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Consumer Behavior in Middle Autumn Festival Yang MBA 626

History The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional harvest festival celebrated by Chinese peoples. This festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, during a full moon, which is in late September or early October in lunar calendar. Chinese people believed that the celebration would bring them a plentiful harvest for the next year. The Government of the People's Republic of listed the festival as an "intangible cultural heritage" in 2006 and a public holiday in 2008 (information retrieved from Wikipedia). It is considered the second-most important holiday tradition. 3000 years ago, in ancient China, there was an old story about a hero named Hou Yi who was good at shooting and his wife, Chang’e is the Goddess of Moon. The myth associated with Hou Yi and Chang'e explain the origin of middle autumn festival. One year, the ten suns rose in the sky together, causing great disaster to people. Hou Yi shot down nine of the suns and left only one to provide light. An immortal admired Yi and sent him the elixir of immortality. Yi did not want to leave Chang'e and be immortal without her, so he let Chang'e keep the elixir. But Feng Meng, one of his apprentices, knew this secret. So, on the fifteenth of August in the lunar calendar, when Yi went hunting, Feng Meng broke into Yi's house and forced Chang'e to give the elixir to him. Chang'e refused to do so. Instead, she swallowed it and flew into the sky. Since she loved her husband very much and hoped to live nearby, she chose the moon for her residence. When Hou Yi came back and learned what had happened, he felt so sad that he displayed the fruits and Chang'e liked in the yard and gave sacrifices to his wife. People soon learned about these activities, and since they also were sympathetic to Chang'e they participated in these sacrifices with Hou Yi (story retrieved from Wikipedia). Also, Chang’e’s image always with a lord rabbit, it hers symbolic.

The festival celebrates with eating moon cakes, gathering family or friends eating dinner and then enjoying the roundest moon with whole family. The same as the Thanksgiving days, Chinese people give thanks for the harvest or for the peaceful and harmonious society or family. They also making a best wish for the next year’s happiness and praying for babies, old people and the good future. The tradition of eating moon cakes during the festival began in . At the end of Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368, a dynasty ruled by the ), the Han people’s army wanted to overthrow the rule of the Mongols, so they planed an uprising, but they had no way to inform every Han who wanted to join them of the time of the uprising without being discovered by the Mongols. One day, the military counselor of the Han people’s army, , thought out a stratagem related to moon cakes. Liu Bowen asked his soldiers to spread the rumor that there would be a serious disease in winter and eating moon cakes was the only way to cure the disease, then he asked soldiers to write "uprising, at the night of Mid-Autumn Festival" on papers and put them into moon cakes then sell them to common Han people. When the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival came a huge uprising broke out (the story retrieved from the website of China Highlights).

These two pictures are traditional moon cakes and the common big Chinese dishes dinner with seafood, meat, fresh vegetables.

Consumer Behavior Analysis

Consumer Characteristics The consumers for middle autumn festival can be classified by the different age groups. The first group is the youth, young people. They are the new generation in society. Their characteristics are young, passionate, curios about new products, creative but with unstable job and poor incomes. They have to buy the low price of gifts for their parents and grandparents. So the cheap but good quality gifts are suit for their situations. The second group is the middle aged person. They have a very stable incomes and also take the responsible for the big family. For them, they want to buy the family packaging meat or vegetables. In the middle autumn festival dinner, they are always the holder and cook. Rather, buying gifts for their family, friends and business partners are inevitable. This group of people are the main market which the marketers should target in. As the economy and technology growing rapidly, the foreigners are the new target consumers. They desire to learn the Chinese culture. And also foreigners want to understand the local customs. If they have Chinese friends, the exchange of middle autumn festival gifts are courteous and respect for each other. Another strategy to expand this kind of consumers is establish the cultural center to teach foreigners the history of the traditional festivals and original customs. They can cook their own moon cakes, just like the picture showed.

