The End of Copycat China: The Rise of Creativity, Innovation, and Individualism in Asia

1The Innovation Curve Stage 1Copycat Companies and Low-Hanging Fruit

It was 2007. I was asked to moderate a one-on-one keynote interview with Jason Jiang, the billionaire founder of NASDAQ-listed darling Focus Media, for Advertising Age's annual conference in Shanghai.

Focus Media was a big deal in advertising; the company's looping series of ads on digital screens had become ubiquitous. When it had gone public two years before in 2005, it became the largest Chinese initial public offering (IPO) ever on the NASDAQ exchange, raising $172 million before its greenshoe option, which is when the underwrite is allowed to sell investors more shares than originally planned, which usually happens when the demand is high. Over the next 24 months the shares kept soaring, making Jiang a staggering fortune. In 2008 BusinessWeek estimated Jiang's wealth at $1.8 billion, more than hotel chain heir John Marriott Jr.

Advertising Age's China head at the time, Normandy Madden, informed me that Jiang liked to control conversations and had an outsized personality. Madden confided she asked me to moderate because I was the only person she knew who could stand up to him. She wanted me to ask tough questions and not let Jiang dominate the discussion. “Don't back down,” she said.

I reached out to Focus Media's head of marketing, Celia Tong, to arrange a lunch so that Jiang and I could get to know each ...