JCK Delhi show announced

Just a week after announcing its big new deal in China, Reed Exhibitions is also making moves in India. An announcement from JCK, the company's big Las Vegas jewellery fair, says that JCK New Delhi is set to launch September 28-30, 2006 at the Pragati Maidan expo venue in New Delhi, India. The company will be working in India in partnership with Rajan Sharma's Inter Ads.

Reed currently runs jewellery shows in 9 countries, including Japan (International Jewellery Tokyo and International Jewellery Kobe), the United Kingdom (International Jewellery London), Italy (MACEF), Canada (Jewellery World Expo), Australia (Melbourne Fine Jewellery), France (Bijorhca), Russia (International Jewellery Moscow) and, in the United States, in Las Vegas and New York.

As we pointed out the other day, China remains the big untapped market in this industry where it will presumably end up doing battle with its main rival in this business in Asia, CMP which organises the big September jewellery fair in Hong Kong.

Zinio steps out in Asia

BtoB's online Daily News Alert reports that Zinio is rolling out its digital publishing and distributions systems in Asia in collaboration with Dow Jones and a partner in Thailand, True Digital Entertainment. In markets across Asia where B2B print models are marginal at best, this looks like an increasingly smart move and we expect to see more following if Zinio and Dow Jones are successful.

India celebrates

Bhupesh Trivedi, in his new edition of the Indian Media Observer, makes some interesting observations from an Indian perspective about the likely impact of China's recent crack-down on media investment. China's regulatory environment is now clearly less welcoming than India's and, although the commercial environment in India remains very challenging, many companies are indeed turning their attention in that direction.

We share Bhupesh's instint that:

In some ways, China has always been an uncertain place to do business in...This announcement is expected to significantly influence international publishers' decisions on making larger investments in an emerging economy.

Hugo Martin, ever quick to pick up on the news, has posted an interesting excerpt from Bhupesh's newsletter which makes it clear that English is far from the dominant language when it comes to magazines. For B2b, English is probably still dominant, but possibly not for ever. There were signs, the last time we looked, that local language publishing may become a more interesting trend in the B2B world as well, whether online or in print.

Not rocket science

The British, Australian and Candian Chambers of Commerce in Shanghai are running what sounds as though it has the makings of a fun event. The programme promo itself provides a mini-briefing on the perils of advertising in China:

It’s Not Rocket Science But It Can Be As Dangerous

– things to avoid when advertising in China

Practical advice based on recent case studies and learnings from
Neil Hardwick, CEO China, Publicis

Navigating the legal and political landscape of the advertising world in China has proven tricky for a number of MNC’s entering the market.

In December 2003 Toyota had to pull out two advertisements for its China-made sports utility vehicles following complaints that they were offensive. One of the ads showed two stone lions, a popular cultural symbol, saluting and bowing to the company’s Land Cruiser Prado – an image which some Chinese said was a slight that had hurt their feelings.

Nine months later, Nippon Paint ran into a similar controversy with an ad featuring two dragons entwined on the pillars of a Chinese pavilion. The ad depicted, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, how one of the dragons slipped down after the pillar was given a fresh coat of Nippon Paint.

And most recently Nike has had to apologise for running a commercial in China which offended the country's national dignity. The 90-second advertisement was meant to combine Kill Bill-style martial arts with sassy basketball bravado. US National Basketball Association star LeBron James is shown running rings around the animated figure of a wizened and bearded kung fu master, who resembles the martial arts teacher from Quentin Tarantino's latest movie. In the commercial, the American athlete also gets the better of two women in traditional Chinese attire, and a pair of dragons - considered to be a symbol of China.

Google new China mapping site

Using Google Earth, you can already peek down on the leaders of Chinese Communist Party hanging out their laundry in Zhongnanhai, their secretive compound in central Beijing which was once the Emperor's private garden. Forbes reports now, though, that Google is moving further into the China search and mapping market by linking up with Mapabc.com.

We can only expect the pace of deal making to heat up as the new Yahoolibaba combine begins to flex its muscles and those who have invested so rashly in baidu.com pressure their baby to grow up fast.

FIPP launches its own virtual WMM

Great minds obviously think alike and, just as BLOG discussions on this topic have begun to take off, the international magazine association FIPP has announced it will be launching its own site to support licensing business. At the moment, worldmagazinemarket.com looks as though it is only providing back-up to the physical event in London. There is clearly, though, the potential for FIPP to turn this into the sort of virtual marketplace that Hugo Martin was referring to in his posting last week. We expect to see more activity in this area and a lot of interest in it from Asia.

Katrina's impact

Without wishing to understate the broader human tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and the stark human divides it reveals in the world's wealthiest economy, there are some exhibition and events-industry specific implications to the disaster that has hit New Orleans. The city was one of the major convention and exhibition centres in the country. The US-based association IAEM is tracking developments and beginning to coordinate an industry response for which it should be commended.

Getty Images steps up to the plate in China

In another indication of how signficant China is becoming to a wide range of media companies, we note with interest the announcement of Getty's launching of a China's business. The company says:

Getty Images Inc. (NYSE:GYI), the world's leading creator and distributor of visual content, has launched Getty Images China, a local operation based in Beijing..

The company notes that the full office follows the opening of an editorial presence earlier in the year.
It goes on:

“China is currently the fifth largest market in terms of advertising spending, and is poised to surpass Japan, and become one of the world’s largest advertising markets,” said Jonathan Klein, CEO and co-founder of Getty Images. “As the Chinese economy continues to grow, and with it, awareness of intellectual property rights, it’s clear that China’s strategic importance and potential is a significant long-term opportunity for Getty Images. With a respected and experienced news photography team already in place, this is the time to reinforce our position in China as the leading global force for both creative and editorial imagery.”

They might be getting a bit ahead of themselves with the optimism about IP rights. That, or they have a very long term view of the world...

Given Alan Meckler's efforts to reinvent his business as a tech-savvy picture library, will he be replanting his flag in China soon?

CMP and CyberMedia tie-up on outsourcing portfolio

An interesting alliance has been announced between CMP Media and newly-listed Indian B2B specialist, Cybermedia. The new joint venture, CMP - Cybermedia LLC, will "build a global media portfolio focused on worldwide services." Cybermedia had announced at the time of its IPO that outsourcing would be the focus of some of its new business developments.

Cybermedia Chairman and Managing Director, Pradeep Gupta, is quoted as saying:

"This will be the first global product from an Indian media house addressing global
readers. This move is part of CyberMedia's plans of expanding globally. We
recognize the tremendous growth that has taken place in the Indian ITES -- BPO
industry. This industry will continue to grow substantially over the next
decade. We therefore chose to combine our BPO portfolio with CMP's Managing
Offshore to broaden our reach into this new and expanding market.

Our most recent posting on Cybermedia pointed to an entirely different venture for Gupta; his involvement in movie financing.

More on licensing

Hugo Martin today picks up where David Shaw left off earlier in the week with an interesting proposal for a virtual WMM - the annual magazine licensing meeting in London organised by publishers' industry association, FIPP.

Hugo explains what his idea involves:

Our Idea is a Matchmaking platform with

- Publishers / Objects Profile of publishers offering and asking for matchmaking (and presentations)
- Contact module for un-moderated and moderated Search (RFQ)
- Information section Countries, Regions, Markets with catalog feature
- ERFA / Best Practice / Exchange of experience and Interaction (with various Social Software)
- Resource database sector
- Service-Provider Profiles and presentations

(Later maybe including / connecting an eLearning area).

There is clearly a need for this sort of thing and a shortage of resources, particularly focused on the B2B sector which has some particular needs.