To drive even more consumption on the platform, Douyin has created its own shopping festival: 818 (August 18). It is sandwiched between China’s two major shopping festivals, 618 and Double 11. The first-ever 818 shopping festival was last year, right after Douyin launched e-commerce features on the platform. So this was Douyin 818’s second year.

How Did the Douyin 818 Shopping Festival Perform This Year?

The 818 Shopping Festival on Douyin lasted from August 1 to August 18. Its main format was e-commerce livestreaming. Throughout the course of the festival, there were a total of 23 million hours of live streams, among which 11 million hours were from brand-run livestreams.

177 livestreams surpassed 10 million RMB in sales and 8 of them made it to 100 million RMB. Together, the total sales from the Top 100 livestreams during 818 reached 9.1 billion RMB in sales.

Compared with last year, where the total sales for the entire festival were 8 billion RMB, Douyin 818 has made great progress this year!

Top Live Streamers

Who was the live streamer that achieved the best result during 818? No surprise here. It was Luo Yonghao (罗永浩), founder of Smartisan, a technology company. Luo was one of the first celebrities/CEOs to do e-commerce live streaming on Douyin and he drew a lot of attention in his debut stream when he achieved 110 million RMB in sales. Sine then, he has become a popular streamer on the platform.

Following Luo, the next two top streamers were two male celebrities: Zhu Zixiao (朱梓骁) and Jia Nailiang (贾乃亮).

New Changes for This Year’s Douyin 818

Below are new changes in the event’s format as summarized by Today (今日网红), a livestream monitoring platform.

Change No.1: Prices are lower than Taobao

Main types of discounts during the 818 shopping festival were fan coupons, flash sales, and bonuses for newcomers. Adding these discounts, prices could be way lower.

For example, Ulike’s hair removal tool, with the original price of 2,499 RMB, was only 1,599 RMB in the livestream during 818. Its usual price on livestream was 1,769 RMB. That’s a good deal to buy it on 818.

Another type of hair removal tool whose original price was 2,499 RMB, was sold at 1,699 RMB on 818, which was the same price as on two top live streamers Austin Li and Viya’s livestreams. Usually Austin Li and Viya claim to have the lowest prices.

Other stores, such as apparel brand EGGKA, which requires Taobao users to pay 8 RMB shipping fee doesn’t ask the same thing for Douyin users during 818.

Changes No.2: Live performance by celebrities

To create buzz and grab as much as attention as possible for the 818 shopping festival, Douyin spent a large amount of budget to create a concert for its users (kind of like Alibaba’s 11.11 gala). Many top celebrities were invited, together with video calls with several Tokyo Olympic champions.

Other than the entertainment part of the gala, there were live streams with celebrities going on. In total, the gala has over 80 million viewers that night.

Changes No.3: 10 billion RMB in subsidies

This is very similar to Pinduoduo, an e-commerce platform known for its extremely low prices. By clicking “My Orders” (我的订单), users can see a page with lists of products that are subsidized with discounts from Douyin. Many of them were food & beverage, digital products, and books.

Will Douyin’s 818 Become the Next Double 11 Or 618?

It may. But there are already many e-commerce shopping festivals filling up the year, it is challenging for Douyin to create buzz and achieve the same scale that either 618 or Double 11 does.

And it seems like at the moment the goal of 818 is really to drive consumers to develop the habit of shopping on Douyin, not to create a shopping festival that will rival the big ones. The subsidies and discounts may convince consumers to make their first purchase on Douyin, or to buy more expensive items on Douyin for the first time, but will consumers continue purchasing on the platform after the festival is over? And besides that, what did Douyin do differently in this festival that makes it stand out from the other major shopping festivals? There wasn’t much innovation when it came to the festival content or shopping experience.

Read more: 亲测，抖音818真的会比淘宝双11便宜吗？

The post Can the Douyin 818 Shopping Festival Convince Consumers to Shop on Douyin? appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

On July 22, Hong Xing Erke posted on Weibo saying the company donated 50 million RMB for Henan. The post has 9.5 million likes so far and it quickly became number 1 on the hot topic ranking board.

What happened? Why did Hong Xing Erke’s donation receive such overwhelming passion from people? What can brands learn from the situation?   

On The Crazy Night of Hong Xing Erke’s Livestream 

According to Huitun Data (灰豚数据), a Taobao livestream monitoring platform, the average views of Hong Xing Erke’s livestream during the past 6 days before its Weibo announcement was only 11k, while the views on July 22 reached 2 million. The sales amount that it achieved that night (10 million RMB) was way more than what it had done on the day of 618 Shopping Festival.  

The craze continued to July 23. The number of viewers rose to 7.5 million and received more than 50 million likes, which was way more than top live streamer Viya’s performance that day.  

In the livestream, many products were quickly out of stock. And because there were too many people watching, the livestream froze sometimes, and was not able to load images of products.  

Live streamers were telling viewers to shop rationally, and to only buy what they need. But viewers were too enthusiastic, and they wouldn’t listen to live streamers. When the live streamer told them that if the shoes don’t fit their feet, they can return them. And people responded to her saying, if their shoes don’t fit their feet, that’s their feet’s problem not the shoes’, and they will make their feet to fit their shoes.  

Viewers were even asking when Hong Xing Erke would start selling their down jackets, that the air conditioner is making their home so cold. And if the brand doesn’t prepare to sell down jackets, they can just send them ducks and they will start pulling out feathers and making their own.  

One man said he bought a whole set of clothes for his son offline at a Hong Xing Erke store and his son didn’t like them. He said he decided to change a son.  

I mean, this is really crazy! For the first time ever, I saw so many people support a brand! And not even a trendy one.  

Why Hong Xing Erke?  

