What makes it a learnable case study for brands is that the lotion successfully attracted new customers to La Mer. It helped raise the percentage of new customers to nearly 70%, among which was a 10% growth in the Gen Z consumer group.

What marketing strategy did La Mer apply to launch this lotion? How did the lotion bring young consumers to La Mer?

Product Targets at Young Generation

The hydrating infused emulsion is La Mer’s first lotion for anti-aging, which helps to build up the brand’s products team.

Most lotion has the issue of being too sticky to the skin, and they are not suitable to be applied either in spring or summer. La Mer spotted the problem and decided to create a light and hydrating lotion and, at the same time, has the ability to combat the aging issue for consumers.

Based on research conducted by Mintel, over 60% of Chinese consumers choose high-end skincare products because of the anti-aging need, such as tightening the skin (63%) and antioxidants (60%). Post-85s and post-90s are the most generous groups in spending money on anti-aging skincare products.

La Mer planned to use the lotion to bring consumers aged between 25-30 to the brand in China.

“Young as Me” Campaign

To make sure the brand reach the young consumer group, La Mer launched a “Young as Me” campaign (hashtag #年轻由我#).

The brand filmed a series of mini-movies featuring Chinese millennials and Gen Z. Scenes in the movie echoed with young people’s interest, such as surfing, camping, and skiing, showcasing the characteristics of the young generation: carrying clear goals and keep exploring the unknown, regardless of traditional boundaries.

Another hashtag that La Mer used when introducing the lotion was #轻启年轻#, meaning becoming younger. Either the campaign or the hashtag delivered the message to consumers, especially young consumers that by using La Mer’s hydrating infused emulsion, you can look younger.

Celebrities and KOLs Helped Bring More Traffic

To show La Mer’s sincerity for its new lotion, the brand invited Chinese Victor Ma (马伯蹇) to show up at its launch event with Tmall. Victor created a song dedicated to La Mer, which shared his attitude towards being young. The event was livestreamed on Weibo, generating more buzz for the new lotion.

In terms of KOLs, La Mer invited KOLs whose fans are the young generation to offline glamping, including top fashion KOL Yuanlanshi Ximendasao (原来是西门大嫂), fitness KOL Zoey (周六野), and travel KOL odin and kitty. La Mer coupled the lotion together with its iconic serum and educated KOLs on their effects.

Couple The Lotion and Serum

CP, or couple, is a hot word among Chinese young people. The term originated from actors/actresses, whom fans wish to have real relationships in life, other than in films or TV series. When it comes to marketing, everything can be coupled. Brand A can couple with Brand B to bring more attention. Similarly, Product A can couple with Product B to get a better effect.

La Mer has educated KOLs about the effect brought by the coupling of its lotion and serum. In March 2022, La Mer launched an upgraded serum and officially and publicly announced the combination of its two products.

Our Thoughts

La Mer smartly uses the hydrating infused emulsion to fill the gap in its product team, which mainly serves the young generation. Through its online channels and offline events, the brand successfully targeted Chinese millennials and Gen Z and educated them about its anti-aging effect.

The post How Did La Mer’s New Product Grow Its Gen Z Consumers in China? appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

One month after she appeared publicly, she was on Weibo’s hot topic ranking board more than 32 times. That popularity is something that not many celebrities or KOLs are able to achieve in their entire career. Yet LinaBell made it just in one month.

Who is she? What makes her a huge superstar among Chinese people, especially girls? What commercial plans are hiding behind her?

New Member of the Duffy Family from Disney: LinaBell

LinaBell is a fox! She’s a new member of the Duffy Family from Disney, introduced in September. Here is her cute background story. So Duffy was playing around in a forest and he got lost. When he was about to panic, LinaBell showed up with her iconic magnifier, and guided Duffy out of the forest.

Her character is set to be brave, outgoing and she’s a fox with endless curiosity to explore the world. She loves adventures.

Currently, you can only find LinaBell in Shanghai Disneyland. She will be introduced in Hongkong and Tokyo Disney in the near future.

What Makes LinaBell a Huge Celebrity?

Her Popularity

On the first launching day of LinaBell’s products, people had to wait in line for seven hours so as to get one. And to take a picture with LinaBell, people often line up for three hours.

LinaBell’s products are ALWAYS out of stock, including her dolls in different sizes and her blankets. People’s crazy desire to get her products are often taken advantage of by “Huang Niu” or scalpers. A keychain of LinaBell doll which is 119 RMB, is sold at nearly 2,299 RMB on collectible resale platform Dewu.

On November 24, Shanghai Disney published the announcement that the Christmas collections of Duffy Family would be launched on November 29, along with LinaBell’s dolls! That’s a big news for LinaBell’s fans and the scalpers. Immediately, scalpers were hiring people in WeChat groups, looking for people to rush to Shanghai Disney on the launch day. 

