When do men start preparing for the festival?

It is estimated that 27.1% of men start preparing only 1-2 weeks ahead. 15.4% of them start before 2-4 weeks, and there is a small group of men start preparing even a month ahead. One third of the men surveyed (34.7%) had no intention to prepare ahead and just want to let it go naturally.

In terms of different relationship statuses, married men and dads have the least intention to prepare gifts for wives, while men who are in a relationship but unmarried are most active in the preparation. (no surprise here hahah)

Key takeaway:

• Create multiple campaigns with different messaging and launch them at different times based on the age and relationship status of your target consumers

Selecting restaurants

The number 1 element that has the power for men to choose restaurants for Qixi dates is whether the restaurant serves dishes that match with their taste. This is 49.5% of men’s top reason for choosing a restaurant. Following this, men also want to know the cost performance of the restaurants (46.1%) and whether it has been mentioned by their partners (34%).

Men are also prepared to wait in line for the dinner on the day. Only 18.1% of men don’t want to wait. Heads up for brands, waiting might be a beautiful thing to show one’s sincerity. Half an hour, I think this is the longest period that most people would be open to waiting, beyond that, they might get annoyed.

Key Takeaway:

• Think about what men want to eat when promoting your holiday menus! haha

Where do men seek advice on gifts?

When Qixi is around the corner, men tend to seek advice on selecting gifts on different online platforms. 13.8% of men visit Hupu (虎扑, a sports information platform), Douban (豆瓣, a forum platform) and Zhihu (知乎, a forum platform as well).

When men are searching what to buy for women, the most frequent phrase they type is 七夕 (Qixi), followed by 礼物 (gifts), 七夕礼物 (gifts for Qixi), 口红 (lipsticks), 精致 (sophisticated) and so on. A phrase that is worth noticing is 面子 or face, meaning the gift can help the man earn dignity and have his partner worship him for choosing a good gift.

Key takeaway:

• Brands should incorporate these keywords in their product names and descriptions as well and KOL posts on social media to help to get more exposure for the products you would like to promote during the holiday.

• Work with KOLs on platforms that male consumers are most likely to use.

Men love gifting entry luxury products

52.1% of men go for entry luxury products on this big day. They don’t cost as much as high-end luxury, but they are not cheap either, which shows their sincerity. In a word, this is a safe choice for many men.

Following this, 38.1% of men choose international brands. Though Chinese brands are developing fast, yet only 12.5% of men buy them as gifts.

What I think about this is that the majority of Chinese consumers choose domestic brands mostly for their own daily activities, but when it comes to festivals, domestic brands may not be their first choice to send as gifts. Time for domestic brands to think about how to win more attention in such big gifting-focused festivals, and for international brands to grasp the opportunity to get more exposure and boost sales.

Key takeaway:

• For entry lux brands, this festival is a huge opportunity. If you have limited resources, it may be more relevant to focus on marketing for this holiday than some of China’s many other holidays and shopping festivals.

What gifts do girls love to receive?

While this article is focused on male consumers, the report also had some great insights on females’ preferred Qixi gifts that can help you select which items to include in your Qixi collections next year.

The top 5 gifts that girls love to receive are watches and accessories, red pockets, shoes/apparels/bags, skincare products, and makeup products.

You may have already noticed, that while one of the top searched gifting terms for men is lipstick, lipstick actually doesn’t appear on women’s TOP5 list. This is because women are picky when it comes to shades of lipsticks, and they often don’t like the shade that men select for them. Well, if men buy a whole set, that’s another story.

The other two of the TOP 3 least-liked gifts from men are snacks and toys.

Also, 44.3% of girls don’t directly tell their partners what gifts they want to receive. They feel that gifts can show whether the man is detailed-orientated when he’s with her and pays attention to what she says and does or how she usually dresses. It’s a test for the man. If girls don’t tell their boyfriends what to buy, then who to tell boys? The Internet. So, brands, improve your SEO and get as much as exposure before the festival, especially when it’s around the corner.

