about enovate

Traditional methods just don’t work here. The sheer size of this demographic no longer guarantees success. Chinese youth are bombarded with countless brands, stale campaigns, and half-hearted attempts everyday. The market is saturated. The fact is: an innovative approach grounded in a proper understanding of Chinese youth is the key to success. We can help.

Founded in late 2008, enovate was born from this global demand for a better understanding of China’s emerging consumer. Our founders — John, Tor, and Renee — have called China home for a combined three decades; during which time, they’ve obtained an intimate understanding of this powerful consumer. Over the years, they’ve worked with countless brands, investors, and agencies to build better relationships with Chinese youth. enovate is the culmination of their experience and passion for China’s youth cultures.

As a young company in a fast-changing market, we have tremendous freedoms. We’ve done away with many industry norms to arrive at a unique approach — one that places China’s youth consumer at the center. For us, everything starts with understanding this group. That’s why much of our time is spent on-the-ground, actively engaging youth. Every aspect of enovate has been developed to combine these local flavors with a global perspective.

Our Office. Large research agencies are far from the market, disconnected from youth. Our office is where the youth are: the streets of Shanghai, coffeehouses of Wuhan, punk rock venues of Chengdu, and whitewashed restaurants of fourth tier cities. But don’t worry, we also have a fancy lab to analyze our findings.

Our Team. From day one, we’ve worked hard to assemble a team of local and global experts in research and design. Our multi-national, multi-disciplinary team ensures all of our work is grounded in both local and global perspectives.
See our team here!

Our Process. We start and end with the consumer. By drawing insights from our expansive network of local youths, we help brands cement strong and beneficial relationships with them.

what we do

Here’s a summary of what we do. It’s an almost tragic simplification, but we thought keep it simple for now. For a broader scope of our capabilities, please see below.

In-depth research. First, through our network of over 40,000 local youth, on-the-ground research, and our strategy team, we develop insights and identify trends.

Actionable insights. Next, we take these insights and work with the client to develop a consumer-focused strategy—be it new product development, entry into the market, or a creative marketing campaign.

Intelligent design. Finally, we can see through to execution by using our creative team and our network of partners in the industry. This process of insights, strategy, and design drives bottom line business growth within the China market—a market where great ideas can often fail during the execution phase.