Some people go the opposite way to produce fake LinaBell merchandise. There are people on social media platforms to help LinaBell’s lovers to identify the authenticity of their dolls.

Cute Look of LinaBell

LinaBell is cute. She is a fox with a soft pink color and fluffy clothes. Her big and seemly-warm tail also makes girls scream every time she turns her back to the audience and shakes it. But obviously, what makes LinaBell’s popularity last long and continue to increase is her character.

LinaBell’s Brave Character

Unlike many other Disney characters, the setting of LinaBell’s personality is different. She has many dimensions. Sometimes she is being cute, shy, and sometimes she’s being angry to show her dislike.

When visitors say something that she doesn’t like, she would pretend to pull out her sword. When she sees handsome boys, she becomes shy and wants to hug them. She’s also very sporty, showing fans how she lifts dumbbell to strengthen her body. When fans are complaining that her products are often out of stock, she pretends to write letters to the manufacturer and call related people. She even starts to thread the sewing machine and pluck out her own fur to shape a small LinaBell.

She’s alive for fans.

Disney’s Commercial Plan behind LinaBell

Creating Idols without Film and Television Works

Think about classic Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck or Simba, they all have movies to complete their personalities. Yet, the Duffy Family doesn’t. They were created and rely on people who play inside the costumes to make them alive.

Duffy’s story is a good example for LinaBell. He first showed up in an American Disneyland in 2004, and he wasn’t even had a name back then, and was called “Disney Bear”. After he was introduced to the Tokyo Disney, the local team proposed a new name for him: Duffy, and put him in sailor suits. Together with fabricated stories behind the bear, Duffy quickly gained huge popularity and it continues nowadays.

Disney realized that a character doesn’t necessarily need to appear in movies, a character just needs a personality.

Following Duffy, we see more and more family members being created. So now, the Duffy Family has seven members, or “idols”. Those characters help Disney make great revenues by selling their peripheral products. It is estimated that the amount of StellaLou, the purple rabbit in the Duffy Family, sold by Shanghai Disney in three years is equal to 119 Mount Qomolangma if you pile them up. This rabbit even has its own color named by its fans, which is called the StellaLou Purple.

An Effective Weapon against the Beijing Universal Studios

The opening of the Beijing Universal Studios in September 2021 definitely drags away lots of traffic from Shanghai Disneyland. What might also become threatening for Disney is that, the Megatron in the Universal Studios is so talkative when taking photos with visitors, and thus, he has attracted many people to go to the park and interact with him. He is popular as well.

StellaLou is still popular and yet, people were not as crazy as before. Disney needs a new character to give visitors more reasons to come and spend money on its products. According to The Paper, the revenue of Disney’s tickets only takes up 30% of its total revenue, and the park largely depends on second consumption, which is by selling its IPs’ products. 

A nice try, Disney!

Our Thoughts

Though without film works, an IP has a lower threshold for fans to get to know them. What it requires for them to become popular is mostly their looks. However, without background television works, fans might not have as deep engagement with those IPs as they have for Mickey or Donald Duck.

(But with LinaBell in Disney, I am planning to buy an annual card of the Shanghai Disneyland and to visit her frequently!)

The post Who Is LinaBell And Why Is She A Big Hit Among Chinese Girls? appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Why is she so popular? Well people were curious about this perfect-looking girl. AYAYI amazed people with her features and style. People were questioning whether she actually might be a real person. Many people began re-creating AYAYI’s content and imitating her look.

Business Potential of AYAYI

Among AYAYI’s followers, over half of them are the young generation between the ages of 18 to 24. They love chasing after fashion trends and show great interest in different types of art. Working with AYAYI can help brands to become younger and to reach the young consumer group.

Guerlain x AYAYI

Many brands “invited” AYAYI to their offline events, including Louis Vuitton, Guerlain and Disney. On June 15 and 16, Guerlain created a perfume garden in Shanghai, attracting many KOLs to visit.

Even though AYAYI can’t actually attend the event, her designers can create images that make it look like she was there.

What also help the event to generate buzz on social media was that many KOLs and celebrities were learning from AYAYI’s poses and took photos at the same scene with the same gesture. It used to be influencers imitating celebrities, now it’s the other way round, that celebrities are imitating influencers, not even real humans at that!

Principal of Tmall Super Brands Digital (天猫超级品牌数字)

What makes AYAYI different from other virtual avatars is her endorsement with Tmall. She visited Alibaba’s workspace and had her own name card like other employees.