This is because of contrast, in two ways. 50 million RMB isn’t a small number, yet you didn’t see the news on Weibo’s hot topic ranking board. Instead, the ranking board was filled with “xyz celebrities donated 500k or 1M RMB for Henan” and other companies’ contributions. However most of these companies, bought themselves onto the ranking board to promote their brands. So, they gave money, but they wanted to be praised for it, so it didn’t seem sincere. Compared with them, Hong Xing Erke donated 50 million but it was being low-key and other that posting on its own Weibo account it wasn’t trying to promote itself for donating.  

The other comparison comes from the most liked comment in Hong Xing Erke’s Weibo post, saying the company was about to bankrupt but still made such generous donation. In 2020, the revenue of Anta, a domestic sports giant, was 35.5 trillion RMB, while Hong Xing Erke earned 2.8 trillion, yet they both donated the same amount of money.  

Being low-key and being generous quickly gained the brand lots of attention and consumers’ sympathy, respect and trust.  

Hong Xing Erke Has Been Underperforming in Recent Years  

The brand was founded in 2020 in Fujian Province. Its slogan shows great ambition: To Be NO.1, yet from its performance during the past several years it seems it still needs to work a lot harder to achieve this goal.  

With the competition from international players such as Nike and Adidas, together with the growing popularity of other domestic sportswear brands such as LiNing and Anta, Hong Xing Erke has been struggling to keep up. Many cite its lack of creativity. For a long time, people linked its shoes with plagiarism and outdated fashion.  

To combat this, instead of improving products and marketing, the brand changed markets, targeting lower tier cities. The average prices for its products range from 150-400 RMB, which is also more affordable compared with other sports brands.  

Brand Livestreams Have Become a Forum for People to Express Their Feelings  

From the Xinjiang Cotton Scandal (when many people were flocking to Nike and H&M’s livestream to criticize them for what they have done), to KANS’ livestream and to Hong Xing Erke’s livestream, we can see that livestreaming has become a platform for consumers to express their feelings towards brand’s responses to cultural events.  

In terms of KANS’ and Hong Xing Erke’s cases, one of the reasons why they’ve received massive support from consumers is that they both quickly responded in the correct manner to a trending public affair.  

A recap of KAN’s case – It was evoked by a top Chinese celebrity Kris Wu’s scandal. Before the scandal, Kris represented many international brands such as Louis Vuitton, Bvlgari, Porsche, and many FMCG giants such as detergent brand Liby and instant noodle Master Kong. KANS was not as eye-catchy as the other brands that Kris represented.  

However, it is the first one that bravely stood out and said it would terminate its partnership with Kris. Compared with some of the brands that hesitated to do so, KANS’ quick reaction earned itself attention and favorable impression. Together with the push from its two live streamers that night, KANS has greatly promoted itself from the PR crisis.  

Back to Hong Xing Erke’s case. Its low-key and generous behavior encouraged many people to support the brand in its livestream. What also impressed consumers was that the live streamer kept telling them to shop rationally, and don’t buy anything not needed.  

Both brands’ CEOs went to their livestream afterwards, to express their gratitude and to show their faith in Chinese brands. Having CEOs show up in livestream somehow personalizes brands and it makes sure that brands are leveraging the sudden attention.  

Read more: 鸿星尔克低调捐款5000万，网友冲进直播间”买买买” 

捐款5000万”被倒闭”的鸿星尔克，劝网友”理性消费”，直播卖货破亿？

鸿星尔克低调捐款，200万网友冲进直播间”野性消费” 

The post Chinese Sports Brand Hong Xing Erke Sees Surge in Popularity After its Donation to Henan Flood Relief appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

It was a skincare brand KANS (韩束). This is a great case study of how to leverage ecommerce live streaming to avert a PR crisis.

So What Is the Kris Wu Scandal?

Kris Wu is a singer and an actor. The whole scandal started from one of the victims Du Meizhu’s (都美竹) Weibo post. In the post, Du was saying Kris often hooked up with girls, especially teenage girls. He often select women as commodities to decide which one to sleep with.

Following Du, there were other girls posting their chatting history with Kris, which were really disgusting and alike. The key point is, these girls were underage and many of them said they were forced to do things while under the influence of alcohol.

The scandal and related topics covered most of Weibo’s hot topic ranking board and have continued to stay there for quite some time as the situation continues to unfold.

KANS’s Live Stream Situation On The Night the Kris Wu Scandal Broke

The night Du posted about Kris’ behaviors, many netizens rushed to the live streaming rooms of brands that Wu works with and began criticizing the brands for working with Wu. This was what happened to KANS’ livestream that evening.

That night, KANS’ live stream had two co-hosts, a male and female. Neither live streamer know what had happened and had no idea why people were upset. After the boy searched on Weibo and learned what had happened, he told the girl that it was disgusting. The two live streamers were a bit panicked, and they encouraged each other not to be afraid. Of course they are saying all this live.

Shortly after this, they saw the hot topic on Weibo saying KANS has terminated its collaboration with Kris Wu due to the scandal. Their first reaction was, would KANS fire them as well? Haha, of course not.

As the first brand to bravely announced it had canceled its contract with Wu, KANS started receiving support from people. Thousands of people flocked to the livestream room and they actively shared the livestream with their friends.

The live stream lasted until 2am and the total amount of viewers reached 3.7 million. They’ve also achieved a sales amount that they would never expect: over 5.4 million RMB. That the sales from that live stream, combined with the rest of KANS’ sales in July, were more than KANS had sold over the course of 6 months the year before.

So How Exactly Did KANS Managed To Benefit From the Kris Wu Scandal?

Quick reaction to Kris Wu’s scandal

Brands that were hesitating to terminate their contracts with Kris were not able to continue their livestream that night because of too many angry netizens flooding the comments. For example, Lancôme only ran its livestream for 2 minutes before it chose to shut down.

