A Chinese beauty brand into Britain. Introduced to the right distributor.
A Chinese beauty brand with a moisturiser asked for a distributor. An hour of looking changed which door we knock on for them.
20+YEARS
STRATEGY
47MARKETS
WITH CAMPAIGNS
£100m+PIPELINE
ADVISED
Between the founders, across their careers to date.
AI-native market entry.
British brands into China,
on AI we own, with
a founder at each end.
IntoChina
Taking new briefs · Autumn 2026 · Replies within one working day
Trusted by
ΑWhat we do
China market entry.
Metis Creative AI is an AI-native storytelling and marketing consultancy in London and Shanghai helping British brands enter China. We combine China market-entry strategy, brand positioning and localisation with our own AI tools: The patented Metis Avatar rehearses the conversations before you meet a buyer; Metis Studio makes AI brand films and KOL videos. Our founders check local partners and make introductions in person.
1
Rehearse it
Metis Avatar, our patented AI, plays the buyer, the client, the regulator, the journalist. Your team practises before the real meeting.
Metis Avatar · patented AI2
Make it
Metis Studio, our AI film pipeline, generates the brand film and the KOL videos the market will believe, with production scoped to the brief.
Metis Studio · our own AI pipeline3
Cross it
The founders find the route, check the partners and make the introductions in person, on both sides.
A founder in London, one in ShanghaiΒRehearse it
Rehearse it. AI practice before the real meeting.
Metis Avatar, patented, plays the buyer, the client, the regulator, the journalist, the interviewer: whoever you have to face, in the other language. It is built from what the audit found, so your team practises against what that market actually asks, and it scores the session afterwards.
The film · 0:43
ΓMake it
Make it. AI brand films and KOL videos.
Metis Studio is our own pipeline, in-house since September 2026. Two kinds of film come out of it: brand films that establish who you are, and KOL videos and ads made in volume for TikTok, Facebook and Instagram. The creative direction comes first; the pipeline then picks the model shot by shot and renders it. Standalone brand films start at £3,500, excluding VAT; bespoke concepts and additional languages are quoted to the brief.
Brand films
Duan & Duan UK. Believed in London.
The London practice of one of China's largest law firms needed a brand film for the clients it actually serves: families, founders and growing companies with business on both sides, not the banks of the City. We led the creative direction from first cut to final: three rounds of notes, a rebalanced story, and a voiceover written in both languages.
KOL videos and ads
Eleven Oasis. Made for TikTok and Facebook.
Short videos with an AI-generated presenter, made in volume for a brand's own channels. Eleven Oasis, a US menswear brand for big and tall men, took the first two; the third was made for another brand in the same category. Script, presenter and cuts on Metis Studio.
ΔCross it
Cross it. A founder at each end.
Validate the commercial case before committing to a wider launch. The founders lead the diagnosis, check prospective partners and draw on their London and Shanghai networks to make personal introductions. They stay involved in the agreed next steps. Never on commission.
A British book into China. Introduced to the right Chinese publisher.
Acting for an author published in Britain: the right Chinese publisher, the approach, the negotiation.
A Chinese beauty brand into Britain. Introduced to the right distributor.
A Chinese beauty brand, established at home with a moisturiser as its lead product, asked us for a quote and an introduction to a distributor supplying a British high-street chemist. An hour of looking changed the advice, ours included, and which door we now knock on for them.
What they asked forWhat we found
A place on the high-street chemist shelf
The moisturiser that leads that shelf sells for about £3. This one belongs in department stores and specialist beauty retail, so those are the distributors we approach.
EU certified, so ready to sell
Great Britain is separate. A UK Responsible Person and UK product notification come first, and a distributor will ask for both.
The claims that sell at home
Several would read as medicinal in Britain, and some cannot be used at all. The English story is rewritten around what can be said.
A distributor
There are at least three kinds, with different reach and different expectations. The established ones invest only once a brand has some presence in Britain, so the story comes before the introduction.
The audit first, then the right distributor, not the first one.
A British book into China. Introduced to the right Chinese publisher.
We act for an author published in Britain, taking his book into Chinese: finding the right Chinese-language publisher, making the approach ourselves, and leading the negotiation on rights, territory and payment, alongside partners in Beijing and Hong Kong.