AYAYI is not confined by either time or space, so she can travel anywhere. Because of this, she can be the one who guides people to different art exhibitions in the world and bring engaging visiting experiences for them with technical assistance.

AYAYI is also the representative of the latest trends and fashion. Brands are welcome to have jointly designed products with her. Together with AYAYI’s identity as a metahuman, they can bring novel shopping experiences for consumers.

During this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival, she introduced a mooncake gift set, co-designed by AYAYI’s team and Tmall. Consumers not only received a physical set, but also a NFT (Non-fungible Token) mooncake.

The Prospect of Virtual Avatars

In some way, real KOLs are the same as those digital human beings. KOLs have their own online characters set by MCNs or themselves. They are invited to events and post images on social media. They interact with followers in a digital world and followers don’t know if it’s KOLs themselves replying to their messages or someone else replying on the KOL’s behalf.

Virtual avatars are capable of doing the things above. They are created under a series of artistic analysis and their faces are more sophisticated than real people. Since they first show up on social media, they are born with discussion on whether they are real people. That discussion helps them grab attention and grow fan bases.

According to iiMedia Research, the domestic market of virtual idols reached 3.46 billion RMB, and it is expected that by 2021, the scale of the market will grow to 6.22 billion RMB.

However, though virtual avatars can do most of things the same with real human beings, some are not within their capabilities. Not long ago, a virtual influencer Ling (翎) posted on RED to promote a lipstick. The post was criticized for not being honest, because it described the texture of the lipstick. RED users felt that a virtual person can’t feel the texture personally, and it would be better if she recommends apparel instead of makeup or skincare products.

Read more: 首个超写实数字人入职天猫，撕开元宇宙入口？

The post Chinese Metahuman AYAYI: Redefining the Word Influencer appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

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.

Recently, Zhang Zhehan (张哲瀚), a Chinese actor and singer ended his career in the entertainment industry, due to a mistake he made during his nine-day endorsement with the Japanese jewelry brand TASAKI. Why? Because of his misbehaviors in patriotism. Weibo deleted both his personal Weibo account and his studio’s account.

Right before that, top Chinese celebrity Kris Wu was accused of sexual assault and rape of minors. The scandal was so massive that the police detained him. Related topics covered Weibo’s hot topic ranking board for days. Louis Vuitton and Bvlgari were among the luxury brands that had to terminate their collaborations with him so as not to get in any trouble (or any more trouble than they were already in.)

Several months ago, another case that generated a great deal of attention was Zheng Shuang’s scandal. On the day the scandal exploded online, Prada, who had named Zheng as its ambassador just seven days before, experienced a 1.7% drop in its stock price.

However, the sweet taste of working Chinese celebrities still overcomes the potential risks that it might bring. But it hasn’t always been this way.

When Did Luxury Brands Begin Liking Chinese Celebrities?

It is not until recent years that luxury brands let down their guards and began to fancy Chinese celebrities.

In 2013, Gucci had actress Li Bingbing (李冰冰) as its ambassador, first in Asia and later the title bacame a global level. Li showed professional skills at performance, and she had no scandal. Back then, brands were skeptical and being very cautious to name a Chinese celebrity as ambassador.

However, with the development of Fan Economy and social media in China, celebrities had an increasing influence on their fans. In 2016, Lu Han (鹿晗, who has 63M followers on Weibo currently) was invited by Cartier to be its “Brand Friend”. Following Lu, in the same year, Kris Wu became the first non-British ambassador for Burberry and walked in its show. With Wu’s influence back then, Burberry’s sales performance grew 25% in the third quarter of 2016.

Dior is the first one to test the water

Among the many luxury brands vying for a piece of the China market, Dior has benefitted the most from its celebrity strategy.

In 2017, Angelababy became the brand’s first Chinese ambassador. The announcement post had more than 380k reposts within hours, making it the most-reposted post on Weibo at that time.

Dior didn’t stop at one spokesperson in China, building a team to expand its influence. It has another skincare ambassador, a makeup ambassador, a jewelry ambassador, a fragrance ambassador and many other Brand’s Friends.

It only took four years for Dior to grow its follower base from 1.79M to 6.56M. Dior has become one of the most popular luxury brands among Chinese consumers.

After Dior’s Success, Other Luxury Brands Decide the Risk is Worth it

In 2019, Prada signed young idol singer Cai Xukun (蔡徐坤, who has 36M followers on Weibo) as its ambassador. At the time, there were voices saying Cai had not been famous for very long and he may not be qualified to be a luxury brand’s spokesperson. Yet since then his fame has only grown, and many of his campaigns with Prada have done quite well.

