On July 7, a webinar was held at the Alibaba Tmall Innovation Center (TMIC): “Digital Insight: European brands at the forefront of innovation in China” .

Alibaba Group ‘s TMIC helps international brands achieve exponential sales in the Chinese market, which is why this great event has been held. In the online meeting they were all present. The managers of TMIC and well-known brands such as Nivea, Philips and Nestlé. The companies have shared the vision of the market in China, and the role of electronic commerce, especially in the younger segment. Philips razors for Generation Z, fruit-flavoured coffee from Nestlé and Nivea creamers for men who stay up late, these are some of the launches in China that TMIC has collaborated on.

«What we can do better (…) is to start from the real needs (…) unite technology with consumer thinking. This may be something that we are improving along the way with the TMIC team and see if we can get better innovations to market,” said Fion zhou, BMC leader at Philips.

TMIC helps these big brands to make their way in the Chinese market, as each company faces the main challenge of how to compete in the D2C (Direct to Consumer) world through a complete digital transformation. “Working with our brand partners to tap into market and consumer trends and expand new product lifecycles at Tmall is our top priority,” said Ricky Xie, CEO of Alibaba Group’s Tmall New Products. 

For her part, the director of Alibaba Group’s TMIC, Shirley Song , explains that, in recent years, the platform has helped more than 2,000 brands to incubate more than 4,500 new products. Likewise, the TMIC supports brands with trend detection, co-creation with consumers, as well as tests and experiments, among others. In this sense, in addition to its digital platform, TMIC has established an innovation ecosystem of suppliers of raw materials, universities and educational facilities, designers and research centers, and provides specific consumer information to each party involved.

The six innovation models offered by Alibaba ‘s TMIC

• Marketing : Innovation is achieved thanks to modern and agile marketing techniques. Creation of viral content that saturates social networks.
• Transversality : Ability to discover new lines of business and opportunities to boost business growth.
• Hobbies : The new generations that belong to the digital era are part of a community with their own hobbies full of a certain language and aesthetics.
• Technology : The new technology allows the development of products with modern characteristics and that are perfectly adapted to the needs of the consumer.
• Design : Both the design of the product and the packaging are essential to attract the customer and improve the brand image.
• Occasion : The new lifestyle of the consumer creates new opportunities for the use of the products.