This is the first time the Gala has changed its headlining sponsor, but the organizers needn’t fret as this is a coveted sponsorship position and they were able to immediately find a replacement. 

Why Are Brands Desperate To Sponsor the Spring Festival Gala?

The Gala has an extremely high audience rating. Except 2015, the ratings from 2001 to 2020 are all above 30%. The view in 2020 reached 1.23 billion. According to South China Morning Post, it is fair to say the Spring Festival Gala has the highest audience rating in the world.

The Gala has become many household’s new year background music, just like in the US how the Macy’s Day Parade is to Thanksgiving or the Times Square Ball Drop is to New Year’s Eve – only much bigger. The Spring Festival Gala is a must-have to say goodbye to the past and welcome the new year.

As the Gala is watched all over China, it is also a quick way to introduce your brand to the Xiachen or lower tier cities market. Since it is put on by the state-run CCTV channel, it is seen as an authentic and trustworthy TV show in most people’s eyes. (Which also leads us to think that Pinduoduo was probably asked to pull out of the sponsorship.)

As China’s Economy Has Grown, Sponsorships Have Shifted

The Gala’s first sponsorship was from a domestic watch company called Compas in 1984. At that time, watches, bikes, and sewing machines were called Lao Sanjian (老三件), meaning once a household had these three things, it was a wealthy one.

In the 1990s, the home appliance industry were booming, and the Gala was either sponsored by Haier (海尔) or Midea Group (美的). In the early 2000s, the Gala became the battle field of Baijiu (白酒), a type of Chinese alcohol. Stepping into the 21^st century, the Gala has become the stage for Internet giants.

A Coveted Opportunity for Internet Brands

Being a headlining sponsor will guide massive traffic and for the large Chinese Internet companies who face intense competition for traffic, the Gala is an efficient way to stand out and build a bigger user base.

While the Gala has always been a popular sponsorship opportunity, it became extremely coveted after a successful case study that happened with WeChat 6 years ago when WeChat sponsored the Gala and developed the Shake and Get Red Pocket (摇一摇红包) function where users could interact with the TV show and get free random amounts of money in their WeChat Wallet (often just a couple cents or a couple RMB).

This campaign helped WeChat grow its user base from 8M to over 300M. WeChat used two days to achieve what Alipay had been doing for 8 years. The Red Pocket activity also educated users about the WeChat Pay function.

Following this case, we’ve seen Douyin, Alipay, Taobao and Baidu become the Red Pocket sponsors of the Gala. 

At the Same Time, The Gala Needs These Red Pocket Sponsors

Though the average audience rate of the Gala is high, as a nationwide TV show, it is hard for the Spring Festival Gala to satisfy 1.4 billion people. 

Since 2005, many local TV channel such as Zhejiang Television (浙江卫视), Jiangsu Television (江苏卫视) and Dragon Television (东方卫视) started hosting their own spring festival galas and they invited many popular actors and singers to the event, which lowered the audience numbers and rating of the main Spring Festival Gala on CCTV (China Central Television). 

Working with Internet giants to add in interactive digital experiences helps the Gala appeal to younger viewers and sharing red pockets is a great way to get viewers to choose their show over a show that doesn’t offer red pockets.

According to Chinese media outlet 36Kr, those top runners in the Internet industry have invested over 7 billion RMB in the Spring Festival Gala.   

Read more: 互联网巨头为何热衷在春晚发红包？

The post Douyin Has Replaced Pinduoduo as Sponsor of This Year’s Spring Festival Gala appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

While this is true in many situations, in this fast-paced world, there is a case to be made for a deliberately “slow” approach. For example, there is a Chinese fragrance brand that is finding success by doing just that: To Summer or Guan Xia 观夏.

To Summer was founded in 2018, and it wasn’t until January 2019 that it launched its first product. The brand only promotes itself through its WeChat Official Account and occasionally  works with bloggers that match with its culture and tone. It only sells products through its WeChat mini program, and it only updates product inventory once a week, on Thursday night. If you are slow, then you might miss some of the viral products, for example, its mood crystal aroma diffuser priced at 389 RMB ($60 USD).