In 2020, Tiffany’s started working with Jackson Yee (易烊千玺), and promoted him to be a global ambassador. Then Guerlain announced Fan Bingbing (范冰冰) as one of its global ambassadors. This appointment also triggered many skeptical voices. Fan was involved in massive a tax evasion scandal not even a year before.

This year, we have TOD’S collaboration with Xiao Zhan (肖战), who had previously been criticized by state-run media outlet People’s Daily. On the day of the announcement, the number of followers of TOD’S Tmall flagship store grew 110k, which was 24 times the scale before.

Despite the risk that many of these brands face working with these celebrities, especially those with past incidents or those that are newer celebrities, it seems the benefits outweigh the risks. In such a short time span, brands went from being reluctant to work with Chinese celebrities to being so willing to work with them that they are willing to risk their brand reputation.

Panerai Welcomes Chinese Actress Dilraba as Its First-Ever Female Global Brand Ambassador

And despite the host of scandals lately, it appears brands are not planning to stop working with Chinese celebrities anytime soon. What’s more, they are appointing them to even more prominent positions. For example, only yesterday, Chinese actress Dilraba joined the Italian luxury watch maker Panerai as its first-ever female Global Brand Ambassador. Not just Brand Ambassador for China or Asia, but the global ambassador. This is a brave time to make that move!

Read more: 深度｜奢侈品牌请中国明星代言的风潮终于要过去了？

The post With so Many Massive Scandals, Do Luxury Brands Still Love Chinese Celebrities? appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Luxury brands love him. Over the years he has collaborated with numerous brands including Dior, Cartier, Saint Laurent, and Jimmy Choo. He has even worked with many luxury brands to co-design his own limited-edition bags, including Strathberry, Givenchy, Burberry, Tod’s, Chloé, Montblanc and Qeelin. Every time, those bags were sold out within minutes.

What I admire about him is the fact that Mr. Bags started as a college student studying finance in NYC. But he had a great passion for bags, and he bravely chose to forge a career in a brand-new industry with no connection to his college major. He shared those bags as if he was introducing old friends to readers, and the hard work paid off when he was invited to fashion shows and met high-profile people in the fashion industry.  

How did I meet Mr. Bags? 

Recently I had an opportunity to meet Mr. Bags and see him talk about bags in person at an offline event held by entry-luxury brand Tory Burch. The news was announced on Mr. Bags’ WeChat Official Account, inviting followers who are based in Shanghai to attend the event.  

To join the event, interested followers had to leave a message on the account saying that they want to join the event and leave their WeChat ID. Later followers will receive a notification asking them to add a personal WeChat account.  

The guest list selection process didn’t finish here. After adding Mr. Bags staff WeChat account, there was another round of selection by his employees. And finally, if you are selected, you will get a WeChat message from the account.  

Attending the Event

The event was held in Tory Burch’s flagship store at Jing’an Kerry Center, Shanghai. Guests were split into several groups with different color bracelets on their waists.  

At first, I wasn’t expecting Mr. Bags to interact with guests, but to my surprise, he was there, introducing Tory Burch’s bags one by one, with so much passion.  

And because there were so many guests, he had to speak again and again to each group, like teaching the same content to students three times or even more. To be honest, while he was recommending those bags, I started to learn the charm and appreciate them. Before the event, I hardly have any knowledge about Tory Burch.  

In addition to Mr. Bags, Tory Burch also invited a fashion stylist and models to present its products. If guests finished these two activities, they were welcomed to craft their exclusive notebooks with Tory Burch’s monogram on them.  

There was also a photo session with the chance to take a picture with Mr. Bags. What also impressed me a lot was that even after speaking and introducing the bags for a long time, he stood there and nicely took photos with anyone who wanted one. Some of the guests already met him before in other events and they were greeting Mr. Bags as if they were old friends.  

My Thoughts on the Event 

I quite enjoyed the event. First, it had Mr. Bags, a fashion icon in many people’s eyes. Second, the whole setting was comfortable and not aggressive. There were waiters standing everywhere to make sure guests can grab a drink or snacks whenever they want. And staff didn’t push you to buy anything. Even when you were browsing through products, they gave you time and space to appreciate them on your own.  

It is also a good case study for brands of how they can leverage KOL marketing. Offline events serve as a key bridge for both the KOL and the brand to reach followers/consumers. Even if an attendee didn’t buy anything during the event, the feeling that the brand and the KOL generated makes this experience memorable and they may develop a positive connotation with the brand and be more likely to purchase from it in the future. As I mentioned above, I didn’t know too much about Tory Burch prior to the event but Mr. Bags’ passion for the brand made in interested in its products. 