KANS on the other hand, didn’t shut down, allowing a large amount of people to gather at a place and let off their anger. And then, when KANS announced it had canceled the contract, the stream gave people a place to come support KANS.

Two live streamers did a good job to personalize the brand

This may not be intentional, but two live streamers worked very well with each other and their interactions attracted many viewers to follow with them.

The average amount of viewers of KANS’ livestream before the scandal was not even 300. On that night, the amount became overwhelming and when the number surpassed 300, the girl asked viewers how to turn on the beauty filter so to look better.

When a serum, whose original price was 299 RMB, was auctioned to 1,200 RMB, the girl told viewers to spend their money rationally and not to keep raising prices, as it would waste their money.

And because they stayed cool-headed and performed well during the livestream, the boy received a call from their boss saying that both he and the girl would get reward for this. He looked so happy and surprised, and he excitedly shared the news with the girl and viewers.

Viewers were cheering up for them and they were encouraging the boy and girl to get married if the number of viewers reached 500k. Those two live streamers were joking that they didn’t even know each other for 3 days. After the stream, two lives streamers were titled KANS Couple.

Usually, we see live streamers recommend products, reading scripts in front of them. But this time, the KANS Couple acted like “real people”, and it really created closeness with viewers.

Two live streamers are trained well with their livestreaming skills

The first reaction that these two live streamers saw so many people coming into the livestream room, they were shocked. But they quickly presented their livestream skills: recommending products.

They stayed coolheaded and did a great job of grasping this opportunity to get in front of so many people. They told viewers that KANS’ new collection would show up in Austin Li’s livestream on July 19. Then after canceling its contract with Wu, KANS quickly announced that it appointed the National Swimming Team as its new ambassadors, and the two live streamers shared the announcement, and their joy, with viewers. 

Support from the livestream system on Taobao

Many factors influence Taobao’s live stream ranking board including the length of time that viewers’ stay in the livestream, the length of the livestream, the number of viewers, and the likes, comments and other interactions.

In total, the livestream lasted for nearly 23 hours, with different live streamers. KANS’ performance also helped the brand to stay on top on the livestream ranking board for which it got more exposure.

What Can We Learn from KANS’ Success?

Quick reaction

KANS’ quick reaction and the corporation between two live streamers really earned itself a favorable impression. On the other hand, Lancôme was under severe criticism by netizens because of its hesitation to terminate the contract.

Closely monitoring the situation

It’s what people want to see that matters.

Brands need to monitor how the whole situation goes and make decisions that will please people. The earlier they show their attitude, the less harm will occur. They may even gain bonus from it, such as KANS.

Livestream: crisis preparation 

In this incident, we can see that KANS’ live streamers are well-trained and that’s why they were able to drive so many sales in a night.

As livestream has become a necessary sales and marketing channel for many brands, brands often approach livestream agencies to look for live streamers, instead of cultivating their own. It is important that brands educate them about brands’ basic information and how they should behave if any scandal happens.

Maximize the influence of the livestream

KANS didn’t stop at that night’s livestream and has continued to ride the wave of attention. Since netizens named those two live streamers the KANS Couple, the brand has had them do more livestreaming to capture people’s enthusiasm and curiosity to watch them. Also, KANS’ CEO will appear in an upcoming livestream to meet consumers.

Read more: 吴亦凡事件发酵后，韩束直播间为何能一夜爆红？

与吴亦凡解约后，韩束直播间一场卖出500万，居然还卖起了牙签

The post How Chinese Skincare Brand KANS Actually Benefitted From the Kris Wu Scandal appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Florasis (the avatar) is designed to be a personification of the brand and reflect the brand’s emphasis on traditional Chinese heritage and beauty.

Florasis was founded in 2017 and it has been growing fast. In 2019 it broke 1.1 billion RMB in sales, which was 25 times higher than its performance the year before. Florasis continued to make great progress in 2020, when it achieved over 3 billion RMB in sales, a 165.4% growth year over year.

How Will the Virtual Influencer Benefit the Brand?

Or a more direct way to say this is, will the virtual avatar help Florasis boost its sales? Having just launched, it is still unclear what role Florasis (the influencer) will play. Will she merely appear in brand content or they give her a voice and have her appear in videos and live streams? Will she have her own social accounts and appear alongside the brand’s ambassadors such as celebrity model Du Juan?

All of this has yet to be seen so it is too soon to say how or if she can benefit the brand. What we do know though, is that when used correctly, avatars such as this can help consumers feel closer to the brand and strengthen the brand’s image.

Other Brands Are Leveraging Virtual Influencers in China

Virtual influencers are already becoming quite common around the world, however, the majority of them are operated independently, not created by brands. For example, Chinese influencer Luo Tianyi (洛天依). She is a virtual singer born in 2012. Luo attended many offline events with real celebrities, such as appearing with Austin Li in his livestream. She has 5 million followers on Weibo and works with brands such as Huawei and Master Kong (康师傅), an instant noodle brand.

An internationally-known avatar is Miquela, from California. She used two years to build up her 2-million fan base on Instagram. She is a model and a singer, and she has appeared in luxury brands’ advertisements including Chanel and Burberry. Miquela even created her own fashion brand in 2019.

As for brands, in China, L’Oréal and beauty retailer Watson’s have created their own virtual ambassadors. The ambassador that L’Oréal has created is for one of its sub brand Mei Ji (美即) or MG. It was a Guangzhou-based beauty brand, and L’Oréal purchased it in 2014. The virtual ambassador is called Sister M or M Jie (M姐), a play on the name of the brand, and she was introduced to the public in 2020.