In addition to its various scents of beautifully packaged diffusers, To Summer also produces candles, body lotion and shampoo, perfume, and scented wax tablets.

To Summer is hitting the market at the perfect time, as a result of spending so much time indoors during COVID 19, Chinese consumers have started paying attention to improving their quality of living at home, whether that is through home decor, better appliances, or home fragrances. 

The brand is delivering a slow pace of living to its consumers. They want to shape every product as a sophisticatedly-designed magazine, to tell readers how to improve their life quality.

What makes To Summer’s products different?

The length of matchsticks

Matchsticks are usually short. When consumers are using them to light a candle, they get burned. So To Summer extended its matchsticks four times the length of other’s, aiming to let consumers light the candle elegantly.

Packaging

The packaging style is what To Summer called “new eastern modern”. They follow the rule of less is more and add eastern elements to the bottle, such as putting the characters “桂” “竹” “莲” (which means osmanthus, bamboo and lotus) boldly on the packaging.

Customization

Not many brands are customizing products for consumers. This is because it requires brands to customize labels and workers to manually label those stickers on bottles, and it costs extra manpower and material resources.

Because of the customizing service, many consumers buy it as a gift for someone else. 

Products that are giftable are excellent drivers of organic word of mouth marketing. After receiving this customized gift, people tend to share it on WeChat Moments, which attached warmth to To Summer’s products and lower the brand’s promotion budget.

Why does the brand only sell on Thursday night?

One of the reasons we just mention is the customization, which requires extra time and materials, but the core reason is the production circle.

Skincare or cosmetic products can be quickly produced once you confirm the package and ingredients, they will be manufactured in bulk with a mature supply chain and production chain in China. But China doesn’t have such a production line for high-end fragrance products.

For example, the stones found in To Summer’s mood crystal aroma are shipped from many countries including England, South Africa and U.S. After arriving, they will be processed in To Summer’s own studios, because in China, there is no factory that can handle such production line at the moment.

Even if some of the brand’s ingredients are native to China, to extract, the brand has to send those ingredients to France. The whole process involves many foreign companies and that’s why To Summer is not able to produce products on mass scale and they choose to sell them on Thursday night only.

This appears to be working to the brand’s advantage. In the brands WeChat mini program store, consumers can pay 0.01 RMB to be notified as soon as new inventory is uploaded.

A Deliberate Choice to Stay Slow

Co-founder of the brand Sheng Li (沈黎) believes that customers are very smart to know what a team is like behind a brand. While they have enough demand to grow the brand more quickly, the team wants to stay at this slow pace for now, and in 3-5 years, maybe they will consider expanding their business scale. 

To Summer will open their first offline store in Beijing in December. The store will cover 170 square meters but the team will only allocate 20 square meters for shopping and the rest they want to leave it for customers to drink, read and charge their phones. They want to make it feel like a friend’s house and a space for customers to relax.

Read more: 独家｜拒绝一年增长10亿的快生意，观夏的慢品牌哲学

The post A Slow Marketing Strategy: Fragrance Brand To Summer appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

With COVID19 decimating the world economy, this year’s Qixi (七夕, Chinese Valentine’s Day) was one of the busiest ever as brands sought to leverage China’s quick recovery to make up lost earnings. Brands that never had never before joined the revelry tested the water this year, for example Belgian fine leather brand Delvaux.

When Gucci first launched its Qixi collection which is featured in apples, I thought who would buy such a thing? It doesn’t look good. But as Gucci’s Qixi campaign began to unfold, it grew on me, and I would go as far to say that Gucci had the best Qixi campaign of 2020. I know Qixi has long since past, but I think the learnings we can take from Gucci’s campaign are valuable at any time of the year.

