as a percent of the apparel market in China.

Do you agree that one of Eno’s main characteristics is originality?

Yes, the Eno brand is characterized by originality. We started the brand to tap into China’s growing music, arts, fashion and extreme sports culture, and keep the brand rooted in these worlds in order to build the brand culture and identity. However, we don’t want to be a niche brand targeting a niche market. We are scaling the brand nationally, and position the brand to be a commercial success, while maintaining our creative base. In the next few years, Eno will mature its current design to target a larger audience, beyond just 18- to 24-year-olds.

Who are your target consumers? What sets them apart?

Our target consumers, China youth, share one common characteristic: individualism. China’s one-child policy has made this group comparatively individualistic and given them their own point of view from which to understand the world. This generation has more access to information through the internet and is more exposed to the outside world than their parents, who suffered to some degree from the Cultural Revolution.

Moreover, the younger consumers are, the more communicative they are with the rest of the world. Generations born in the ’80s, ’90s and especially the ’00s communicate with people around the globe without any prejudice. These are the consumers that Eno seeks to target.
Young Chinese consumers are evolving all the time. How do you catch trends?

We paid special attention to design even in the brand’s initial stages. Other brands start with distribution and only begin to emphasize design once they have a nationwide sales network in place, but I believe that good design is indispensable for a fashion brand preparing to go nationwide.

In order to predict new trends, we first employ a group of young designers, who live in the same culture and have the same tastes as Eno’s target consumers. Second, we look closely at the global trends that impact Chinese fashion. The Chinese fashion market is unique. Styles from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Europe have an overwhelming influence; there are some styles that become outdated in other markets but will remain popular in China, while some fashion styles become popular quite quickly in China, but fade fast. Eno watches global fashion trends closely and determines which trends are most attractive to youth in China.

What characteristic do you value most for your designers?

For an Eno designer, the most important thing is the thought process behind the design. Many designers in China view design as simply completing a task, whereas Eno designers should first learn how to conceptualize their ideas before designing a product.

How many points of sale does Eno have now, and in which cities? What is your expansion plan?

Eno currently has more than 40 points of sale in China, including cities such as: Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Harbin, Shenyang and Changchun. We are focused on expanding our presence into second and third tier cities via a franchise/retail operator model. We expect to open 50 new franchise stores in 2010, and plan to have more than 600 stores across China by 2013.

Which cities have the fastest growth? Eno doesn’t have many locations in southern China. Do you have plans to enter markets like Guangzhou?

We’ve found that our northern district is growing the fastest, while eastern China ranks second. For this reason, our team has created specific designs that cater to northern people’s figures and tastes. As for the south, markets like Guangzhou are hypercompetitive and heavily influenced by Hong Kong. Eno plans to first focus on high growth areas in China such as the North region, East region and certain fast growing cities in the West such as Chengdu and Chongqing, and then focus on entering the south region with the support of a strong presence throughout China.

What are the biggest challenges to Eno’s development?

The most challenging thing for Eno has been establishing our distribution network. As China’s retail market is largely single brand led, there are not many multi-brand retailers for our products. In order to scale the brand, we have had to build a single brand franchise network, which requires a full range of products to fill out a store, a unique and well-executed retail format and product that is tailored to the local market. Entering the China market is difficult for any brand, but as a start up with limited resources, building a distribution channel can take time, as the market is highly fragmented and regionalized. Although building our distribution network was a challenge when we started the company, now that our retail format is established and we have built a strong sales team, the single brand retail format will allow us to rapidly scale the brand across China.

Check it out, we (eno and enovate) are the 8th most innovative company in China according to Fast Company and their annual list of innovative companies. I remember reading this list a year ago when we started enoVate and thought to myself that these were the companies we wanted to be working with as change agents in their industry. Not only are a lot of these companies on the list again in 2010 (Huawei, Alibaba, Baudu) and we have met with a number of them this past year, but we and our sister company eno also made the list! Congrats to everyone on the team.

On Friday, January 29^th, 360quan.com hosted their 90后潮流先锋榜 (post-90’s generation pioneering trends list) awards ceremony in Beijing. Actor Li Chen emceed the event featuring stars such as Jade Liu Li Yang and Yico Zeng, who came to receive their award and perform for the cheering crowd of Chinese teenage fans from all over China.

