Middle-aged women in China, known as dama, are often labeled as noisy nuisances due to the love many of them have for public square dancing and are seen as coupon chasers and unwise investors. Dama has almost become a derogatory term. But marketing experts believe that these descriptions hide the importance this group has to the national economy, both now and in the future when the generation born in the 1980s will begin to reach middle age.

Middle-aged and elderly people queue up for discounted products outside of a supermarket in Beijing. Photo: CFP

In almost every town and city in China, you can hear their music blaring out. Gangs of people hanging around in open spaces and public squares at night. But these aren't miscreant youths, these are dama, middle aged women who get together and dance in formation across the country.

Perceptions of these women vary, some seeing them as an important social part of the community, while others see them as a noisy nuisance. But others see these groups as a golden business opportunity.

Recently some groups of dancing dama in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, have been given trophies and certificates after their participation in a city-wide square dancing competition organized by a financial services company.

A total of 55 dance groups, adding up to a total of 3,000 people, participated in the contest. They danced to modern Chinese pop, Latin rhythms, old patriotic "red" anthems and classic ethnic minority songs.

The competition was put on by a website called "zhongguo dama" (which literally means Chinese big mother, and is often used to refer to Chinese women aged between 40 and 60). The website was set up by CNY Wealth Management, a Guangzhou-based agency that provides investment consultation services.

"The idea to build such a website was inspired by the potential market among this group of people," Fan Kailin, the website's founder and a financial planner who specializes in household wealth management, told the Global Times. "It's getting harder to find clients as competition gets more intense and with limited resources. The dama market is worth exploring."

In recent years, dama have come to the attention of businesses at home and abroad due to their purchasing of gold, luxury goods and houses. They control the family's finances and often have the free time and the will to try to grow these finances. This has led to more and more companies targeting dama.

Fan said the website was officially launched in October. It may well be the first website that has focused on dama as a group and it offers a variety of services in addition to its square dancing activities, including wealth management, travel and fashion advice, and healthcare tips.

"We are not thinking of profits right now. We hope to create a platform for dama, integrate resources that focus on them and shape a square dancing culture," Fan said.

Experts project that these schemes are likely to reap healthy profits eventually and that dama are becoming an important consumer group.

Finding financial friends



Apart from reaching out to dama online, many salespeople are going into the squares where they gather and shake their stuff to meet dama and promote their products.

Ji, a young finance manager with the PingAn Bank, has managed to obtain deposits of more than 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) from dama he danced with on a square near Raffles City, a large commercial building in Dongzhimen, central Beijing, the Beijing Evening News reported.

Ji started working for the PingAn bank two years ago. His main way of making money is by finding new customers for the bank's financial products. Realizing that the dama were a fertile market for these products, he began to square dance with dama on the Raffles City square one year ago. Now he knows all the moves.

To ingratiate himself with the ladies, he brought bottled water and helped to carry their instruments, costumes and props. Now he has become the youngest member of the group as well as the trusted financial planner of a quarter of the dancers, according to the report.

However, not every company is able to win the trust of these mothers and grandmothers.

Fan said that dama are suspicious of those who they think simply want to make a quick profit off them.

"We often see our competitors from shopping centers, insurance companies and banks promoting their products. But their purpose was so obvious that some dama even protested against them."

Ji said some other banks also have their eyes on Raffles City's square dancing dama.

Shi Jingxiu, 51, a lover of square dancing, said she is often stopped by salespeople on the streets near the square where she dances. "I have received various promotional leaflets but do not trust them," she told the Global Times, adding that dama are often targeted by swindlers. But she adds, "I only buy financial products from leading banks."

According to Fan, their efforts to convince the dama to compete in their competition were rebuffed initially. "But after we honestly explained the activity, most dama were convinced," Fan said.

In November last year, bank employees went to the Guangzhou squares where the dama dance, shot 5-minute-long videos, and then uploaded them to the website so people could vote on which performance they thought was the best.

In the videos one can see dama waving their hands and spinning around and that some groups even wore uniforms.

The number of votes cast rose quickly at first. But after realizing that some people were cheating by using automatic voting software, the poll was cancelled, the organizer apologized for its incompetence and decided to give awards to all the participants.