The post How do Chinese Male Consumers Prepare for Qixi? appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

But before we get into Honey Snow City and its viral song, a bit more about Nayuki.

Not long ago we wrote an article about what future may hold for Nayuki Tea with only 0.2% net profit margin. The main reason why the net profit margin is so low is that operating costs of its stores remain too high, and yet both the daily sales and average order amounts have been declining.

Another key reason for the lack of confidence from investors is that Nayuki Tea is facing too many competitors in the new beverage market. Its biggest opponent is Hey Tea, who is rumored to be on its way to file an IPO as well. The other is Sexy Tea or Chayan Yuese (茶颜悦色). We once mentioned the 6-hour line at Shenzhen Wenheyou, a great motivation is that the superfood court has a pop-up Sexy Tea store to attract visitors to come.

And recently another competitor has emerged. You guess right, it’s Honey Snow City. I came across the store quite often when I was having my undergraduate study in Guangzhou, but I never tried it. Until recently, when a song from the brand changed my mind…

About Honey Snow City 

The brand was founded by a student in Henan Province (河南省) in 1998. In most consumers’ minds, the first word they think of when they hear Honey Snow City is cheap. According to Essence Research (安信证券研究中心), at the top of the new beverage pyramid are players such as Nayuki Tea, Hey Tea and LELECHA ( (乐乐茶). The average of the amount per order are over 30 RMB. Following this, are brands with prices between 16-20 RMB, then those with prices between 10-16 RMB. At the bottom, are Honey Snow City and Yihetang (益禾堂) etc. Their prices are extremely low, under 10 RMB.

But it’s not only about its prices. The way Honey Snow City promotes itself is also very xiachen (下沉) or lower-tier city style. For example, they will play music and have dancing in front of stores and give out leaflets.

Yet despite its low image, the brand is doing well. It uses a franchisee store model, and the number of Honey Snow City’s stores are increasing rapidly. In 2018, the number of offline stores was 4,500; in 2019, the number was 7,050; and by June 2021, the number had already reached 15,000.

Honey Snow City’s Viral Song

But despite its growth, Honey Snow City was not seen as a trendy brand, until recently, when an old jingle from 2019 was resurfaced by a KOL on Douyin and went viral.

The song has become so viral that people are joking no one can say “你爱我，我爱你，蜜雪冰城甜蜜蜜” (I love you, you love me, MIXUE ice cream & tea) in a normal way. You always end up saying it with the melody. The jingle is so catchy you just can’t stop singing it once you’ve heard it.

The melody is the same with the household song Oh! Susanna. You can see on different platforms that people are so enthusiastically translating the song into different languages and singing it with different styles.

So what made the song suddenly go viral now instead of when it first came out?

Behind The Huge Popularity of The Song

Step 1: Choose a repetitive melody

When the song was first created, there were a lot of negative reactions. Some were saying the melody was too simple and not many lyrics were in the song, which made it very low. Some of the Honey Snow City stores even received complaints from customers saying something bad about the song.

But the brand was smart to choose the melody of Oh! Susanna since the tune is familiar to almost everyone. Honey Snow City doesn’t need to spend the time having people getting familiar with it. Another good example recently is another song called 热爱105度的你. Many people are posting videos of them singing the song with cute filters. But in fact, this is a song that Watsons used to promote its distilled water.

Step 2: Starting from offline to online

Usually, brands grab attention online and guide those traffic to their offline spots. But Honey Snow City did the opposite. The team decided to start offline and then move to online.

Why? Because they have more than 15k stores nationwide, and in total, the brand is able to reach over 10M customers every day with them. Ever since the song was created, it has been constantly played in those stores, waiting for a good timing to march online.

Step 3: PGC and the use of Douyin

In fact, the marketing team behind this song never expected it to go viral. Then at the end of May 2021, they spotted a UGC post on Douyin related to the song that was played over 100k times. The team thought this was a good time to push the song online.

