Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Product Placement

Yesterday, @BeijingWithKids on Twitter reminded me of product placement in supermarkets in China. She mentioned that barbecue and pet supplies are next to each other at her local Walmart.

It got me thinking about the second Carrefour that opened in Bao'an district while I was living out there. My friends and I thought it amusing that the foreign food shared its half aisle with dog food--we figured it was Chinese commentary on the taste of foreign food.

I was given a slightly different perspective on this by Imagethief who said that it could be that the Chinese assume foreign pet owners are more likely to feed their pets name-brand pet food (many Chinese feed their dogs table scraps or packaged meats). This idea of product placement would make sense were it not for the fact that I only met one foreign family that owned a dog, and they didn't live near Bao'an.

When I moved to Nanshan, the nearest Carrefour had a much larger foreign food aisle that was surrounded by imported wine and liquor, and next to domestic beer and junk food. That made a lot more sense to me.

2 comments:

Will said...

For posterity I would like to point out that Imagethief's scenarios were offered tongue entirely in cheek. Except for the third one about available shelf space.

Matthew said...

Will, I didn't even mention your French dog owner theory.