Sister M has participated in many events, such as MG’s Tmall and JD livetream during Double 11 Shopping Festival last year. She is also very active on Chinese social media. For example, M has her own column on Little Red Book called Sister M Talk (M姐TALK). It covers topics such as how should women face heavy working pressure, how to improve yourself, and how to maintain your body etc. M also has a series on Douyin called Sister M Visits Laboratory (M姐探秘实验室). It shows how the brand invent their products. Those videos are very informative and scientific.

Prior to Sister M, Waston’s introduced its virtual influencer Qu Chenxi (屈臣曦 or Wilson). It is a boy with those “fresh meat” looks. Wilson not only shows up as the ambassador of Waston’s, but also as a customer service representative with those CRM statistics backing him to better serve his customers and followers.

Wilson also has his Weibo account (@屈臣曦-Wilson) with more than 180k followers. He often holds lucky draw activities on Weibo, inviting his followers to either comments and like a post or to repost it so as to be chose to win gifts.

Why Are Brands Working With Virtual Avatars?

Compared with real celebrities, these virtual influencers are a lower risk alternative. Its less likely they will become involved in personal scandals that can ruin their career together with brands’ reputation. 

Prada and Zheng Shuang’s (郑爽) collaboration is an example. Zheng’s scandal caused the fashion group’s stock drop 1.7%. Another celebrity Show Lo (罗志祥), when his scandal went public dairy brand Chun Zhen (纯甄) immediately changed its ambassador, afraid of Show’s negative influence.

Compared with these real people, virtual avatars are easier to control either by its teams or brands. Their hobbies and personalities are shapable based on followers’ preference. They don’t get old, and they can maintain the body shape that they want. With the development of technology, they are able to have real-time interaction with their audience.

There Are Downsides of Course

A serious problem that no virtual influencer can escape is the potential for technical issues, especially during live streams. Luo Tianyi had a livestream in May 2020 where at one point during the stream there were over 2.7 million people viewing simultaneously, and throughout the course of the stream, nearly 2 million people either commented or sent virtual gifts to her. But because of a technical issue, she couldn’t sing when it was her time slot, and it remained dead silent, leaving a lot of viewers disappointed.

On her live stream with Austin Li, while I was watching it, I noticed the volume of the sound decreased a lot when Austin transferred to the scene with Luo, and many viewers were saying they can’t hear what they were talking about. If brands want to work with virtual influencer interactively, they will need strong technical support.

The other downside is that, though virtual avatars are controllable, they lack something real. They are not real people after all. Some people find it hard to connect with them. They know clearly that teams are controlling these avatars and the commercial purpose is too obvious for them to develop a connection with the character.

It will be interesting to observe how Florasis will make use of “Florasis” the virtual influencer.

Read more: 花西子虚拟形象“花西子”，首次亮相。

虚拟代言人出圈：人设不翻车，真人偶像的对手来了？

The post Chinese Beauty Brand Florasis Creates its Own Virtual Influencer appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Last year we talked a lot about celebrity livestreams. It seemed like there was a new celebrity trying out live streaming every day. But due to many articles reporting poor results from celebrity livestreams, this trend seems to have slowed down a bit. After all, celebrities are not professional live streamers, and brands were just placing them there to attract new viewers and potential customers.

This year, the format that is growing well is brand-run livestreams. While they tend to be less exciting and attract smaller viewer numbers, they are authentic and more targeted. Compared with buying a product from a small live streamer, livestreams run by a brand’s sales associates appear to be more trustworthy. Those who watch a brand’s livestream are also people interested in the brand and more likely to buy something.

A good example of brand-run livestreams is Yanzhiwu’s livestream. Yanzhiwu (燕之屋) is a birds’ nest brand. This supplement has gained growing popularity among Chinese consumers, and the brand is grasping this opportunity, together with the help from its brand-run livestream to grow sales.

Yanzhiwu’s brand-run livestream for Taobao’s Spoil Fans Festival

On Taobao’s “Spoil Fans Festival” (March 21- March 26), Yanzhiwu’s brand-run livestream lasted for more than 16 hours.

In total, the livestream had 150k viewers, and the number of new registered members, new followers all reached the peak of that month. GMV generated from the livestream grew 990.4% compared with the same time last year and the number was 199.8% more than the brand’s performance the month prior.

What did Yanzhiwu do to prepare for the livestream?

Preheat of the brand-run livestream

Before the Spoil Fan Festival on March 21, Yanzhiwu posted on Weibo introducing related activities and products for the day. It grabbed followers’ attention and prepared it fan base for the festival.

Yanzhiwu also joined Taobao’s Livestream Ranking Competition (淘宝直播排位赛) since March 18. It is based on sales and ranking top in the campaign would guide public traffic to its store. It is like giving virtual gifts to live streamers and ranking top, so that you can get others’ attention to follow you. This is a commonly used tactic for small live streamers who want to grow their fan base. This mindset is also applied in brand-run livestreams.

To create more buzz for its big livestream on March 21, Yanzhiwu seeked collaboration with KOLs. On March 20, Yanzhiwu’s products appeared on top live streamer Cherie’s (雪梨) livestream room. Cherie introduced the product for more than 5 minutes. This built brand’s awareness among consumers and drove traffic for the brand’s livestream in the next two days.

Other than public traffic, Yanzhiwu was building its fan base through private traffic. It sent messages to its members, informing them with related information about the event such as how to claim coupons and bonus gifts.

Customize different product sets for consumers during livestream

Yanzhiwu classifies its livestream viewers into several categories: new guests, registered customers (members), loyal customers with high-repurchasing rate and it created special offers targeted at each of these groups.

For registered customers, if they spend 3,000 RMB at Yanzhiwu, they can use the amount as 3,050 RMB. For customers with high-repurchasing rate, Yanzhiwu’s live streamers recommended them to buy the monthly set with 28 bottles, as those customers often have the habit of drinking one bottle every day.  And for new guests, live streamers suggested them to buy a gift set with 5 bottles in to, since its price is lower than other products, and it is suitable for those want to have a try either of birds’ nest or of the brand.