The post I Finally Met Top Fashion KOL Mr.Bags! 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

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Involution is felt by citizens everywhere in China

According to a popular thread on the Chinese question-and-answer platform, Zhihu (知乎), involution happens almost everywhere. It is in every sector and business in China. For example, a netizen shared her experience of socializing with ‘Shun Yi Moms (顺义妈妈)’, who are similar to mothers in the Upper East Side in Manhattan (if you’ve ever read Wednesday Martin’s ‘Primates of Park Avenue’). When with these women, she realized that many of them trained their children way advanced than the standard requirement of their age group. For example, they speak three languages in kindergarten.

Another story came from a recent graduate from an Ivy league university who just returned to China. The graduate remarked, “It’s harder to find a job as a haigui (海归, an overseas returnee) in big cities nowadays. Even a taxi driver in Beijing has a university certificate.” People are pushing themselves to the extreme to succeed, yet they feel like they are going nowhere. They also feel all the work is still not enough.

Involution has undoubtedly resonated with China’s millennials and Gen Z. According to BBC China, involution was the Top 10 hot topics in 2020. It also gained 10 billion searches on Weibo in 2021. So, how have Chinese brands responded to the wave of discussion around ‘Neijuan’ or Involution?

Involution Trendjacking

For content marketers, trendjacking is an effective way to reach new customer segments, while still retaining the core values of their brand. It requires them to constantly keep an eye on hot topics and respond quickly to capitalize the buzz. Many times, human or human-related events are at the center of the discussions. For example, #FriendsReunion and Bernie Sanders at the inauguration in the western world. Similarly, celebrity-led trends appear quite often in China’s marketing scene.

Lelush on Produce Camp 2021

If you follow Tecent’s reality show ‘Produce Camp 2021’ (or ‘Chuang 2021’), you should be familiar with the name ‘Lelush’(利路修). Lelush’s real name is Vladislav Ivanov. The Russian model ‘accidentally’ joined the competition for the next generation boy band with 90 contestants. Not long after the competition began, Lelush relaized he didn’t want to be there. But he had signed a contract and could only leave if the show producers kicked him off or the audience voted him out. So, he began trying hard to make that happen.

Compared to his other peers who show proactivity and diligence in the training programs, Lelush often had a ‘sang’ face and took every opportunity to slack off. He told the producers and the audience that he ‘wants to leave’ and asked, ‘When is it my turn to be weeded out?’. However, things went against his wishes and many people started voting for him to stay in the game. People resonated with his involution attitude. His fans called themselves ‘Sun si (笋丝)’ and voluntarily created many online memes about Lelush.

Brands Begin Collaborating with Lelush

Luckin Coffee (瑞幸咖啡) was the first brand that reached out to Lelush to collaborate. The campaign was launched after a short 13 day’s preparation from signing the talent, creating the script and actual production. Carrying a slogan ‘YYDS (永远滴神)’, a buzzword that means ‘greatest of all time’, the campaign launch video had almost two million times on Bilibili within 24 hours and the official hashtag #瑞幸冰咖推荐官利路修 (Chief Recommendation Officer Lelush) broke a billion mention record on Weibo. The brand was riding on the social hype of the campaign. Its sales also reached a historical high since its scandal in 2020. 

In my opinion, the reason behind Luckin’s success is not only the high agility and efficient execution, but also it truly paid efforts on understanding the trend. This allows it to maximize the uniqueness of Lelush as an influencer while still keeping the essence of its brand.

The advertisement’s storyline matched well with several iconic scenes of Lelush in Produce Camp. As a result, it perfectly picked up on the fans’ ‘deja vu’ moments and created brand advocacy. Because the concept of involution was smartly reflected in the ending scene when Lelush said ‘can I leave work now?’ in his typical tired, emotionless voice, even his non-fans can resonate with the campaign and get a laugh out of it as well.

Not everyone is able to correctly capture the involution trend

Involution is such a hot topic among millennials and Gen Zs that many brands want to tap on it in China. However, not everyone did it well.

Earlier in May, a post by Zhang Jun, Head of PR at Tencent received over 60k angry reactions on Weibo as he posted about staying late for the Youth Day campaign whilst the real youth were asleep. Su Mang, former chief editor of Harper’s Bazaar China, recently apologized for her ‘inappropriate interpretation’ of involution as ‘a reflection of high desire but low willingness to put in the work among the young generation’.

Both were pointed for being ignorant of the real societal state the young workforce is in and the living pressure brought by endless competition. Apparently, the concept of involution is a double-edged sword, only those who truly understand its meaning and impact on the younger groups can capitalize off its influence. The same applies really to any controversial topics. Brands must rely on their marketers to determine which trends are appropriate to associate the brand with.

The post The Newest Buzzword ‘Involution’ and How Brands Have Responded to It in China appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Sounds familiar right? Not long ago something similar happened with the Xinjiang cotton scandal. Every year brands get caught up in scandals. But with the correct response, it doesn’t have to mean the end of their China journey.

