Live from Shenzhen: Crossing the Line from Copying to Innovation

Frog design is hosting a panel discussion in Shenzhen regarding the shanzhai players movement from copycats to innovators that includes the following speakers Michael Young, Industrial Designer Brandon Edwards, Associate Creative Director, frog design Shanghai officeCharles Ng, Principle Brand Consultant, Maxi Communications Ltd and Alan Yip, Director, Yip Design Ltd. We’re there right now and the presentation has been delayed because the presenters Macbook won’t play nice with the projector. Chances are if the Macbook was a shanzhai version it would be running Windows XP and probably there wouldn’t be an issue… or is the projector shanzhai? We’ll keep updating this post with all the scintillating details and try to get some images at some point for you too.


[please note that updates are not verbatim]

2:40pm Update: Spotted... a "cultural ceramic" phone and a "Zen Wellwishing" phone!

2:45pm Update: Presentation delayed by notebook and projector incompatibility issues :)

2:50pm Update: Macbook for presentation is obviously a real one, not a shanzhai one running XP

2:55pm Update: Speaker Paul Cohen is saying that copying is a human way of learning, and after learning we can be creative. Note: Paul is the CEO of Cube  Industrial Design.

3:00pm Update: Need to understand what is meaningful for customers and innovate around it. Business strategies around innovation leads to increased profitiability.

3:05pm Update: Mentioning "Breo" as an example of a brand that has mixed traditional Chinese medicine  and modern technology to create their own brand without being a copycat. Note: Breo make eye massagers

3:10pm Update: Talking about Shenzhen being home to low priced handsets, good quality but a lot of copies, 20% of phones in China are probably copies.

3:15pm Update: Proposes a simple design that shanzhai manufacturers could use, should include large buttons, good speakers and a big screen. Only small changes to that design would crate innovative products.

3:20pm Update: 2nd presentation: shanzhai has negative connotations for the Hong Kong designer mindset. Historically the Japanese were the first copycats, followed by the Korean, then the Taiwanese and now its the Chinese.

3:25pm Update: Shanzhai is fast cheap, flexible with some creativity, not total copies. In future shanzhai should combine low cost f shenzen phone makers with creativity.

3:27pm Update: Frog Design Brandon Edwards says Frog works with the world's largest brands and a lot of Chinese ones... says that shanzhai is an increasingly hot topic.

3:30pm Update: How to out-shanzhai the shanzhai? Difficult. Distribution model, and rapid prototyping are key. Clients can quickly develop new products for customers. To survive in the long term shanzhai companies can grow their businesses and make more money by investing in R&D, and by taking a risk. Cannon is a good example of company that was long considered a copycat until the release of the A1 which changed the market landscape and the brand perception.

3:33pm Update: There is a very fine line between being influenced by and copying.

3:35pm Update: 4th presenter from HK designer... says there are already 10 books about shanzhai culture. Says.. Chinese designers very US oriented like Taiwan 30 years ago.

3:40pm Update: Products are more and more design oriented, doesn't really support shanzhai culture,  very short term feature oriented, need to add fundemental design capabilities. Internet played a key role in pushing the shanzhai phenomena. The more people talk about it the bigger the trend will become.

3:45pm Update: Speeches have concluded. Conclusions are that production runs are key, big global OEMs cannot be as flexible, and that shanzhai companies are already starting to be creative.



Note: We will be posting a follow up analysis of this panel discussion on Monday
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