Now first and foremost, I felt that Gucci demonstrated a lot of sincerity by creating a whole collection instead of just a few accessories or simply titling other collections as a Qixi collection. What’s more, the Qixi collection included a wide range of items from bags and clothes to accessories.

Why apple?

At first I found it very odd that Gucci chose an apple as the symbol for the collection as apples have no symbolic meaning of love in China and I felt like maybe Gucci was misinterpreting the holiday. However, Gucci did their homework and was aware that apples didn’t symbolize love in China, instead, Gucci designer Alessandro Michele, said he drew the inspiration from ancient Greek stories about Hera and Gaia. In this story, the apple does represent love.

What’s more, compared with a traditional heart shape and Balenciaga’s I Love You “我爱你” bags, Gucci’s apple design is low-key, and it is something that customers are able to use even it is not Valentine’s Day.

A 25-day Campaign to Drive Home the Apple Theme

To make sure that consumers understood the apple design, Gucci ran a 3-week campaign across all major Chinese social media platforms. Gucci also designed a slogan called “I Apple U”, meaning I love you to go along with the campaign.

On July 31, Gucci announced this collection on its official WeChat account. The article shows an animation of the apple turning from green to red and finally with the double G on it. The red color represents the passion in relationships, and the green color stands for youth, while the Double G makes the total look cuter. By the end of that day, the article had over 300k views. On its Weibo account, the video was posted and by the end of the same week, it had 700k views.

After the announcement, on August 10, Gucci published a series of 7 mini romantic movies starring six young idols (林彦俊 & 赵露思，胡一天 & 姜贞羽，丁禹兮 & 周洁琼). The films were set at a school campus, a library and a CD store. These places are nostalgic for most post-80s and post-90s consumers, and they are also places that as a student, you must have been to. Ny the end of the campaign, total video views surpassed 16.7 million.

Customizing Campaign Content for Each Social Channel

Gucci also customized its marketing tactics to fit each social media platform:

Weibo: Weibo is a platform that gathers lots of young idols and where fans find information about their idols. In the end of every romantic small video, Gucci gave viewers right to vote which ending would they like it to be. And on the next day, Gucci announced the result. This is getting viewers more involved and engaged in the campaign.

Douyin: Different from Weibo, Gucci didn’t post complete videos on the platform. Instead it shared behind-the-scene footage. They are very natural and fun. These entertaining scenes appeal to Douyin users a lot.

Xiaohongshu: Gucci opened a Qixi pop-up store on Xiaohongshu. Compared with other platforms, the brand’s Xiaohongshu content was more focused on product introduction and description. It also worked with Xiaohongshu top KOLs such as @大睿睿, aiming to show consumers how they could style this collection in their everyday lives.

Offline: Gucci also decked out its offline stores with the apple pattern which was very eye-catching and social media worthy.

Conclusion:

In summary, Gucci won Qixi by demonstrating a clear commitment to and understanding of Chinese consumers, creating a custom collection with a story behind it, employing celebrities popular among their target consumer base to bring the collection to life, and launching marketing campaigns thoughtfully customized to suit each social media platform.

Read more:

“苹果”的力量让爱情成真，Gucci靠什么成为七夕奢侈品赢家？

Gucci七夕情人节系列全新上市

The post Case Study: How Gucci Won Qixi appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Becky Li (黎贝卡) is a top China fashion KOL with over 10 million followers.

In 2018, she created her apparel brand Becky’s Fantasy (黎贝卡的异想世界). The day it launched, it took only 7 minutes to reach 100 million RMB in sales. And on the second product launch, it only took 59 seconds. Becky is the first KOL that Rebecca Minkoff chose to work with in China, and she once sold 100 Mini Cooper’s on WeChat within 4 minutes. She was also listed in Forbes as one of China’s TOP 50 KOLs.

Watch the video to find out more about her brand and see our review of her products!

Want to learn more about Becky Li and Becky’s Fantasy? Listen to our podcast interview with Becky’s Fantasy COO Tristan Cui.