Coach is one of those brands. It took the slow road, but it has survived and found its way back from the scandal. Recently it held a large-scale show in Shanghai which helped the brand generate lots of buzz on social media. Though Coach still has a long way to reach its previous peak performance in China, it seems like the brand is getting there.

What happened to Coach in China in 2019?

The scandal started from Versace defining Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao as individual countries on a T-shirt. Following it, many other brands such as Coach, Givenchy were discovered to have the same issue.

People were outraged and those brands’ ambassadors were busy distancing themselves from brands by announcing the termination of their contracts. A key reason why Coach was severely influenced was the cancellation of contracts by its two ambassadors: Liu Wen (刘雯) and Guan Xiaotong (关晓彤). Both of them are top celebrities and their actions drive massive amounts of attention and traffic.  Under the comment area of Coach’s apology announcement on Weibo, many people were asking the brand to get out of China and stop earning money from Chinese consumers. The future of Coach seemed dark back then.

Coach’s performance after the scandal

Social media engagement on Weibo

I choose Weibo as the subject to monitor Coach’s social media engagement. First, the platform is one of Coach’s official channels to present its brand image and announce big events. Second, Weibo’s statistics (including numbers of likes, comments and reposts) are more transparent compared with WeChat,

The data excludes posts involving celebrities and KOLs, as the engagement numbers usually go extremely high for those posts. Here is the average engagement prior to the scandal: 

And here is the average engagement after the scandal:

You can see from these two charts that Coach’s social media engagement fell dramatically after the scandal. People were reluctant to have interactions with the brand when it first started to post content again.

Sales performance after the scandal

From lack of social media engagement, it appears Coach might not survive from the scandal. However, after parent company Tapestry released its financial report of 2020, it seemed as if the effects weren’t as serious as they looked. The report shows that Greater China achieved $600.8 million in sales, accounting for 17% of Coach’s total sales. If we look at the percentage of Greater China’s contribution in 2019 and 2018, which were 18%, it didn’t make great difference.

Coach’s bags have also frequently shown up in top fashion KOLs’ posts. The event that it held on June 3 grabbed lots of attention. It seems that people have let go of the scandal back in 2019. How does Coach manage to do so?

How Coach Earned Back the Love of Consumers in China

The first Weibo post after the scandal

After its official apology on August  12, Coach didn’t post anything on its Weibo account and went silent on social media for two months.

The first post after the scandal was not until November 6, 2019. The post announced Coach’s participation in the second China International Import Expo. This is not some usual exhibition but a national-level expo, being recognized by the Chinese government.

By showing up at the Expo, Coach was delivering the message to Chinese consumers that it was making efforts to fix its mistakes and it has gained official approval to join such a government-run event.

We don’t want anything bad happens to brands. But if your brand happens to get caught up in any scandals, do keep quiet for a while. Nike hasn’t posted anything on its Weibo account since March 12, after the Xinjiang Cotton scandal, same with Calvin Klein and H&M.

Do the politically right thing

Besides the second China International Import Expo, Coach also participated in the third Expo in 2020. This shows Coach’s sincerity to please Chinese consumers and do the politically right thing in China.

Other than the Expo, when COVID first hit Wuhan in early 2020, Coach immediately donated 1 million RMB to the city. In the comments area on Weibo, people were saying Coach reacted fast and was being generous.

Celebrity and KOL strategies

After the two ambassadors terminated their collaboration with Coach, it would need to find a new one. This would be achieved once things cooled down and celebrities were willing to work with the brand again. The new ambassador it picked is Yang Zi (杨紫). She is a child star who became famous from a household TV series called Home With Kids (家有儿女). In recent years she has shed the child-star image and played the lead role in numerous romantic dramas. Yang has 57 million followers on Weibo and it is fair to say almost every young person knows her.

Before officially announcing Yang Zi as its ambassador, Coach had been interacting with her by having her appear in video clips. So on August 31, 2020, when Coach announced the collaboration, Yang’s fans were cheering up for her and the post gained 182k likes so far.

Other than Yang, Coach also actively worked with other celebrities and KOLs, including Ding Yusi (丁禹兮), Chen Yuqi (陈钰琪) and Dong Youlin (董又霖). You may find those names sound unfamiliar. And yes, they are not as famous as Liu Wen, Guan Xiaotong or Yang Zi. I think it’s not because Coach doesn’t have the budget to work with higher-level celebrities. It’s because the brand wants to be low-key for now instead of working with some big names and drawing lots of traffic all of a sudden. The brand wants to grow and recover steadily. It is playing a safe card.