There was also a gift set packaged in sakura pattern (March is a sakura blossom season). It was very girly and was designed for young girls who also want to have a try.

Other Ways to Drive Traffic to Brand-run Livestreams

In order to drive more traffic, brands can collaborate with other brands that have similar target customers. They can also livestream in a special location, which adds a bit of novelty and makes it more interesting than their regular livestreams.

Livestream with other brands

Besides categorizing customers based on their place in the customer lifecycle, Yanzhiwu also has created other target customer personas. Most of its customers are females so the brand has them divided into females with high educational background, young mothers, fashionable women and confident women.

To target these groups, Yanzhiwo livestreamed with other brands that target those groups such as MARCHON, an eyewear brand, and Simpcare, a skincare brand. By livestreaming together, those brands were able to guide traffic for each other.

Livestream at factories

Instead of having livestream at the usual livestream rooms, Yanzhiwu’s sales associates took viewers to the brand’s factories to show them the manufacturing process. This also helps educate consumers about the product and help establish trust in the quality of the product, which is a common issue with bird’s nest.

Our Take on brand-run livestream

This year, the buzz about livestreaming has indeed decreased on social media. But that doesn’t mean the medium isn’t effective, it only means livestreaming has stepped into a mature and steady growth period.

Collaborating with influencers and celebrities all the time may help drive sales, but it is also extremely costly, resulting in low ROI. Brand-run livestreams are a key way to leverage this sales channel while keeping costs low. It is also a great way to develop a direct relationship with your customer base.

However, brand run streams can get boring, so it is important for brands to be constantly thinking of new ways to liven them up and keep viewers coming back.

Read more: 成交涨9倍，场观创新高，燕之屋在直播间做对了什么？

The post Brand-run Livestream Case Study: Yanzhiwu Birds’ Nest appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Timeline of Douyin’s 618 Shopping Festival Promotions

The shopping festival will start on May 25 and end on June 18. The total process will be divided into two phases.

The first phase will be from May 25 to May 31, and it is the preheat for the whole event. The second phase starts from June 1 to June 18, and this will be the highlight of the whole event.

Deposit presale

During the first phase, users can put down deposits first to lock in the items they’d like to purchase during the actual shopping festival, which is the second phase. Before the start of the second phase, users will receive messages reminding them to pay the rest.

Paying deposit will help merchants get an estimate of potential customers. They can also predict GMV generated from the event, and it can also help them to prepare stock and improve logistics ahead of time.

Gamify the 618 shopping festival

To increase users’ engagement and bring entertainment for the event, Douyin will launch a game called “The Interaction City”. The game is mainly asking users to finish tasks and they will be rewarded with tools in the game. When the number of those tools reach a certain level, users’ can only pay 0.1 RMB to buy specific products.

Featured Livestreams

Douyin will support three kinds of livestream during the 618 shopping festival: KOLs, brands, and featured livestreams. The last type of livestream are about different topics and festivals, such as Children’s Day and the Dragon Boat Festival. These two holidays both fall within the 618 shopping festival period.

Provide discounts for Douyin’s service fee

During the second phase of Douyin’s 618 event, if brands offer prices which are lower or equal to the lowest price they’ve offered during the past 30 days, the platform will reward those brands with cheaper service fee of just 1% of the total sales amount.

Work with other platforms from ByteDance

Douyin is also leveraging other Bytedance-owned apps such as Toutiao, Watermelon Video, Douyin Huoshan and Douyin Jisu, to drive as much traffic as it can for this big event and prove its place in the ecommerce industry.

To improve users’ shopping experience on the platform, Douyin is introducing the fast refund function, shortening users’ waiting time for their refund request to be checked. One of the reasons that Douyin does this is to reduce users’ complaints regarding refunds.

Taobao Live has released its 618 plan as well 

Different from Douyin, Taobao Live’s 618 campaign period will start earlier, and it is divided into more detailed phases.

The whole event will last for a month, starting from May 20 and lasting until June 20. In general, Taobao Live will two main promotional cycles. The first round is from May 20 to June 3, and the second one will be from June 4 to June 20. Each round will have a presales and sales period.

To help brands generate more GMV, Taobao Live customizes plans for different accounts, including top and Tmall flagship store accounts, mid-tier accounts and small accounts. Other than this, Taobao also has plans for different types of livestreams, such as new products livestreams, celebrity livestreams and CEO livestreams.

Our take

It is fair to say this year’s 618 shopping festival is a big test for Douyin. If it does well and can prove strong results, it will be able to persuade more international brands to open up flagship stores on the platform. 

And it’s not only Douyin, many ecommerce platforms are seriously preparing for the 618 event. It seems it is really becoming the second 11.11.   

Read more: 抖音618活动怎么玩？看完就知道了

淘宝直播618活动总贴

The post Douyin is Going All In For This Year’s 618 Shopping Festival appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Here we’ll share some of the key changes and trends highlighted in the report, as well as a link to the full report below (in Chinese).

Live Streaming Has Become a Must-Have for New Brands

Over 90% of new brands on Tmall have livestreamed on Taobao Live. When it comes to live stream sales performance, in 2020, the top three new brands are Chinese beauty brand Florasis (花西子), underwear brand Ubras and another domestic beauty brand HELIUS.

But the top 20 brands weren’t just from beauty and fashion as you might expect. Number 8 was dairy brand Adopt A Cow and number 9 was robo vacuum Narwhal. Number 12 was meat brand Daxidi (大希地) and number 13 was a company Heibaidiao (黑白调) who makes ergonomic desks and chairs for children.