They then sent workers to deliver awards to the dancing dama, including glass trophies, certificates and detergent.

Despite their poor management of the poll, the website's reputation has gone from strength to strength. Scores of people have since left messages on the website. "I was asked to vote for my friend. I hope the organizer can come and hold a contest here," wrote a Net user from Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province.

Fan said they are going to invite coaches to help to train the dancers, establish a square dancing association, and they plan to hold a larger competition this year.

"We hope to optimize and expand the website, making it a win-win platform where dama can enjoy more reliable services and solve their problems and we benefit from integrating resources," he said.

Potential market



Ren Lijun, founder of Beijing Lijun Century Brand and Marketing Consultants, believed that investing in dama and building a website dedicated to them is a great idea, especially as the generation of women born in the 1980s and 1990s will become dama in 10 or 20 years.

"The future dama will be much more proficient in Internet-related skills, and the market for providing online and off-line services focusing on them will be huge," Ren told the Global Times.

In his opinion, dama will largely decide what kind of consumption-driven era China is stepping into despite the fact that young people have become the major target for marketing research.

"But our study surprisingly found that due to China's one-child policy and the traditional family structure in which wives take charge of the finances, Chinese dama have become the main decision-makers and managers of families' consumption," Ren said.

Middle age is often a prosperous period when men and women are at the peak of their careers. In addition, after accumulating savings for decades and seeing their property's value appreciate, the total amount of capital they have access to is often considerable. And it's women who usually control that wealth.

Zhao Jianjun, a worker at Taiping Life Insurance in Beijing, agreed. He told the Global Times that he is also trying to get close to the dama that dance in his neighborhood.

"My promotional plan is to first convince the team's leader to buy a product and then the other dancers will follow suit. She would also pass on this news to her relatives," Zhao said. 

Dama have also become the darlings of Internet commercial players, such as P2P (peer to peer) online microfinance platforms and O2O (online to off-line) marketing companies.

In late November, several middle-aged women brought the dama square dancing phenomenon to China's first World Internet Conference, held in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province. Media reported that a mobile Internet service provider invited them to their booth.

Yinhu.com, a P2P lending website, has recorded a total transaction volume of close to 430 million yuan since it was officially launched on July 1.

"Among the 140,000 registered clients, nearly 30 percent are women aged between 40 and 59 years old with an average investment of 50,000 yuan each," Yang Liu, the yinhu.com's brand director, told the Global Times.

Yinhu.com's figures show that although people between 30 and 39 years old made up nearly half of the registered clients, the average investment volume of dama is twice their average amount and seven times that of people under 30, Yang said.

Overstated stereotypes



Chinese dama are often seen as generous, but are also portrayed as being somewhat petty, content to follow the crowd and making poor investment judgments. It is not unusual that dama will queue for hours or almost cause a riot trying to get their hands on a bargain, even for small things like a few eggs or a cabbage.

Zhao Jianjun has seen these traits in effect. "Dama's mindset is different from young people," he said, mentioning the time his company organized a promotional event at a five-star hotel and offered the audience imported mineral water.

"But few dama showed up. Surprisingly, at a similar event held by another insurance company in an ordinary hotel, many dama showed up, as the gifts the company handed out were plastic boxes, even though they were much cheaper than the imported water." he said.

Ni Qiuhua, an employee of PingAn Insurance in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, said that dama are usually eager to pursue short-term benefits and are prone to be skeptical of insurance products that only provide benefits in the long term.

"But some people have updated their conceptions. We have an increasing number of clients who have bought insurance products to give to their 1-month-old grandchildren," Ni said.

Ren Lijun said there are some negative stereotypes about dama but that most are overstated.

"The current dama were born before the reform and opening-up, and most of them have lived a life of poverty and a shortage of supplies. Thus it's reasonable for them to be thrifty and anxious to get things on the cheap," Ren stated.

Nowadays, many companies always target young consumers but do not pay attention to dama. "There are still many business opportunities to be develop related to the dama economy, such as the home textile industry, " he said.

Fan, the founder of the dama website said they have started to organize special trips for dama, during which they can square dance in the places they visit.

"They have lived through hardships for years and have been dedicated to their husband and children, and it's time for them to enjoy a happy and healthy life," Fan said.