When it comes to promoting the song, Honey Snow City’s marketing team heavily focused on Douyin. The decision is after careful comparison among different platforms. The team felt that WeChat is more suitable to announce official information, Weibo on the other hand, it suitable for images and words, while Douyin is a short video platform, and it is a better platform to deliver Honey Snow City content to its potential customers. 

Honey Snow City’s team has been developing its Douyin account since 2019 with different hashtags and activities to grow fan base. Now, it has over 2M followers on the platform, which is a solid base for the viral of this song. The brand started working with KOLs to invite them to recreate the song and visit its stores.

Bear in mind, most of Honey Snow City’s consumers don’t have high income, and they tend to have less educational background, so videos would have lower threshold for them to understand. But after the song, because it is so viral, I think even those high-income groups have started noticing this brand and trying it out.

Step 4: UGC to further develop the song

After those KOLs posted content about Honey Snow City, soon enough, netizens began having fun with the song, making their own videos.

Except this, a popular hashtag on Douyin is #蜜雪冰城社死现场# (embarrassing moments at Honey Snow City). This is very fun. Because after the song becomes viral, a rumor came out of nowhere saying that if you sing the song at the store in front of the brand’s staff, you can have a free drink.

But there is no such policy at the beginning. So it turns out that after you sing a song in front of the staff and other customers waiting in line, you are told that there is no such thing. It is really embarrassing but entertaining, so the hashtag also gets lots of attention on social media.

Honey Snow City notices this and quickly responded to it. The company notified its offline stores that if customers really sing the song, staff can give them either ice cream or coupons, encouraging people to keep visiting the store and creating content about them.

Then the brand leveraged this trend further. On Father’s Day, it sent gifts to customers who sang the song to their fathers and uploaded the video on social media.

With all these UGC promotions, Honey Snow City has been on the hot topic ranking board on Douyin at least 6 times recently. This is incredible performance for a used-to-be low-key brand known for cheap tea and xiachen marketing tactics.

As you can see, the buzz about Honey Snow City was badly timed for Nayuki’s IPO. But can Honey Snow City make this viral song turn into long-term growth? Or will the brand quickly be forgotten? We’ll have to wait and see. 

Read more: 奈雪的茶上市首日破发

奈雪上市新征程：凡是过往，皆为序章

蜜雪冰城主题曲爆火背后：二创、抖音与十万铁军

蜜雪冰城出圈始末

The post Honey Snow City Viral Song Overshadows Nayuki Tea IPO appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

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.

For many of these diary hobbyists, keeping a diary can be expensive. In addition to buying a nice journal, they also purchase many peripheral items such as tapes, pens, and stickers. Many people will spend several hundred to several thousand RMB a year on this hobby. 

Why Is Keeping A Diary So Expensive?

First, it’s the book itself. If you are looking for good quality, most of them will be from international brands. Countries such as Japan and the UK are well-known for producing high quality journals. Mine is very affordable, at 66 RMB while a journal from the popular Japanese brand knox costs 3,000 RMB. And it’s just the book.

Second, as we mentioned above, the term shouzhang doesn’t simply refer to writing in a book. It includes a lot of peripheral products such as a cover, washi tapes, stamps and stickers. If you want to draw, you also have to prepare gel pens and colored pencils. Some people will buy Nite Writer pens so they can write in the dark without keeping roommates awake. 

A popular Japanese brand called Hobonichi, its inner book costs over 100 RMB and together with its cover, a shou zhang can reach over 1,000 RMB.

Group Buying Washi Tapes

Washi tapes are especially popular and stationary brands frequently launch new tapes to grab customers’ attention. If you like collecting things, you will keep buying whatever is launched.

But they can be costly as well. A complete roll of tape might cost around 40-50 RMB. To save money and buy more tape designs, on some Taobao reseller stores, a complete roll of tape is divided into several parts, so that each one only costs 4-5 RMB.

Another way for those tape lovers to buy tapes at a lower price is through group buying. There are apps dedicated to this business, such as Sami (撒米) or Benben, or you can go to Weibo and put the key word “拼米团” on it and it will guide you to the forum or group.