Target Markets The most important products for middle autumn festival are different kinds of moon cakes. Chinese people give each other moon cakes as gifts every year for the mid-autumn festival. Some people like eat them. However, some people don't even like them. There two sorts of moon cakes. One is common and cheap moon cakes with a simple box or even no box. Another is the expensive moon cakes with luxurious boxes. Why they are so expensive? One reason is this kind of moon not contain the traditional filling of lotus seed or and a salted egg yolk. They are filling with rare ingredients such as , shark fins or bird's nest. Another reason is the luxurious gift boxes. It can even include items such as gold coins, top-notch wines, mobile phones and diamond rings. According to these two kinds of moon cakes, there are two main target market for the domestic marketing regions. For the most close parents or friends, Chinese people would like to select the cheap and common moon cakes. On the other hand, for the purpose of business, business men use this holiday to do business. They are not care about the price but how the gift set is. Chinese people like putting a high value on social relationships and contacts. It is a kind of investment. Domestic Mid-Autumn Festival market is changing recently years. Rather, it changing in supermarkets in east China's Anhui Province, a box of costing at around 100yuan ( $16) is the bestseller this year."Compared with mooncakes priced at nearly 1,000 yuan last year, the price are moreaccessible, so the supermarket can sell more," said Zhen Fei, a staff member at a gift givingcompany in Hefei, capital of Anhui (information retrieved from China Daily). The cheap moon cakes are popular. More and more foreigners are fond of moon cakes. So, the international market is also an important part for the moon cake marketing management.

Moon cake consumption Moon cakes are small, round sized cookies looks like moon that can be salty meat or sweet fruity and usually decorated with decorations, words, or colorful flavors. Moon cakes as a symbolic to middle autumn festival as turkey is to Thanksgiving. You can find moon cakes everywhere in China during the festival and are even sold in McDonald's, Starbucks and Dior stores. Traditionally, moon cakes are divided into four types: -style, -style, Beijing-style and -style. And the fillings are usually five kernels (nuts), lotus seed paste, , jujube paste, and egg yolk. Recently, many new stuffing are used in making moon cakes and they are classified into various types based on places of origin, flavors, crust and shapes. Here below are some of the most popular ones: Firstly, Beijing-Style is claiming origin from Beijing, Tianjin and surrounding areas, it is representative of northern moon cakes. One of the main features is the great balance between crust and fillings; makers use lots of oil. It tastes crispy outside, soft inside and not too sweet as a whole. Secondly, Suzhou-Style is having its beginning in Suzhou area, its highlight is the soft crust. It tastes sweeter than other types. Thirdly, Guangzhou-Style was originated from Guangzhou, the main features are a thin crust and rich fillings. The fillings are mostly local products like coconut shreds, olive seeds, orange cakes, Guangzhou-style sausage and roasted , salted eggs and sweetened fat meat. Lastly, Yunnan- Style was originated and popular in the Yunnan and Guizhou area, the main feature is Yunnan- style sausage in the fillings. Its crust is loose and soft and the fillings are neither too salty nor too sweet (materials retrieved from website of china travel guide). In addition, there are many other types of moon cakes such as -style and -style. Also, some new types have been created in recent years, such as sugar-free, , tea, vegetarian, flower, coarse cereals and edible fungi moon cakes for the needs of different people.

But what's important part for moon cakes are not the flavors: it's their packaging. As usual, a Chinese family buying common moon cakes with ordinary packages. But for businessmen, they treating it as a media to do business. They would like to choose the most expensive packaging moon cakes. Official data shows that moon cake packaging accounts for $2 billion RMB (about $318 million) in packaging costs, the latter forming a significant chunk of China's 40 million tons of waste, just like the picture showed ( information retrieved from Google image).

Moreover, last year, Hong Kong people alone threw out 2 million of the snacks. (That's out of a total population of just over 7 million, to give you an idea of just how popular moon cakes are—and of how high the number of wasted moon cakes on the mainland must be). The gift set always combine with the expensive gifts, such seafood, golden pencil, luxury handbags and even diamond. Marketer can pay attention to this area.

Cultural Influences in Commercial Activities

Chinese people in different regions follow various customs, but all the activities are showing their best wishes for the future and looking forward for a better life. Nowadays, Chinese people still enjoying the traditional moon festival with full moon and eating moon cakes. They also holding different kinds of activities. There are four activities that people really like.

Enjoying Reunion Dinner Besides appreciating the moon and dining on moon cakes, attending a grand family dinner with family members perhaps not seen in daily life is a most important activity for the Chinese. Family members, no matter how far away from home, will try their best to go back home and get together with their parents and extended family, and the best way to enjoy this time is by dining on a fantastic meal! During the meal, everyone catches up with their loved ones’ lives, making the event full of love and warmth all around. Because of the deep ties to family life, the reunion dinner is one of the most beloved reasons that the Chinese celebrate the Chinese Moon Festival. Buying or cooking the dinner easily and convenient are important for the family members. If who can provide this kind of service, either the delivery of fresh vegetables or the supply of dishes, they can earn benefits from it. This is a good marketing idea for groceries stores and restaurants. As for the dishes of this grand meal, there are some popular recommendable dishes such as crabs (best at that time of the year) and other prized seafood, river snails (said to contribute to brightening the eyes). Marketers should create the set of different kinds of seafood in one box. And also the steamed lotus root stuffed with sticky rice (tasted like lotus) is a popular dish in China. Producers can produce the gift set of fresh vegetables. Rather, the gift set of moon cake or other desserts.

