Commentary: Marketing to Chinese twentysomethings

August 21, 2008 Prosperous, tech-savvy Chinese twentysomethings are prime targets for advertisers here, the kind of audience the Beijing Olympics is providing ever greater opportunities to reach. While TV accounted for about 80% of China's total ad spending in 2007 at 362 billion yuan ($53 billion in current dollars) -- compared with $70 billion in the U.S. -- the rise in Internet use seems to signal a serious shift, a slow migration from traditional, passive TV-watching. The move could represent the closing of another chapter for a technology leapfrogging nation that saw millions use a cell phone before they had a landline; at 600 million, China now has almost twice as many mobile users as the U.S. has residents.

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