This really goes to show that brands from any industry can leverage live commerce. There are some more great stats on that below.

Brand-Run Live Streams Becoming More Popular

It’s also worth noting that, among nearly 1,000 livestream rooms that achieved over 100M RMB sales in 2020, 55% of them were brand-run livestreams (as opposed to live streams run by influencers at 45%). This shift from a brand relying on influencers to sell products to training its sales associates to become live streamers was a big trend in 2020 and is continuing this year.

Fake products are still a key issue in livestreaming, and brand-run livestreams erase consumers’ concerns. Personally, I would rather buy a product from a brand’s flagship store than buying it at a cheaper price from other stores.

Diversity in live streamers

Yet at the same time, as the industry has boomed, the number of live streamers is also rapidly increasing. In 2020, the amount of live streamers grew 661% compared with 2019’s.

Along with the increasing number is the diversity in live streamers. When Taobao just started the livestream business in 2016, only girls who looked good and understand well of Taobao can be live streamers. In 2019, many KOLs and celebrities were joining the industry, and in 2020, many brands were stepping in this lucrative market. Now, you can also see many CEOs showing up in livestream rooms.

Taobao has identified six categories of live streamer personas:

Taobao Live streamers:

• Such as Austin Li and Viya
• Entered Taobao Live early and have developed massive followings and lots of experience

Influencers:

• Such as Cherie and Zhang Mofan
• Came to Taobao Live with credibility and a large audience

Celebrities:

• Such as Liu Tao and Ji Jie
• Have a large fanbase and are liked by brands

TV Hosts:

• Such as Li Jing
• Come with very strong hosting skills

CEOs and Executives:

• Such as Dong Mingzhu (Gree)
• Well-known leaders, provide professional product insights

Sales Assistants:

• Such as the team at Intime department store
• Brands can leverage many of them, they have deep knowledge of customer needs and of the store’s products

Everyone can be live streamers. This is what is happening in China.

Product Categories with the Most Growth

The product categories that these streamers focus on has also become more diverse. In 2019, the four main categories the live streamers specialized in were beauty, fashion, jewelry, and food & beverage. While these are still the top categories, 2020 saw an influx of streamers in the home décor, furniture, sports, automobile, and home appliances categories.

When it comes to overall live stream sales, including both live streamers and brand-run streams, the industries that saw the biggest growth in sales in 2020 were cosmetic medicine, books and audio, electronics, auto, large and small home appliances, furniture, sports, local services, and food.

There were also niche subcategories that saw huge growth last year. For example, sales of Hanfu, or traditional Chinese clothing, on Taobao Live grew 753%. Hair removal products grew 203%, Italian pasta grew 1,485%, and massage guns 864%. Even crazier, the sales of motorcycles (the entire motorcycle, not just parts!) grew 185% and orthodontic braces (yes, braces!) grew a whopping 13,456%. If that doesn’t prove you can sell anything through live streaming, I don’t know what can.

The Number of Taobao Live Core Users is Increasing

Behind the rapid development of Taobao livestream is the increasing number of its core users. Core users are people who watch livestream on a frequent basis and they tend to watch the livestream for a long time. They also spend at least 3x more than average users each month.

According to the report, core users contribute 80% of the total watching time on Taobao Live, and drive 60% of the sales. In 2020, the number of core users grew 150%.

It is still not late to enter the industry. Though the buzz surrounding livestreaming has decreased a lot in 2021, it doesn’t mean the industry is saturated or in decline. It has just stepped into a mature and steady developmental stage.

Find the full report here: 重磅！淘宝直播2021年度报告发布，这些品类在直播间里大爆发

The post Key Takeaways From the Taobao Live 2021 Livestreaming Report appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

POPMART Didn’t Offer Discounts From the Beginning

POPMART creates collectible pop art toys. Its main consumers are not children, but Gen Z and millennials between ages 18 to 35. They are mostly white collar workers and 70% of them are females. Its consumers match with Taobao’s livestream audience.

In May 2019, POPMART started testing out the waters, running a livestream itself, not with KOLs. While livestreaming truly became mainstream in 2020, it was already quite popular in 2020 and many brands were using the format as the main way to drive sales. 

During POPMART’s first livestream, unlike other brands that offer discounts, the prices remained the same at 59 RMB. But even though it didn’t offer discounts, POPMART’s first livestream went well. In less than 2 hours sales reached nearly 70k RMB.

The brand was able to achieve this because of its fans’ loyalty. People who don’t like blind box toys just don’t like it. And for those who like it, they love it. Collecting pop toys is a niche hobby, and people who collect them feel like part of a community. This character makes them loyal to the brand. So even without lowering the price, people will still buy POPMART products. 

Singles Day 2019

Even with this initial success, POPMART didn’t have a regular live streaming schedule in 2019. But then Single’s Day hit and during the shopping festival POPMART held 4 livestreams. Together the streams achieved nearly 7 million RMB in sales. In half a year POPMART went from being able to sell 70K RMB in one stream to over 1.5 million RMB of toys in one stream. 

Following 2019, like every other brand, POPMART realized the importance of livestreaming. What’s more, COVID 19 hit and consumers couldn’t visit POPMART’s offline stores and vending machines. Since March 2020, the brand started regularly holding livestreams on Taobao Live. 

The goal of the livestreams is not only to drive sales, but to cultivate old customers’ brand loyalty and introduce the brand to new customers.

If There are No Discounts, What Do They Livestream About?

Wang Ning (王宁), the CEO of POPMART knows that by maintaining the same price on livestream it will be harder to drive sales. So he thinks of another way to save this: telling stories and introducing POPMART’s various IPs so that people understand them better and learn more about new IPs. Wang knows if there are 100 people, there will be 100 reasons for them to buy POPMART. Different toys attract different people and everyone has a different reason for a POPMART order.

