国际品牌在亚洲如何做品牌合作？三位高管谈中国策略转变

Jenny Lai still hears the same requests from international brands that want to come to China. “Can you open a Tmall store for us? How many physical stores can you open? When can you launch this channel?”

Lai, president and CEO of Bluebell Group for Greater China, has a short answer. “I think that’s the wrong way to approach the market.”

Her view, shared during a panel on brand partnerships at World Retail Lab in Hong Kong in mid-October, runs against the strategy that served foreign labels in China for the better part of three decades. When the market was expanding every year, getting products into shopping malls and onto Tmall, Alibaba’s platform for official brand storefronts, was most of the work. 

“For 20 or 30 years, China was seen as this magical market that was constantly growing and booming,” she said. “Investment was flowing in, and international brands were expanding rapidly.”

That period is over. Lai described the overall trend in China as soft, with some sectors still growing while others shrink. Alongside her on stage were Wesley Chu, president of Asia Pacific at Authentic Brands Group, and Alessandro Tomio, MD of Lacoste for Hong Kong and South Asia Pacific. Between them, the three executives represent the main routes by which a Western brand gets built in Asia. 

Three seats at the table

Authentic Brands Group owns brands but does not run them. The New York-based company holds the intellectual property for more than 50 labels, including Reebok, Champion, Brooks Brothers and Nautica, and grants partners the right to operate them, market by market and category by category. Those partners, known as licensees or operating partners, adapt the product, sign store leases, hire staff and carry the stock. Authentic is paid according to how much they sell. Retail Insight Network has reported that Authentic’s network spans more than 1700 licensees and strategic partners across 150 countries, and that its brands generate more than US$38 billion in annual retail sales worldwide.

“Our model is quite unique because we’re not the operator,” Chu said. “The better our operator performs, the more successful we are as well.”

Bluebell sits on the opposite side of the table. Founded in 1954 and still family-owned, it operates international brands on their behalf, mostly in the luxury and premium tiers. Lai said the group works across 10 markets in Asia, with around 150 brand partners and approximately 650 points of sale. 

Louis Vuitton partnered with the group in 1970 to launch across Asia. In Greater China, Lai said, Bluebell concentrates on beauty, fashion, jewellery and high-end confectionery.

Lacoste, the French sportswear label, uses both models. Tomio oversees 13 markets directly while working with franchise and distribution partners across Southeast Asia.

Why the old China strategy broke 

Lai’s case against opening as many doors as possible is financial before it is philosophical. 

“If you over-distribute, you risk losing the integrity of your brand and your pricing structure,” she said. “That’s a very dangerous position to be in.”

The mechanics are familiar to anyone who has watched a premium label slide into the discount bin. When a brand is available in too many places, sellers end up competing for the same shopper, and they usually compete on price. Once customers learn to wait for a markdown, full price becomes hard to defend. Meanwhile, the operator still carries the cost of every store it opens.

“You can lose money very quickly in China,” Lai said. “You have rent to pay, employees to support, marketing expenses and all the other costs associated with operating a business. If the market isn’t excited about the brand, those investments become very difficult to sustain.”

Her alternative is to reverse the order of operations: build desire first and distribution second. 

“What we want to do first is create demand,” she said. “Now that the market has slowed, a brand is no longer going to succeed simply because it has a physical presence or is widely distributed. It will succeed because it stands out.”

That is also why Bluebell avoids what Lai called “a transactional, buy-and-sell relationship”, in which a brand arrives with a list of requirements and minimum purchase commitments. Under that kind of arrangement, the distributor agrees to buy a set volume of stock regardless of how quickly it sells, which pushes the operator to move goods rather than build the brand.

Chu offered the brand owner’s version of the same diagnosis. 

“I think many international brand owners, particularly those coming from the US, adopted a one-size-fits-all mentality,” he said. “They assumed that whatever worked in their home market would work in China, and that local partners should simply follow their direction.” 