Offline presence is necessary

If you follow the timeline of the Coach scandal, you will find the brand was a little bit lucky. The scandal happened in August, 2019. Coach kept silent for 2 months on social media, and then in early 2020, COVID hit the country and offline stores and events were shut down. Everything offline didn’t restart until March.

So during this period when Coach should be low-key and had better not hold any offline events, every other brand was doing the same thing because of COVID restrictions.

Even after COVID restrictions loosened, Coach stayed fairly quiet and it wasn’t until December 2020 that Coach held a big offline event. I believe December could be some people’s happiest month, as it has Christmas, and it is the end of past and a fresh start of a new beginning. Coach picked a good timing, when hate and negative voices of its past scandal might be less.

What it did for the event was to have 400 drones with lights create images of Coach’s bags and its iconic dinosaurs cartoon. The brand was wishing everyone a good holiday. The location that it chose was at The Bund, Shanghai, which is the most representative spot either in Shanghai or in China.

If The Bund event has somehow brought Coach back to the center of the stage, the following one publicly tells Chinese consumers that Coach has made its way back and it is doing better than ever.

On June 3, 2021, Coach invited top celebrities and KOLs to its Coach Winter Collection show in Shanghai. The brand designed its show place as a drive-in cinema with a vintage vibe. Celebrity attendees were diverse. There were top ones such as Yang Zi, Chinese singer Xiao Jingteng (萧敬腾) and Chinese actor Zhong Hanliang (钟汉良). Idols who become well-known to the public such because of those contestant show such as Liu Xiening (刘些宁) were also invited. In terms of KOLs, Coach mostly invited top ones such as Mr. Bag and AnnyFan.

Because of the amount of celebrities and KOLs that Coach invited and the brand’s promotion, the event drew lots of attention on social media. The tag #Coach秀场直击 (#Coach Winter Collection Broadcast) has more than 100 million views so far. Coach itself keeps posting images from the event on its official channels. KOLs who have attended the event also posted related content to further promote the show and the brand.

Our Thoughts

Well, ideally your brand doesn’t have a scandal. Though everything has two sides, and a scandal might boost your brand’s influence, in the end, it is more likely to bring negative impacts than loyal customers.

If your brand does get involved in a scandal, especially political ones which are more sensitive here in China, the first thing is always to SINCERELY apologize. Don’t just do it because you need it, such as the official apology made by Dolce & Gabbana’s founders, which worsened the situation instead.

The second thing is to keep silent. On one hand this gives your brand time to restructure and plan out next moves, and it also fades either the scandal or the brand for a while. As time goes by, with the massive amounts of information they take in every day, consumers are likely to forget the scandal.

If you strictly follow these two steps, it is likely the scandal will eventually pass.

The post China Marketing Case Study: How Coach Won Back Consumers After a Scandal appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

1. National pride continues

Although European, American, Japanese and Korean brands still dominate the premium end of the market while domestic brands are mostly in the mid-range and lower end of the market, there’s a concerted effort and supportive government policies to change this dynamic. We can see that Chinese brands not only want to take over the top end of the market but openly advertise these goals.

Strides made in recent years by domestic beauty brands are part of the Guochao (“national hip”) trend. Makeup brand Perfect Diary is its poster child with its high sales, strong cultural elements and its direct to consumer, social media-centric sales model.

Perfect Diary’s parent company, Yatsen Holding, after its IPO in New York in late 2020, also became the first Chinese beauty company with a market capitalization of over 100 billion RMB.

Chinese brand Florasis has even gone as far as marketing itself overseas and has become a known brand online through influencer campaigns on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. However, it seems that the brand hasn’t fully worked out its distribution model and is still hard to buy outside of China.

2. Cosmetic procedures are no longer taboo

China’s medical beauty sector is expanding rapidly, growing from 64.8 billion RMB in 2015 to 176.9 billion RMB in 2019 and forecast to reach US $52.4 billion by 2023. Apps like Soyoung, China’s answer to realself.com, where people compare results from various treatments, mean that lots of people are sharing before and after photos and post-surgery diaries.

This is influencing people and affecting their decision-making process. There are around 3.5 million of these diaries on the platform. There are also more than 25,000 professionally qualified plastic surgeons and over 6,000 medical beauty institutions on the platform. It debuted on the Nasdaq in 2019 and is going strong. Post-90s consumers and those in the south of the country are the main force driving in this sector.

3. Men’s grooming continues to grow, just as their hair is failing to

Men’s fashion and grooming is going from strength to strength. Sales of men’s cosmetics were around US$15.6 billion in 2019, up 8% from the previous year, according to Euromonitor, with increasing demands for innovative products designed specifically for men. Men are also more open to aesthetic procedures. Rhinoplasty, cheek fillers and hair augmentation are the top three treatments.