The post Product Review: Top Chinese Fashion KOL Becky Li’s Apparel Brand Becky’s Fantasy appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Following a small food safety issue in June 2019, Nayuki Tea has begun publishing WeChat posts voluntarily showing issues that they have found at various stores (specifically naming the stores) and how they will handle or have handled the problem.

They thank customers for being tolerant and forgiving them for making these mistakes, as well as thank them for their support. I found this to be really brave, truly transparent, they showed some things customers could have noticed but other things were in the back of the store and customers would have never known.

They come across as very diligent and proactive. Its a smart move for brands in the food and beverage space, watch the video for more details!

Nayuki article.

Link to article about original food safety issue.

Learn more about Nayuki tea: A Visit to One of China’s Most Popular Tea Shops, Nayuki Tea

The post Trust & Transparency: Tea Brand Nayuki Publishes Food Safety Report Article appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Private traffic (sīyù liúliàng 私域流量) was one of the biggest China marketing trends of 2019. It has become even more popular in 2020 as an increasing number of brands and livestreamers have begun implementing this tactic.

While the term is thrown around a lot, many listeners may still not have heard of it. Tune in for answers to the following questions, and more:

• What exactly is private traffic?
• Isn’t it just private WeChat groups?
• Why has this tactic become so popular?
• Is it a tactic my brand should be using?
• How does private traffic actually work and is it scalable?
• How can we track the ROI?
• Are there any case studies for my industry?

If you or your brand are facing questions such as these, you’re in luck! Today’s episode is the audio from our Private Traffic 101 webinar co-hosted with recent podcast guest Doris Ke.

You should be able to understand the content without visuals, but if you’d like to check out the presentations, you can watch the webinar replay here.

The post Podcast: What is Private Traffic & Should My Brand Be Using it? appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Chinese cosmetics brand Perfect Diary has created a virtual pet raising WeChat mini program game. Here’s the twist – its only accessible to customers!

Customers and loyalty program members can play the game, and the better the player takes care of their pet, the more loyalty points they can earn. Points can then be exchanged for Perfect Diary products.

It is a fun way to encourage more people to purchase products, join the loyalty program, and regularly visit and engage with Perfect Diary’s mini program store.

Watch the video to learn more!

The post Perfect Dairy Virtual Pet Game: Earn Loyalty Points & Collect Prizes! appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

E-commerce live streaming in China is so much more than QVC or HSN, with features such as AR beauty product try-ons, the ability to instantly earn coupons from sharing the broadcast with friends, and the ability to directly connect with a nearby sales associate while watching the stream.

Watch our video to see more of the cool features available on Chinese live streaming platforms!

The post China E-commerce Live Streaming Features You May Not Know About appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Why does this matter? Show works with a LOT of brands and many of his advertisements have been turned into scandal-related memes. If you read Chinese you should check out the article below and look up the scandal, many of the memes are hilarious! 

The Losing Brand: 
Ironically, the day before the scandal broke out, a yogurt brand called Just Yogurt (纯甄), part of Mengniu Dairy (蒙牛), officially announced Show as its ambassador, and even bought Weibo’s opening screen for this collaboration. They have also put ads in WeChat Moments. In the ads, Show was asking “What is the thing that you are most proud of?” Netizens poked fun at Show replying “I have two cell phones”. Just Yoghurt quickly changed its opening screen ambassador to another celebrity Zhao Liyin (赵丽颖). 

Accidental Winner:
L’Oreal accidentally became a winner in this scandal. On the same day that Grace Chow posted about her and Show’s relationshhip, L’Oreal had purchased a spot on Weibo’s hot topic ranking board to promote its eye cream which could help ease dark circles. As I mention above, Grace Chow’s post revealed Show often stayed up very late with other girls, and he does have very dark bags under his eyes. Naturally, netizens were praising L’Oreal for choosing the perfect timing to promote its product. 