These same cheering teenagers and their peers voted on actresses, actors, artists, bands, brands, musicians, and works of art of various types for their influence and pioneering abilities in their respective industries. In collaboration with Mogo, 1626.com and YOHO!, 360quan.com invited their post-90’s generation members to vote within two categories, one for most ‘pioneering spirit’ and the other for ‘must have’ product or brand.

eno won the award for ‘must have independent brand.’ Among the list of ‘must have’ were: HP (notebook), Samsung (mobile phone), ONLY (women’s apparel), Adidas (sports apparel), New Fei Fei 新飞飞 (Netease’s 3-D online game), YOHO! (e-commerce site), Twice (jewelry accessories) and Mito Xiu Xi 美图秀秀 (image processing software).

Here’s who they voted for pioneering spirit: Jade Liu Li Yang 刘力扬 (singer), Xiao Song Jia 小宋佳 (actress), Lucky Monkey 跳猴乐队(fusion punk band), Shi Yan Fei 施艳飞 (up & coming actress), Chang Si Si 常思思 (up & coming folk singer), Zhang Xiao He 张小盒 (online character), Chen Chen 陈晨 (written work). And here’s who they voted for the pioneering spirits of the post-90’s generation (meaning they were actually born in the 1990’s): Yico Zeng 曾轶可 (singer), Li Chen 李晨(TV host), 杨紫 Yang Zi (pop star), BY2 (Singaporean music duo), Caffiene (band), Ai Shui Shui 艾水水 (TV & Film work).

360quan.com is China’s fastest growing social media network for post-90’s generation youth. With close to 25 million registered users, 360quan.com is devoted to providing an online home for people with similar interests, online clans, and super-connectors. The platform provides all the basics of an SNS, including personal space, blogs, music, videos, photo albums, games and other multimedia services and content. Their users have a distinct urban youth culture; they are the hip-hop artists, the make-up stylists, the snowboarders and the parkour clubs that  are leading China’s youth revolution.

Once again thank you 360quan.com and special thanks to our post-90’s generation fans!

]]> http://enovatechina.com/blog/post-90%e2%80%99s-chinese-youth-vote-eno-as-a-%e2%80%98must-have%e2%80%99-brand/feed/ 1 http://enovatechina.com/blog/as-gap-prepares-to-enter-china-old-navy-copycats-abound/ http://enovatechina.com/blog/as-gap-prepares-to-enter-china-old-navy-copycats-abound/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:59:07 +0000 Renee http://enovatechina.com/blog/?p=1366

In a recent market visit to one of Shanghai’s highest quality department stores, Japanese run SOGO, I saw an interesting new store on their fourth floor. The fourth floor is dedicated to young and contemporary brands, and typically does really good business in the high traffic area of Shanghai’s Jing An temple. Brands on the fourth floor include: Evisu, Adidas Originals, Replay, Levi’s, Izzue, Vans, Calvin Klein, Keen and many other well-known international brands. All of the stores looked good, and the quality of visual merchandising and store concepts are excellent in the mall. However, right next to Vans, there was an Old Navy store (or so it seems…) that looked a little out of place.

I first noticed the store, as I had recently read that GAP was planning to enter the China market in 2010, I thought perhaps this might be a trial store for Old Navy prior to GAP’s official market entry. Upon further inspection, I noticed a few odd things: the logo is not actually the Old Navy Logo, the hang tags misspelled United States and every piece of clothing had the words, San Francisco New York under the main label (last I checked, Old Navy is from San Francisco, but not New York).

The clothes in the store did resemble the Old Navy style, even if they were a bit off the current Old Navy style. The advertisements showed happy American looking consumers, and the copy on them proudly stated that Old Navy is a brand run by the famous American Brand, Gap, and the size labels stuck on each garment look identical to the ones used at Old Navy stores. The store staff were a bit surly, but really no different than any other store staff in the mall. As a long time Old Navy customer in the US, I was convinced that this could not be a real Old Navy store, but what about Chinese consumers who have never set foot in one of Old Navy’s youthful store concepts in their life, nor seen the famous campy Old Navy advertisements? How are they to know whether this store is real or fake?

