PDD to give Chinese products Western makeover

PDD Group Ltd, a leading design and innovation consultancy in the UK, plans to aggressively expand in China, not only to help Chinese manufacturers market their products on the global stage but also to give the products stylish makeovers to better serve increasingly demanding Chinese customers.

The deeper the pockets of Chinese customers, the more mature and complicated their taste and demands become, said Vassilios Kanellopoulos, business development director of PDD Group, which was established in London more than 30 years ago and recently opened its first studio on the Chinese mainland in Shanghai.

"Chinese manufacturers still carry advantages such as cheaper labor and they can produce some good quality products, but more and more companies have started to become aware of the importance of design and new product development," said Kanellopoulos.

The company, which has two studios in Europe, including its headquarters in London, acquired a studio in Hong Kong at the beginning of this year and opened its Shanghai studio in mid-August.

According to Kanellopoulos, PDD's Shanghai studio has two staff members now but the company plans to make gradual investments over the coming six to 12 months and eventually build up a local design team there.

"We want to have a stronger presence in Asia, particularly in China. Within the next three to five years, we expect more growth from Asia than any other part of the world," said Kanellopoulos, adding the company has orders worth millions of British pounds every year.

Given the rapid growth of both China's economy and Chinese companies, PDD expects the growth of its China business will increase from the current 10 to 12 percent a year to year-on-year growth of around 15 percent.

"Not only do we want to be closer to our existing clients in China, we also want to create a new list of clients," he said.

Jamie Buckley, creative director of PDD, has frequently visited China this year to talk to potential clients. He said PDD mainly worked for international brands that want to localize their products in China, but there is a growing trend for more Chinese brands to seek the company's help to make their products to more "Western-style".

Buckley said about half of the company's clients in China are local companies.

Henan Xinfei Electronic Co Ltd, a Chinese white goods manufacturer based in Henan province, is one of PDD's newest clients in China. The company released a new line of refrigerators with the help of PDD at the beginning of this year.

"We want to impress Chinese customers with a new image, so we invited PDD to give our products a new look. And the feedback from the market is beyond our expectations, there are even some copycats in the market because the new design of our refrigerators is very modern," said Yao Yong, marketing manager at Xinfei, adding the sales of the new line account for about 20 percent of the company's total revenue at present.

Yao said because the Chinese government offered subsidies to boost home appliance sales in rural areas, a lot of the company's products were designed to cater to the taste of people in tier three or four cities.

But with the subsidies having ended in 2012, the company is eager to change the image of their products, aiming to become more popular among customers in tier one and two cities.

It is not easy to impress customers in urban areas in China unless you understand what they want, said Emily Lai, design manager of PDD's Hong Kong studio, who is in charge of the Xinfei project. She said the former refrigerators were mainly in red with floral patterns, which was rather "old-fashioned".

"Our design is much more simple and more contemporary with European style. And we recommend to use the colors of white and champagne," Lai said. She revealed that the Libra line, which PDD designed for Xinfei, received a merit award in the 2013 Design for Asia Award.