The company benefitted from early mover advantage - having been present in China for three decades - but is well down on the market share of over 50% it enjoyed a few years ago. VW is the nation’s automotive market leader, although, as Orlov pointed out, China is such a hyper-competitive place that the company is spending in excess of $1bn a year on marketing there just to stay in the game. But the real creative insights came with the introduction of client-side presenters from Volkswagen and PepsiCo, who each offered some useful guidance for any marketer wanting to do business in China.Īlexei Orlov, CMO for Greater China and ASEAN at VW Group China, is in a seemingly enviable position. China Day brought together presenters from agencies and clients to discuss the nation’s opportunities and challenges - and it was rounded off by a standout seminar organised by digital agency Proximity Worldwide.Ĭhris Thomas, Proximity’s chairman, introduced proceedings with some truly mind-bending statistics: in China, he said, each minute sees 143 visits to ecommerce behemoth Taobao, 95,000 updates on Weibos, 139,000 pictures uploaded through the QQ service and 4.5m Baidu searches. But the prevailing theme for Tuesday was China: the world’s most populous nation and third-largest ad market. (Westwood’s most-buzzed about quote, “if your ideas don’t make the world better - they are useless,” certainly chimes with a lot of the other Cannes conversation this week). Today, however, VW is far from alone among major automakers interested in the technology - some of its leading global rivals, including General Motors, Hyundai and Toyota, all hope to capitalize on the future of urban transit.It’s been a star-studded day at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, with creative grandes dames Vivienne Westwood and Annie Leibowitz both sending the audience into a tweeting frenzy at the Palais des Festivals. The world’s largest country - and car market - now accounts for the largest share of VW sales.įlying cars, of course, have been a subject of the imagination for decades, but the possibility became more realistic as battery technology accelerated and a handful of startups and aerospace companies started building prototypes.

Volkswagen said it is particularly interested in the technology in China, where VW has taken over a pair of automotive joint ventures as Beijing relaxed its requirements on foreign car makers. The executives indicated the company is exploring possible partnerships - and vehicle concepts - for a drone that could be licensed as urban aerial transit becomes a reality. In a post on LinkedIn, CEO Herbert Diess and Stephan Woellenstein, the head of VW’s China operations, discussed how “vertical mobility” could be part of its future - that is, “flying cars.” Volkswagen is in the midst of a dramatic, expensive transformation into a maker of electric vehicles in the wake of stricter emissions requirements and the global scandal over its rigging of diesel systems.īut company executives are reportedly already looking beyond the shift to battery vehicles - and even beyond emerging self-driving technologies. Company executives are exploring possible partnerships - and concepts - in China.

Hover car in china