Australian businesses engaging China should channel the Rooster, and listen to local Chinese markets before targeting mainland consumers. Roosters have a ‘tell it like it is’ approach; they’re honest to the point of being blunt with their opinions.

The local Chinese community is an asset untapped by many businesses and can be a valuable input to decision-making. It makes up 4 percent of the population and is Australia’s third largest migrant group behind the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Through the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, the advent of the digital economy and China’s increasing global presence, China has never presented as many opportunities for Australian businesses to commercialise the Australian brand.

However, in today’s data driven business world, China market engagement is often based on limited experience and exposure, or market reports written by China-based interns.

As a result, the Bastion Collective has taken away the guesswork by creating the Echo Wall to ensure Australian businesses are better prepared to develop an insights-based approach to the China market, both domestically and abroad.

Bastion Collective’s Echo Wall is named after the Echo Wall in the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, which surrounds the Imperial Vault with unique acoustic properties that allows a person whispering along the inner wall to be heard around the other side.  Gough Whitlam famously visited the wall in 1973, when he became the first Australian Prime Minister to visit China.

The Echo Wall, developed by Bastion Latitude in partnership with Bastion S&GO, is an Australian-based online insights community designed to tap into Australia-based Chinese consumers, such as international students, new migrants, and permanent residents, for feedback on brands, products, and purchases they make for both themselves and to send home to relatives and friends in China.