Read more:
罗志祥人设崩塌，蒙牛品牌“受伤”，企业到底如何选代言？
罗志祥周扬青分手上热搜：蒙牛「躺枪」，欧莱雅「躺赢」
罗志祥今早第2次道歉，段子手们的文案绝了！哈哈哈哈

Taobao CEO Jiang Fan and Ruhnn’s Top KOL Zhang Dayi Accused of Having an Affair by Fan’s Wife

On April 17th Taobao CEO Jiang Fan’s wife posted on Weibo tagging famous KOL and CMO of KOL incubator Ruhann Zhang Dayi (Eve) and warning Zhang to stay away from her husband. Her post quickly went viral and although it was quickly deleted the damage had already been done and Ruhnn’s stock price dropped 7%. Neither the company nor Zhang responded to the allegations. Fan quickly issued an apology, not admitting or denying his behaviors, but instead apologizing to everyone at Alibaba for the disruption and negative press that he has brought the company.

Aside from the fact that it is an affair, why is this so scandalous? Well Ruhnn and Zhang’s MASSIVE success have relied heavily on both Taobao and Taobao Live Streaming, which Fan runs. Zhang’s stores have repeatedly made it into the top women’s apparel store lists during 11.11. And prior to Ruhnn going public on NASDAQ last year, Alibaba had invested in the company.

Read More:
网红张大奕的“瓜”里藏着什么样的资本局
大公司头条：淘宝总裁蒋凡道歉，阿里将启动内部调查；沙特主权基金海外抄底，买入英超球队、邮轮公司和石油公司

Quarantine Ends = Uptick in demand for wedding and pregnancy products

I’ve heard some reports about an increase in people filing for divorce after the COVID-19 quarantine lifted, but not all couples hated their time stuck together. Many couples were forced to be apart for several months and came back from quarantine wanting to get married ASAP. 

• On April 8, the first day of Wuhan being free, 171 couples registered for marriage.
• On Tmall, during April, sales of diamonds grew 82%; sales of xitang (喜糖 the candy Chinese trandtionally hand out as part of their wedding announcements) grew 68%, and sales of red packets or hongbao grew 129%.
• On ecommerce platform 1688, the number of people looking for wedding dresses is 3 times more than usual.
• Wedding photographers in Suzhou are fully booked in May, and if couples want to have a shoot on weekends they need to wait until August.

This article points out that fitness and weight loss brands should take note of this trend because before a wedding or photo shoot couples typically want to lose weight and get in shape. 

For couples that were already married, there are predictions that we are going to see a huge uptick in pregnant women soon. There is a joke that was trending online in China, saying that after a few years, kids will ask their dads why there are so many children in their class born in October and November. And their dads remain silent for a few seconds and say: “The story begins with a bat…”

An increase in pregnancies and births will lead to increased demand in ancillary products. 

Read more:
报复性消费不会来了？你去婚姻登记处看看
报复性消费不会来了

Esprit Closing Stores in China

Not all brands made it through COVID-19. Starting at the beginning of April, apparel brand ESPRIT’s Tmall home page started a buy 2 get 80% off sale. Offline stores such as the ones in Beijing were spotted with sales as steep as buy 10 get 90% off. It is expected that the brand will close all of its stores in China by June. 

Read more: ESPRIT内地门店将在年中全面关闭，清仓折扣低至0.5折

China Marketing Podcast Episode 70: The massive growth of e-commerce livestreaming during COVID-19

This week’s episode discusses China’s ecommerce livestreaming industry. As mentioned in episode 69, this industry has experienced massive growth due to COVID-19. In fact, leading ecommerce livestreaming platform Taobao Live reported that in early February, livestream sessions on the platform had increased by 110% year over year.

Today, Lauren explains the ways in which the industry has grown and changed. She also shares specific examples and case studies that have been seen over the past several months.