POPMART also livestreams the unboxing process. This is exciting for people who love blind boxes. Just watch our unboxing video to see for yourself. 

The brand also livestreams about its rules for shopping festivals. Even though its product price remains the same, it gives bonus gifts to consumers during festivals and the gifts change depending on how much they spend. 

Livestream Campaign to Support a Wuhan Nurse

On March 6, POPMART held an unboxing livestream for a nurse who went to Wuhan to help. The nurse was a fan of POPMART and always had a dream of getting one of the hidden special edition boxes.  

So POPMART livestreamed its employees unboxing numerous boxes. In the end, they had found 7 hidden editions and they gave those to the nurse. They held lucky draws and gave away the rest of the opened toys to viewers of the stream. The livestream attracted 100k views which is quite high for a brand-run livestream. 

Read more:

别再好奇泡泡玛特为何市值千亿了，他们连直播都玩成这样了！

The Chinese Toy Brand That Surpassing Disney and Lego? Come and Meet Pop Mart!

The post How POPMART Leverages Livestreaming Without Discounting appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

A recent report (淘宝直播男性消费报告) from Alibaba-run WeChat Account Taobangdan (淘榜单) found that from 2018 to 2020, the number of male consumers shopping through livestreams has increased dramatically. From 2019 to 2020, the number of male consumers watching live streams grew 205%. In comparison, the number of female consumers grew 111%.

KOLs have taken note. For example, if you watch top live streamer Austin Li’s broadcasts, you will notice that his pet phrase has changed from “Listen, all the girls” (所有女生) to “Listen, all the girls and boys” (所有女生和男生).

So who are these men? Where are they from and what are their consumption habits? Let’s take a look: 

Chinese Male Livestreaming Consumer Demographics

According to the report, male consumers from 6th-tier cities make up 27% of the total male consumers in the livestream industry. Following this, are male consumers from 2nd and 3rd tier cities. They take up 23% and 18.7% respectively.

Male consumers tend to shop on livestreams between 8:00 to 10:00 PM. The vast majority of viewers are post-80s and post-90s. 

In general, Chinese male consumers love watching livestreaming to shop for cars and car-related products, home appliances, furniture, and electronics.

Product preferences depending on the city 

For example, male consumers from Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou mostly shop for pet products. Chengdu and Chongqing boys love buying flowers and plants. Boys in Tianjin and Shenzhen love buying blind boxes and models.

An interesting trend is that, last year, a Tibetan boy named Ding Zhen (丁真) from Ganzi (甘孜) in Sichuan Province went viral because of his look. (By the way, he looks very good). Statistics show that since then, male consumers in the local area have increased interest in watching livestreams and shopping for fashion products such as watches, sunglasses, shoes, clothes and accessories. 

Product preferences based on age

Post-90s male consumers care more about their looks, and they tend to spend more on clothes, beauty products, watches and sunglasses. Actually, post-95s are driving the growth of China’s male beauty industry. 

For post-80s, their consumption falls more on family, such as baby’s products, cars and home appliances.

Post-70s male consumers tend to spend more on jewellery, flowers, and pets.

Beauty, Clothes, and Baijiu

There are three product categories worth digging a bit deeper into, those are beauty, clothes and baijiu, a distilled Chinese liquor.

Talking about beauty, cosmetic surgeries and related products have become Chinese male consumers’ TOP5 favorite. In 2019, the number of male cosmetic surgery clients grew 52.3% from the prior year. A common need among male consumers is hair implants.

In terms of apparels, clothes ranging from 50 to 200 RMB are most popular among male livestream consumers. Men tend to have loyal preferences toward certain brands, and they love choosing basic ones. Bosideng, Heilan Home (海澜之家) and Uniqlo are where they looking for to fill their closets.

The third category: baijiu. The consumption of domestic baijiu increased 700% in livestream in 2020. Baijiu’s reputation and consumption setting is changing from something older consumers drink to something young and trendy. What may be somewhat surprising is that post-80s and post-90s were the two main consumer groups. Among baijiu, Maotai is the top runner. So much so that Maotai ranked #1 in the food category on Tmall during this year’s 11.11 Shopping Festival.

More Male Livestreamers as Well 

Not only are more male consumers shopping through livestreaming, but there are also more and more male livestreamers. Male live streamers make up 40% of total livestreamers on Taobao. Among Taobao’s top 10 male live steamers, 50% of them are KOLs while the rest are celebrities. Behind Austin Li, the next four big names are Timor小小疯, 林依轮, 南风Cheney, and 吉杰. 

Read more: 男人在直播间消费起来有多野？这份报告告诉你

Post-95s Driving the Growth of China’s Male Beauty Industry

How Did Chinese Liquor Brand Maotai Rank #1 in the F&B Category During 11.11?

A Popular Activity for Chinese New Year 2021 Was Cosmetic Surgery?!

The post The Number of Chinese Male Consumers Shopping Through Livestreaming Grew Dramatically in 2020 appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

How did Xinba develop his strong personal brand and maintain such loyal followers, even after the scandal?

The Xinba Livestream Scandal – A Quick Backstory

In case you haven’t heard of the scandal. Last fall we talked about Xinba’s ambition to earn 8 billion RMB during the Double 11 shopping festival in 2020, and he made it! 

But not long after, he was caught selling fake products. There were rumors saying he might be sentenced to 15 years in prison. But in the end, he was fined 900k RMB and he and his team were suspended from livestreaming for up to 60 days. 

And this is no small incident. Trust is everything when it comes to ecommerce live streaming. If Xinba lost the trust of his followers, that could be the end of his livestream career. It could also affect Kuaishou. According to a ranking of top e-commerce live streamers in China published by Jinri Wanghong (今日网红), Xinba and his team took up 4 of the TOP10 positions.

