At 5pm last Tuesday afternoon, four people carriers with blacked-out windows pulled up outside the Park Hyatt hotel in Beijing’s central business district. From one of them emerged the four members of the softly sentimental, slightly square, British pop group Keane. They had just returned from performing a three-song set at a turret on the Great Wall of China, and were wearing head-to-toe Burberry in honour of the brand that had paid for their trip. Local passers-by stopped, pointed their mobile phones at each member, and intermittently clapped.

The Great Wall performance was just a warm-up. Burberry had brought Keane to the country primarily to perform at the launch of their flagship Asia store in Beijing’s Sparkle Roll Plaza, a guest appearance that makes the band not just the latest UK musical group to attempt to boost their profile in the emerging markets, but a weapon in the luxury brand battle to hold the biggest, most extravagant event in the perceived consumer Valhalla that is China. Not that either the band or the label would put it that way, exactly.

“There are a billion people in this country,” says Keane’s lead singer Tom Chaplin. “Within that, there are a lot of kids that you would hope would love the idea of popular music. There’s something very enticing about getting a foot in that door.”