Raymond Zhang

Cross-border marketing · 20 years

Twenty years in cross-border marketing. Through all of it, I've been doing one thing: making a brand actually make sense in another market. Sometimes that's a European brand entering China. Sometimes it's a playbook that already works in China, going out to other markets. The interesting part is usually somewhere between the two.

What I've done

eTOC
I've helped Western brands enter, adapt and grow in China — across categories, channels and very different stages of business. I've also taken ideas that worked in China back to teams in Europe and elsewhere.
ChopardUSMBaborHenkelL'OréalWellaHey CaféMartorInstytutumOptiBacticomboMahlkönig ChopardUSMBaborHenkelL'OréalWellaHey CaféMartorInstytutumOptiBacticomboMahlkönig
SHISEIDO Group
China digital innovation across multiple brands. It was a good place to learn that a global brand and a local market can want very different things — and that neither side is necessarily wrong.
NIO · smart
Brand marketing, communications and user engagement. Different businesses, different audiences, different stages. The common thread was always the same: how do you make people care?

What I actually help with

Entering China
Market entry, positioning, launches, fundraising, roadshows and the communications around them. I help turn a European or global proposition into something that can actually work in China — without losing what made the brand worth bringing here in the first place.
Making the brand clearer
Brand positioning, website copy, brand books, founder LinkedIn, external communications and consumer experience. Not by adding more words. Usually by taking some away.
Building the system around the brand
Digital setup, content direction, agency briefing, local teams and the practical decisions that sit between strategy and execution. The goal is not to make a beautiful strategy deck. The goal is to make better decisions, repeatedly.

Sometimes you don't need an agency

For some companies, what's missing isn't "more marketing" — it's someone experienced, close enough to the business to make the calls: what matters, and what can wait.

So sometimes I join the team directly, as a part-time brand director.

Contact me →

Not sure what you need yet?

That's fine too. Send me the material before we talk. We'll spend 30 minutes looking at the problem together, and I'll give you a one-page diagnosis. No charge. No pitch deck. Just an honest view of what I think is going on.

Let's talk →

OBSERVATIONS

Questions that keep coming up in my cross-border work

I write about them when I have something worth saying.

See all observations →

Outside of work I draw, and I work with clay

Made slowly. Changed slowly. Each piece shifts its shape with time.

See the work →

Let's talk

A brand problem. A China question. Or something that doesn't quite make sense yet. Let's talk.

WeChat QR code — killianz
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