Forget Silicon Valley, marketers chasing growth should look to Asia
Marketers talk endlessly about growth. Perhaps they should spend more time going to where it’s happening.
· Marketing WeekBy Thomas Barta 29 Sep 2026 7:10 am
Five weeks ago, I attended the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. In front of me, a robot ran 100m faster than Usain Bolt’s world record — twice. Impressive!
What really surprised me was the audience. Not tech nerds like me. The stands were full of families and children watching robots run, box and play football (not quite as well, though). The atmosphere felt like a family day out.
What still looks futuristic from London, New York or Sydney (e.g. robots) can feel quite ordinary in Asia.
Perhaps the West is starting to notice. At least when Xi Jinping visited the US last week, Donald Trump was smiling. A lot. After years of tariffs, threats and talk of decoupling, America may have discovered it still needs China.
China certainly has problems. A property crisis, debt, an aging population and weak demand at home. Then there’s Taiwan. Yet it sits in a part of the world with something Western executives desperately want: growth.
The IMF expects China to grow 4.6% this year and India 6.4%, versus 2.3% in the US, 1.9% in Australia and 1% in Britain. China and India alone are expected to add some 500 million consumers by 2030.
Want another clue? What is the world’s leading region for technology patents?
Silicon Valley? Not even close.
Tokyo–Yokohama comes first, then Shenzhen–Hong Kong–Guangzhou, Seoul, Beijing and Shanghai–Suzhou. California doesn’t even make the top five.
Asia isn’t “emerging”, it has arrived.
Asia is home to 4.8 billion people — nearly 60% of humanity and more than half its young people. It now drives almost half of global online retail sales. And its influence no longer stays in Asia.
AI is coming for your customers and you need to be ready for itFor decades, the West exported its way of life, from McDonald’s to Porsche to Hollywood. Now the current increasingly runs the other way. K-pop fills Western stadiums. Labubu became a global phenomenon. Thai food hardly requires an introduction. Asia-Pacific already accounted for 44% of global cultural exports in 2019, Boston Consulting Group has found.
Then there is beauty.
A few years ago, few Western consumers had heard of COSRX. Today, the Korean skincare company’s snail mucin products sit on the shelves of Boots, Sephora and Superdrug.
Growth elsewhere doesn’t just create new markets. It changes the market at home.
For marketers, that suggests three things:
1. Look East for ideas
Western marketers tend to benchmark western brands. Brits study Brits. Germans study Germans. Australians study Australians. Everyone studies Americans. That makes life comfortable. It doesn’t necessarily create growth.
Asia offers a view of what consumers and companies are doing differently. Which products are taking off? Which business models are scaling? Which technologies are consumers adopting first? Korean skincare, for example, has influenced ingredients, formats and routines — and what Western beauty companies now develop themselves.
Asia isn’t merely a destination for products. It’s a source of ideas.
2. Anticipate what Asia will bring home
Products, brands, technologies and habits travel. Sales of Japan’s Uniqlo across Europe and North America have more than tripled since 2021. China’s BYD and other Chinese electric-car makers are pushing into overseas markets. COSRX, Beauty of Joseon and Medicube are entering mainstream Western retailers. After searches for Korean skincare on its website soared nearly 800%, John Lewis launched 20 K-beauty brands.
The important question is what Asia is doing today that everyone else may be doing tomorrow.
3. Join the growth
Western companies have sold (or been talking about selling) to Asia for decades. The problem is that many still approach it with an old formula: develop something at home, then find somebody to sell it to in Asia.
That worked rather well when globalisation mostly meant Western companies exporting Western products and Western ideas.
That world is disappearing.
Participating in Asian growth means understanding local consumers, competitors, price points and habits. Sometimes it means changing the product rather than translating the advertising. And it certainly means abandoning the wonderfully convenient idea that 4.8 billion people across 46 countries constitute one market called “Asia”.
Nobody in London, Berlin or Sydney has to book the next flight to Shanghai.
But maybe they should.