Topics include:

• How famous streamers adapted their product offerings
• The creative (and sometimes odd) ways that many traditionally offline businesses began using livestreaming
• Thoughts on WeChat’s and Xiaohongshu’s newly launched livestreaming functions
• Will the trend continue after COVID-19?

Listen on Spotify and iTunes

The post Wanghong Grace Chow Reveals Ex Luo Zhixiang’s Scandalous Lifestyle appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

It appears that women are more willing to spend money than ever, placing increased value on health and fitness, medical care, fashion, and beauty.

• During the quarantine period, 82.8% of females spent more time on online learning.
• 49.3% of females say that after the virus they will focus more on the enjoying the present and are willing to spend more money to improve their lifestyle now
• Only 15.2% of females say they will save more and focus more on money management
• Some of the offline activities they are looking forward to are exercising, going out to eat, going to cafes and tea stores, eating hotpot, and going to the cinema. 

Read more: 新冠疫情下的女性消费者动态

Vivo Takes Over the Fashion Industry to Promote its Newest Phone

On March 20, Vivo launched the new Vivo X30 cell phone designed by Alexander Wang. With the phone being designed by a fashion designer, Vivo went all in on the fashion theme, promoting the phone as a fashion item instead of just a mobile phone and running a full-scale PR and influencer campaign to generate massive buzz within the fashion industry:
Back in November 2019, Vivo announced supermodel Liu Wen(刘雯) as its ambassador
In December 2019, it officially announced its collaboration with Alexander Wang.
On March 16, 2020, fashion media such as Vogue, Bazzar, Cosmo, and Elle posted WeChat articles about the new Vivo X30. Most of these articles reach over 100k+ views. Many celebrities were involved in the promotion and other high-profile technology industry people as well, becoming a trending topic on social media.
Then the day it launched, March 20, many top tier fashion bloggers such as Gogoboi, Becky Li(黎贝卡的异想世界), Fil Xiaobai (Fil小白), Mr. Jiliang (吉良先生) and Dasao (原来是西门大嫂) published sponsored posts.
The influencer marketing doesn’t stop here. To create a long tail effect, since March 21, Vivo has had KOCs consistently promoting the product.
Read more: 深度｜vivo是如何快速打入时尚界核心圈层的？

China Marketing Podcast Episode 67: Rethinking the WeChat User Experience: Personalization, Commerce & Customer Journeys with Tom Kruger of Chatly

In this interview, Tom explains why brands need to rethink their WeChat strategies and position WeChat as their brand’s core customer engagement hub in China. He guides us through the entire funnel, from building an identified contact, creating 48-hour journeys, setting up segmentation and retargeting, and designing commerce and loyalty mini programs.

This episode is super detailed, it’s essentially a free WeChat CRM master class so be prepared to learn a lot!

Listen on iTunes or Spotify.

Is Kuaishou Better for New Brands Than Douyin? + Some Content Tips

Should newer or smaller brands be considering Kuaishou instead of Douyin? This article argues yes. Why? 

Douyin is more like Weibo, it is very entertainment focused. It can easily make something go viral, but it is not as tolerant and open as Kuaishou. Douyin is full of celebrities and lacks a sense of accessibility, is not down-to-earth. Because of Kuaishou’s tolerance, if you are a brand, you don’t need to have funds first, you can develop your fan base with simple, down to earth content. 

Some other content creation tips from the article: 

• Brands need to produce content that resonates with viewers, not what the brand thinks is best.
• Customers are real masters of your brand, not you. They can make your brand famous and they can also destroy it. Your role is to be a guardian of the brand. 
• Brands should dare to hire more young people, and hire people who often use live streaming. It is the future of commerce. 
• Don’t focus on creating viral content, focus on steady growth. If your account gets 300 new followers every day, at the end of the year, you will have 100k followers. 

Read more: 为什么中国所有的生意，都值得用快手重做一遍？

The post How Female Consumers Plan to Spend Money Post COVID-19 appeared first on China Marketing Insights.