Many museums and cultural sights, such as Beijing’s Palace Museum, have started producing their own washi tapes with designs from items in their collections. 

Influencers Getting in On the Trend

For several years now, popular fashion influencer Becky Li has launched a yearly planner/diary specially illustrated by her in-house illustrator. It comes with stickers and plenty of space to draw. 

Shou Zhang Communities

For many of these hobbyists, keeping a diary isn’t a private activity. Many of them will share their diary pages online, like a piece of art. Besides posting on mainstream social media platforms. There are also niche platforms that have popped up for shou zhang enthusiasts to connect with each other and also to purchase shou zhang products. 

There are also offline gatherings/markets for Shou Zhang lovers in different cities.

Read more: 比盲盒还烧钱！一个本子3000块，这个圈子有多“神奇”

The post A Popular (and Expensive) Habit Among Young Chinese People: Keeping a Diary appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

It is fair to say that Anta has become a top runner in the Chinese sports industry.

The History of Anta

The brand was founded in 1991 in China’s Fujian Province. At that time, China was well-known for its low labor cost and many international brands had their products manufactured in China. Anta was one of these manufacturers. 

After Anta had become one of the top sportswear manufacturers, its founder Ding Shizhong (丁世忠) decided that Anta needed to stop manufacturing products for other brands and started building Anta as a shoe brand.

In 2001, Anta began expanding beyond shoes to become a comprehensive sportswear and apparel brand. It opened its first offline store in Beijing in the same year. In 2007, Anta filed for an IPO in Hong Kong. By that time, it already had over 5,000 stores nationwide. By 2011, the number rose to nearly 8,000. Then in 2009, the brand acquired the Italian sports brand FILA.  

In 2010, Anta started its ecommerce journey by working with Tmall, Jing Dong and VIPshop. Later, it became the business partner for NBA, which brought lots of attention for the brand domestically as many boys in China love watching NBA.

Reasons for its success: 

1. Focus on sports products

Anta never stops acquiring brands. One thing in common among these brands is that, they are all sport brands. So when talking about Anta, consumers think of sports and when it comes to sports, Anta is on their lists. It maintains a unified brand image.

By solely focusing on sports, Anta is able to invest the majority of its budget in this field. It built a ANTA Sports Science Laboratory in 2005, which is the first sports laboratory in China.

2. Multi-brand strategy

FILA is just one of the many brands Anta has acquired. Anta has a large portfolio of brands that cover a wide range of consumer groups, from kids to adults, middle class to rich consumers, sportswear to fashion apparel, Anta’s sub-brands cover them all. 

Other brands include Arc’teryx, Wilson, SUUNTO, MAVIC and Salomon.

3. Heavy presence both online and offline

By the end of 2018, Anta Sports  had over 12k stores including 10k Anta stores. Those stores are changing to direct sales gradually, which will be convenient for Anta to monitor their performance, restock and reallocate products.

And as we mentioned before, in 2010, the brand started its ecommerce journey. It was expected that its online channels would contribute 20% for its annual revenue in 2020.

4. Value product development

Anta spent 5.5% of its budget on new product development in 2018 and has R&D centers in Los Angeles, Tokyo, Seoul, Milan, Mainland China and Hong Kong, attracting nearly 200 experts from 20 countries. So far, Anta has applied for over 1,200 innovation patents.

5. Celebrity marketing

Compared with other sports brands, celebrities that Anta works with are mostly professional athletes including areas such as tennis, ping pong and it signed contracts with NBA basketball players as well such as Kevin Garnett and Luis Scola.

6. Sponsor significant sports events

In 2000, Anta sponsored the Sydney Olympic Games and entered the international market. In 2004, the brand spent 60M RMB to work with CBA (China Basketball Association) for three years. Prior to that, the CBA had only been sponsored by international brands. Anta is also a strategic partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee and it will be a sponsor for the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing in 2022.

According to the company’s financial report for the first half of 2020, its annual gross margin reached 57% and 2020 has been the third year to witness its growth, while for the other three major Chinese sports brands: Li Ning, 361 and XTEP (特步), it is predicted that their annual gross margin will fall in 2020.