“That approach held up for years, he added. “But the sophistication of both brands and operators has changed significantly.”

Fit over size

Tomio said the most important consideration for brands when selecting a local partner isn’t necessarily finding the biggest player in the market. It’s about finding the right fit and that fit comes down to ambition, capabilities and willingness to invest. Access to capital and locations alone is definitely not enough.

Lacoste expects partners in its priority markets to put money behind the brand, not only move product. 

“They shouldn’t simply want to distribute the product; they must be willing and able to invest in the brand,” he said.

From the operator’s side, Lai looks for three qualities in prospective brands. The first is portfolio fit. 

“China is diverse,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean we need to chase every opportunity.” 

The second is the ability to scale, which for Bluebell means “healthy consumer perceptions, but also sound organisations and ownership structures.” The third is shared culture and values.

“This is much harder to measure, but it’s incredibly important,” she said. “Starting a new brand in any market is difficult, even if the brand is strong and the brand builder is experienced.”

Chu explained why Asia demands a particular kind of operator. “Asia is largely a mono-brand, direct-to-consumer market, whereas in the US, the business is much more heavily centred on wholesale,” he said. 

In the US, a department store buys the stock and takes on much of the cost of selling it. In Asia, the local partner typically runs standalone brand stores and online shops itself, which means paying the rent, staffing the floor and owning the inventory. 

“We therefore need partners who can invest in the brand and drive local marketing,” Chu said.

The economics of patience

Because so much of the upfront cost lands on the operator, the panellists agreed that contract length and early-year terms decide whether a partnership survives. 

“We understand that there is significant upfront investment involved, so we’re not afraid to sign a 10-year deal with the right operator,” Chu said.

Before signing, Authentic wants to see the operator’s numbers. 

“We need to understand a partner’s capabilities, their 10-year plan, their store rollout strategy and how much capital expenditure they’re prepared to invest in the early stages,” Chu said. “We’re not looking to create an agreement that puts our partners under financial pressure from day one. That’s not beneficial to either party. Instead, the aim is to give partners the ability and breathing room to grow, particularly during the first three to five years.”

That restraint connects directly to Lai’s warning about over-distribution. A licence that demands heavy payments from the first year leaves an operator with every reason to chase volume, through more stores, more channels and more discounting, which is the pattern that erodes a premium brand. A gentler ramp lets the operator build demand before it builds footprint.

“I think a successful agreement is one that you can sign, put in a drawer and not have to revisit constantly,” Chu said. “That requires a level of trust between the brand owner and the operator.” He was candid that the formula does not always hold. “Of course, we’ve made mistakes. I’m the first to admit that sometimes we think someone is a great partner, only to find out that things don’t work out as expected.”

When long partnerships drift

The panel was less comfortable discussing failures, but each executive described a version of the same risk: a partnership that suited one stage of a market and then outlived it. Lacoste has partnerships in the region that have lasted between 30 and 50 years. 

“What we needed when we first entered those markets isn’t necessarily what we need today,” Tomio said. “Back then, opening stores and putting products on shelves might have been enough.” 

Over time, some partners reorganised or turned their attention to other parts of their business, and the alignment with Lacoste faded.

“In some cases, we realised a little too late that we were no longer in the right partnership,” he said. “That affected our go-to-market strategy and caused us to lose traction in the market.” He stopped short of saying the brand was damaged, but said the new partnerships that followed met problems that might have been avoided had the misalignment been caught earlier.

Chu, who declined to name names, framed the risk around adaptability. 

“A partnership doesn’t work when the operator fails to adapt to changes in the market,” he said. “If everyone is moving towards livestream commerce, TikTok sales and new digital channels, but a partner remains stuck in a traditional operating model, that’s probably not the right partner for us.” He said Authentic wants partners to push back when something from head office does not suit their market. “It might work in the US or Europe, but it doesn’t work for us in Asia,” is the kind of conversation he said the company welcomes.

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