But he seems to have maintained his followers’ loyalty. How did he do it? 

His Down-to-Earth Image

Xinba has crafted his image since the beginning. He is the spokesperson of farmers and everything he does is for the public, for the ordinary people. Though in reality, Xinba has fancy cars and mansions and he has huge property, he doesn’t position himself as a wealthy person standing above the public. That would alienate his followers and make him unapproachable.

Xinba will do everything to please his followers. For example, we mentioned he was once involved in a scandal where he yelled at a security guard and hotel workers in public because he felt they mistreated his followers.

During his livestream, Xinba also makes sure his followers get the lowest price and best deal on the Internet. He stopped his collaborations with HONOR (荣耀), a domestic mobile phone brand, and asked his teams to do the same thing, simply because the brand wouldn’t allow him to give away earphones for free. Xinba even asked all of his followers who had purchased the phone from his livestream to return the product.

Other examples

A down-to-earth image is really important if you want to reach the masses. There is another example of KOLs in the auto industry. There are two well-known Douyin accounts, one is HuGe Shuoche (虎哥说车) and the other is HouGe Shuoche (猴哥说车). 

Huge is a forerunner in the industry and he tended to introduce cars in a very formal way. Houge is a late-comer, but within 6 months he surpassed Huge because he had a video series where he provides suggestions for followers who want to buy a car. This kind of content is more relatable to followers and it generates more interactions with them as well. Spotting this, at the beginning of 2021, Huge launched a new series giving car advice to followers.

Even in the entertainment industry, you often find celebrities who begin their careers as an ordinary person but after they became famous, their popularity decreased. This is because their image changed and they became less relatable. 

The Ultimate Objective For Content

When many people first start creating content, they often focus a lot on the content and not on how to get it to spread. To get it to spread, your content must resonate with the audience, either make them happy, sad, or angry, etc.

Xinba expands the reach his content by his personal image. In public, he is a loving husband who cares for his wife so much. He is a strict boss for his teams or apprentices. He is also a caring KOL and spokesperson for his followers. All of these characters attach charm to Xinba and that’s why his followers are so loyal to him. 

Xinba is also very popular among many mothers from lower tier cities as he often gives the lowest price on the Internet. There are funny sayings about this, such as “I don’t worry about my wife not coming back home but she watching Xinba’s livestream” or “I earn money for my wife and my wife earn money for Xinba”.

Xinba Created His Own Holiday

We have big shopping festivals every year such as 618 and Double 11. Well, at some point, KOLs are commodities as well and they need big days to promote themselves. For Xinba, his big day every year falls on August 18 (818). In Chinese, the pronunciation of this date is similar to “Xinba”.

On August 18, 2019, Xinba held a concert for his followers in the National Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing. This is the huge stadium where the opening ceremony of 2008 Summer Olympics was held. To hold a concert here, you have to go through lots of processes and the price to rent the place for a day is around 3.6 million RMB. But a concert usually needs more than one day as you have to decorate it.

Second, to please followers and create buzz for the concert, Xinba invited many top celebrities in China, including Jackie Chan (成龙), G.E.M (邓紫棋) and Wang Leehom (王力宏). 

This is the scale not many companies are able to create. This location and number of celebrities could rival the 11.11 Gala that Alibaba holds! 

For his comeback in March, Xinba promoted the livestream on many social media platforms and on huge LED screens across 9 major cities. For Xinba’s loyal followers, this concert or seeing him on LED screens would make them proud to see their “friend” or their idol that they support becoming well-known. 

And for someone who had never heard of Xinba before, hearing about the event or seeing the ads would leave impressions in their minds. If they happen to search for Xinba and watch his livestream, they may become one of his followers.

Copy-and-Paste Followers Are Loyal

What does copy-and-paste followers mean? They are people who follow multiple accounts from the same person across different platforms. For example, they follow the influencer or celebrity on Weibo, Xiaohongshu, WeChat official account, etc. For the influencer, this is great because they will have many ways to reach this follower, which is useful as it is increasingly harder to get traffic these days. 

To boost this effect, Xinba leads his fans to follow other accounts from his team and family. 

How does Xinba introduce or guide traffic for his team?

It’s by dashang (打赏). In the livestream industry, besides selling products, dashang or giving virtual gifts is one of the important ways to monetize. On most live streaming platforms, there is a ranking board for each influencer showing who contributed the most gifts in this livestream. 

Back when he was first starting out, Xinba actually gave a lot of gifts to other streamers. This way, viewers began to notice him on these ranking boards, and then would come to watch his livestream. 

So now, his team members are doing the same thing to grow their fan bases. You will often find that the Top 10 on the contribution ranking board are his team members. If other people keep sending gifts aggressively, Xinba will ask the person to stop. If they don’t, he will actually kick the person out of the livestream. That’s how much he wants his family and team to appear on that ranking board. 

He did this on his comeback livestream on March 27. He had over 5 million viewers, so even if he can just funnel a small amount of those viewers to other accounts it would help them. 

Other than this, Xinba also officially introduces his team members in his livestream. He once introduced his team member Lu (鹿) and in just one minute she gained nearly 400K followers.  

Xinba is a controversial person and that’s what gains him buzz. But one thing we have to admit is that he is very good at personal branding and marketing himself.

Read more:

辛巴4天涨粉1500万，你学不会

Kuaishou Live Streamer Xinba Aims to Earn 8 Billion RMB During This Year’s 11.11

Top Kuaishou Live Streamer Xinba Caught Selling Fake Products

Top Live Streamer Xinba’s Massive Scandal Barely Affected Kuaishou’s IPO

The post Xinba Makes a Comeback: Gains 15M Followers in His First Livestream Since the Scandal appeared first on China Marketing Insights.