This story demonstrates some of the potential pitfalls foreign brands may encounter when entering the China market. We also have indications that popular global streetwear brand Stussy, also has had its complete clothing line and brand replicated in a knock-off store along Shanghai’s popular Changle Road. One certainly expects that there will be both knock-off and copy-cat products in China, and one is also not surprised to see copy-cat stores pop-up in some of the lesser known malls, especially in third or fourth tier cities. But, most people don’t expect such a blatant rip-off of a brand concept in one of Shanghai’s top department stores in the center of town.

The following post was written by Renee Hartmann. She is the COO of Shanghai clothing brand, eno, as well as a Strategic Director for enoVate. For a Chinese perspective on the causes of this phenomenon from enoVate contributor Ren, please click here.

We’re proud to be mentioned in this article and excited about all of our existing and future projects. Read below for the paragraph about enoVate.

Meanwhile, Eno is growing another revenue stream through a separate consulting business, Enovate. Launched earlier this year with five employees, Enovate has already been hired by the likes of Ticketmaster (TKTM) and shoemaker New Balance to provide youth market research, as well as to help design and develop products for the Chinese market. Not bad for a company that has grown by trial and error.

Yup, not bad at all.

Our focus is bringing a core group of people from our collective networks together who have a shared interest in solving problems and rethinking tech, business and sustainability. We come from different sectors, cultures and countries. We’re angels, entrepreneurs, photographers, media, artists, writers, professionals and executives. We all have our passions and our interests. At our best, we define ourselves more by the ideas we share and the impact we want to make rather than the business cards we carry.

Confirmed guests and speakers include:

Invitation is intentionally limited to 200 participants to ensure the quality of the networking over the 4 days so please follow the below link and register for your pass asap.

http://rethinkhawaii.eventbrite.com

If you enter enovate in the promo code, you can get 35% off the ticket price – yahoo!

We will post more on the upcoming conference, and will be part of a China group braving the weather to go to Hawaii for the conference. If you are interested in joining us, please email renee@enovatechina.com, as we hear there may be some travel deals in the works.

More to come……..

Art! Mart! Music! Creative! Fun!

Get ready for some creative fun coming your way this month courtesy of our friends, neocha. As well as housing a sizeable flea market, the Creative City event will play host to a wide range of design groups, artists, musicians both performing and interacting with guests. Naturally, eno will be there with cool new products and activities, so make sure you get down for what promises to be a great event.

Creative City gets under way on Oct 16th and will be open every weekend until Nov 8th at the KIC event centre.

The event is free and all art supplies are provided!

Event runs: Saturday (9/5) and Sunday (9/6) 11 am to 6pm.

Currently, they are seeking a talent who can help manage eno online via providing social media expertise and strategies.

Position: Social Media Manager (Shanghai)

Description:

eno offers a unique working environment for a prospective candidate. eno is a rising lifestyle brand made specifically for the China market. We do a lot of work with artists, musicians, and other creative youth and now it is time to promote this even more online through various social media platforms. We want to build eno’s brand online and provide valuable content to its fans.

The ideal candidate will have experience developing strategies for brands using social media sites.This requires understanding branding, marketing, and how the Chinese youth are using the Internet.

Requirements:

• 2-3 years relevant experience
• In-depth knowledge of all Chinese social media platforms with a strong presence online, including a group of dedicated followers on their SNS, blog, etc.
• Previous experience building social media strategies
• Ability to identify creative ways for brands to interact on SNS
• Good relationship with some influencers and/or experience in identifying & recruiting influencers.
• Experience in dealing with communities. Understand the approach to cooperate with communities and those forum administrators.
• Good at Chinese/English copy-writing, be able to create viral content and topic. Ability to edit picture and video can be a plus.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in Mandarin and English required

If you are interested in applying send a cover letter, resume, and any blogs/bbs/SNS sites you belong to or manage to john at eno dot cn

(thanks to our friend Jason for also posting this on his awesome site about social media, IN2Marcom)