Case in progress · Autumn 2026 · Names withheld by agreement with the parties
Who, not how many
A short list of publishers who take the call because they already know us, rather than a long list who will not.
What clears, and where
Chinese-language is not one market. What can be published, by whom, and in which territory decides the shape of the deal. Settled before anything goes out.
One document, two languages
Rights, territory, fees, payment route and tax, drafted side by side in English and 中文, so both parties sign the same thing.
Until it is signed
An introduction is not a handover. We stay in the room through the negotiation, the paperwork, and the questions that arrive after the handshake.
ΕThe founders
A founder at each end.
AAwa Xue
Founder / CEO · Creative Strategy
Awa leads Metis's creative strategy and runs the China end of the bridge from Shanghai. She is also founder of HireDigital.ai, and built Metis Avatar.
Awa leads Metis's creative strategy and runs the China end of the bridge from Shanghai. She is also founder of HireDigital.ai, and built Metis Avatar.
Raised, educated and trained in the UK - Oxford and Sciences Po; formerly a Cross-Cultural Communications Consultant at the OECD. Five years at Accenture as Communications & Engagement Lead advising Fortune 500 leadership teams, on a managed deal pipeline exceeding £100m - spanning Britain's largest aerospace group, global consumer-goods and grocery retail brands, and one of the UK's largest education organisations. There she also produced quarterly sustainability reports for C-suite executives, analysing the environmental impact of emerging technology and the innovation opportunities in areas such as Europe's electric-vehicle rollout compared with China's, with practical guidance on sustainable implementation and alignment with government regulatory frameworks. She is also founder of HireDigital.ai, and built Metis Avatar.
She has built the audience she talks about: 150k views, likes and saves as 姝姝Awa on WeChat Channels and Xiaohongshu, and co-host of Love Story, a podcast on navigating East–West relationships - 20k subscribers and five million listens across Himalaya, Xiaoyuzhou and iTunes. Native English and Mandarin; fluent in German and French. Based in Shanghai.
JJackson Ng
Co-Founder · Strategy & Client Leadership
Jackson leads Metis's strategy and client leadership, and runs the UK end of the bridge from London.
Jackson leads Metis's strategy and client leadership: positioning, narrative, and the argument a company makes for itself.
At WPP he was Client Strategy Director at the Shanghai Addition, Hill+Knowlton Strategies' practice for Chinese companies going global, built out of the group's Global Center of Creative Strategy in London. Clients included Huawei, Envision, Wanda, Suning, and Honor. The work was brand and narrative strategy for Chinese businesses that were established at home and either unknown in their target markets, or known for one thing only.
Before that he spent six years as a political adviser in the UK Parliament, working on trade with Asian economies. He is a Councillor on Buckinghamshire Council, where he chairs the Finance and Resources Select Committee - a £577m budget serving 570,000 residents - and was Mayor of Beaconsfield in 2023–24.
He is a barrister. He has practised for over fifteen years in commercial litigation and dispute resolution, most of it cross-border between the UK and China, and is an accredited mediator. That is work done under pressure, against someone arguing the opposite - which is also how a position gets built: assemble the facts, decide which account of them is both true and strongest, and know where it will be tested.
He read law at SOAS and the LSE, and grew up in Singapore, Australia and the Netherlands before Britain. He speaks Mandarin and Cantonese, and some Dutch.
Entering Britain from China?
Metis East is the other half of the bridge: UK market-entry strategy, brand positioning, AI rehearsal and films for Chinese brands, with introductions led from London. Read the Chinese-language page.
Visit Metis EastWhere would you like to be believed?
New businesshello@metiscreative.ai
London
Jackson Ng
Metis · London, United Kingdom
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Shanghai
Awa Xue
Metis East
Unit 1204, Binjiang Vanke Centre, 118 Minsheng Road, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China
上海市浦东新区民生路118号滨江万科中心1204
Thirty minutes, either end of the bridge.
Pick a slot that works in London or Shanghai. No pitch deck, no pre-brief - just tell us what you are trying to do and where it is stuck.
Tell us what you need