At last week’s MarketingTechnology 2016 event in Utrecht, the enthusiastic Thijs van der Toom, cofounder of NextportChina, shared his experiences and knowledge of marketing catered to the Chinese market. The focus of his presentation was on a lifestyle app even bigger than Whatsapp: WeChat. With more than 840 million monthly users and sheer infinite possibilities to share, connect, pay, startup, record and gain information, van der Toom is adamant that this app is the future. After his presentation we asked him some questions about what he does exactly and the importance of WeChat for western marketing strategies.
The origins of NextportChina
When van der Toom came back from studying in China he wanted to combine two of his passions; the art of marketing and China. Instead of doing a two year traineeship before he could ‘get the real deal’, he and Quinten Kemp started up NextportChina in 2013. With their agency they wanted to help Western companies to build on their online presence in China. ‘Together with 6 Chinese colleagues we help clients in Holland and China’.