China’s relentless 996 working culture – working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. 6 days a week – is taking its toll and men are seeing hair loss at younger ages. On Douban, groups about hair care and people looking for hair loss prevention ideas have grown. People are looking beyond shampoo and conditioner. According to Tmall’s Hair Care Industry Consumer Trend Insights report, they are seeking more advanced solutions such as hair masks, oils, essences and ampoules. Hair transplants and customized wigs and hair pieces are also very popular.

Interestingly, with an average price of 7,025 RMB, men are spending 2.75 times more than women per transaction.

4. Growing needs and desires

The market is growing and segmenting to include more than just basic facial makeup and skincare. People are looking for beauty devices for the eyes, mouth, hair, neck and body. The growth in beauty devices for eyes far exceeding that of other categories.

Late nights and “staying-up culture (修仙文化)” mean that young people are looking for solutions for the dark circles and puffiness under their eyes. According to CBNData, between 2017 and 2019 alone, purchases of eye beauty devices on Tmall by those born after 1995 (Post-95s) and those born after 2000 (Post-00s) has increased 67-fold.

There are also new trends in sunscreens. People are becoming more educated about the effects of both UVA and UVB rays and looking for broad spectrum protection. Older consumers saw sunscreens as moisturizing aids, but younger generations are more focused on their anti-aging benefits. People are also looking for convenient, effective sunscreens that smell nice, go on smoothly, don’t interfere with makeup and don’t look chalky.

Fragrances, especially domestic brands like To Summer, are a big hit on Red and are also looking to expand their reach and offerings with perfumes, balms, incense, scented candles and more.

5. Social media is still front and center

In addition to dedicated apps like Soyoung, content related to beauty brands abounds on platforms like Red (Xiaohongshu), WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, QQ and Bilibili. Domestic brands like Perfect Diary and Florasis have used them skillfully to gain a foothold in the market.

Although beauty products are sold primarily through dedicated e-commerce platforms like Tmall and Taobao, most Post-90s and Post-00s consumers learn about new brands through social media. Red has also successfully connected itself to Taobao as stores can quote posts and comments made on Red when editing a product introduction. Red played a key role for Perfect Diary as its sales improved a lot after it opened a store on Red.

But…

6. The limits of celebrity live streaming and influencer-led sales and promotion models are clear

Beauty brands are heavily reliant on KOLs (key opinion leaders, influencers) for promotions and sales. Nowhere was this more evident than in the May run up to the 618 shopping festival when 27 new endorsements were announced in 7 days. It’s turned into a bit of an overlapping frenzy with multiple titles like image ambassador, brand friend, brand spokesperson and more being used to refer to people in multi-star brand deals with some people representing an entire brand, others repping a line and still others doing promotions for a single product. Things are becoming segmented to the point of craze and confusion.

On top of this, sales often collapse when a celebrity isn’t involved or when a big name live streamer isn’t doing the sales. It’s turned into a celebrity daigou market in many ways and it’s not sustainable. For example, according to data from June to September 2020, reviewed by Zhongtai Securities, a Dr. Yu brand face mask that Li Jiaqi recommended in June sold more than 100,000 units yielding a GMV of 19.9 million yuan. When he stopped recommending it in July, only 6,500 were sold, with sales of 1.22 million yuan. In August, only 8,800 pieces were sold, with sales of 1.56 million yuan.

Some brands think the solution is an in-house live streaming host, but the truth is, none have the pull of big names and experienced live streamers. People know when they hear certain names that they’re in for great discounts, limited editions, a variety of interesting, unique products and an entertaining broadcast. A new, unknown name doesn’t come with these guarantees and it’s a reputation and skillset that is very particular and takes time to build. It also demands a person who has the stamina and energy to pull off an energetic, compelling marathon live stream.

The truth is that brands need these big names and their celebrity endorsers, but brands that build their sales model on them thinking that they’re laying a solid foundation are in for a shock.

The only sustainable model in China is for brands to build their own fan and customer communities organically and slowly, putting in the hard work and taking the time, while also working with celebrity endorsers and uber popular live streamers strategically for big promotions a few times a year for the biggest or most suitable occasions. Brands that have special privileges, experiences or online spaces for long-time fans and customers are also on the right track. An offline presence, highly coordinated with the brand’s online entities, is also required at some stage, even if it’s just pop-up stores to start with.

Though the beauty market has been challenged by the pandemic, the crisis also swiftly brought it to the next level and accelerated trends that were already happening. But the days of leaning nearly entirely on live streaming and celebrities, thinking this online-only push is a sustainable business model, are nearly over.

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