Matchmaking Yue Lao is known as “the old man (the god) of the moonlight’’. He is a highly efficient matchmaker. In the Mid-Autumn Festival, also his birthday, many matchmaking masquerades are held to enable young men and women to find suitable partners in some parts of China. At the masquerades, young women are encouraged to throw their handkerchiefs to the crowd one by one. The young man who catches and returns the handkerchief has a chance at romance. This special event holding between young people. Marketers should focus on the opportunity of this matchmaking market. They could attract young men to buy , rose or small gifts for their future partners. It is an undeveloped market for Chinese young generation. Their characteristics are single, passionate with common incomes. The luxury gifts are not fit for them. Some small and romantic stuffs are good for them, such as a box of chocolate or candies, wrapped roses or rabbit toys.

Lightening and Playing with Lanterns The Mid-Autumn Festival known as one of China’s top three lantern festivals, even if is not the largest lantern shows such as those exhibited during the Lantern Festival. However, lightening and playing with lanterns brings the whole family great pleasure, especially for the children during this family-based holiday. Moreover, little children are particularly fond of buying beautiful lanterns or making their own traditional lanterns, which are different shapes. There are three main kinds of lanterns. Firstly, the traditional lanterns are made of a kind of special anti-water or wind rice paper and with a candle inside. In the stores, there are also plastic ones with battery lighting available for purchase. This kind of lanterns are popular cartoon characters. The little children always attracted by the cartoon characters. Children then dangle their beloved lanterns in their hands when they walk outside the evening of the middle autumn festival. The streets positively light up with the glow of thousands upon thousands lightening lanterns. Secondly, another paper lanterns are called Kongming lanterns. In southern areas of China, people will write down their best wishes on the body of Kongming lanterns and then lit them, finally let them fly into the high sky. The original of Kongming lanterns can fly due to the burning candles’ heating of the air within the lanterns. These enchanting lanterns are believed to bring blessings and reunion. Thirdly, in the area of China’s Zhuang Autonomous Region, there are some unique lanterns, such as pomelos lanterns, lanterns (same as thanksgiving), lotus lanterns and orange lanterns. People created them by emptying pomelos, , and oranges, then they carve out simple patterns from its skin and put a candle inside the hollowed bodies. Some children are fond of put their special lanterns on the river and watch them float away with a good wish (information retrieved from China Travel Guide). Traditional Mid-Autumn Festival lanterns are very commercial products for this family holiday. Marketers should pay attention to the business opportunity. Lanterns and candles which put inside the lanterns and also the Kongming lanterns (always couples favorite choice) attracted by young people. Creating a colorful or beautiful lantern is the most important point to enlarge the market. Furthermore, the high technological lanterns are made from transparent plastic sheets and wires with LED lights are popular nowadays.

Watching the Fire Dragon Dance

The hosting of fire dragon dances is a very traditional activity during the Mid-Autumn Festival in Hong Kong with over 100 years history. Each year, fire dragon shows are hold in Tai Hang in Causeway Bay, lasting for 3 nights from the day before and after middle autumn day. The fiery dragon dancing is passionate and the big long dragon made with colorful cloths, pretty decorations. The longest dragon body is 70-meter-long consists of 32 sections, which are divided by pearl grass, and its body is stuck with longevity joss sticks. The three nights of the festival, all the wide streets and narrow lanes of this area are decorated by colorful lights. The fire dragons dancing energetically in the light, bouncing to the dragon drum music. More than 30,000 performers take turns to perform the dragon dance, considered an honor. People believe that the dragon dance can lead to good fortune and avoid disaster, not to mention auspicious for a good harvest year (information retrieved from China Daily). Marketers could focus on the chance to attract people to involve in the event. They can sell the model of dragon or the costume of dragon. This kind of product attracted children and young people. Little kid’s parents would like to buy this product to build the holiday environment. The main colors of dragon are red and gold yellow. That means wealthy and lucky.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/culture/history-and-origin.htm http://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/holidays/mid-autumn-mooncake.htm http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/us/2013-09/19/content_16980384.htm

Pictures and charts are came from the Google Image