Potential Issues

Behind the success, there are a few potential issues for Anta. First, Anta has spent too much time and budget on expanding its brands. The acquisition and management would be a problem for Anta. 

Second, Anta doesn’t have its own factories. Its products are produced by outsiders. Without fixed assets such as factories and equipment, financing institutions may hesitate when it comes to equity trading. Another problem related to the fact that Anta doesn’t have its own factories is that Anta has less control on manufacturing, which may lead to quality and supply chain issues.

Third, although Anta’s portfolio is diversified, one of its largest businesses is still the Anta brand, yet Anta hasn’t always been known for producing high quality goods and still has work to do when it comes to boosting its brand image, especially among millennials and middle aged consumers. 

For example, Hank Zhang, one of our content creators here at China Marketing Insights, has a poor impression of Anta left over from his childhood. In the early 2000s Zhang was on the Beijing high school basketball team which was sponsored by Anta. He recalls Anta’s shoes were far lesser quality than his Nikes and not breathable at all. Often when he finished a game, his shoes would be a pool of sweat.

While Anta may have come a long way since then, early consumers of the brand such as Zhang will take some convincing. 

Read more:

Creative Livestream Case Study: Anta Kids Hatched a Chicken with a Down Jacket

从小作坊到世界第三大体育品牌，安踏靠什么实现逆袭？｜案例精选

The post How Did Anta Manage to Become the Third Largest Sports Brand in the World? appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

• Chinese facial recognition
• Xinba’s selling fake bird’s nest scandal
• What’s holding back Chinese SaaS companies?

Watch the video to find out more details! This is just a clip, find the full video here.

The post Is Chinese Facial Recognition Tech Naughty or Nice? appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

All of a sudden, this joke went viral and Starbucks reacted very quickly with it. The brand posted on Weibo inviting people to join its Qifen Zu. All they needed to do was post on their WeChat moments saying “I want to join Qifen Zu”, take a screenshot of it and post it on Weibo, and tag Starbucks. If they were selected by Starbucks, they would be given coupons and other bonuses.

Many Offline Businesses in China Leverage Qifen Zu 

While Starbucks’ Qifen Zu is organic, and unpaid, many businesses in China actually pay for people to make their stores and restaurants look busy.

For example, pubs. They hire people to run to the floor first when the music comes on and dance crazily. These people, the “Qifen Zu” are there to create the atmosphere that everyone is joining and don’t be shy and hesitant. Most of them are post-00s, because they are young and energetic, and they’d love to have a drink as well. 

Bubble tea stores also love using this tactic to create the image that people are desperate to buy their drinks. A store called Chazhilan (茶芝兰) in Shanghai hired more than 30 people to pretend to be its consumers and line up in front of the store on its first opening day. Every 15 minutes, there were two people called to line up to make sure that there were always people waiting in line.

The real estate industry uses Qifen Zu as well. On the day when a company launches new apartments, it will hire a bunch of people who are dressed nicely to visit the property and pretend to be interested in the apartments. It is faking the image that everyone wants to buy an apartment here, and giving people a sense of scarcity and urgency.

Online Qifen Zu 

This tactic is also often used online, the most common Qifen Zu that we see every day is the comment section of a Xiaohongshu advertisement or Taobao or Tmall listing. Many brands hire people to pretend to be customers and leave nice comments to guide real customers’ purchasing decisions. There are even companies that run this Qifen business. If the owner of the store wants a positive comment, it requires 100 RMB. 

Not only for brands, Qifen Zu also applies for celebrities or KOLs. They hire fake fans sometimes, to increase their popularity.

Conclusion:

While some may feel that this tactic is fake or misleading, in China it is a very common practice often used to jumpstart the popularity of an offline store or to grow an account or drive traffic to a product online. But brands need to pay attention to its limits. Don’t overuse this tactic.

Read more: 四周都是“气氛组”，只有你是傻白甜

The post New Viral Phrase You Need to Know: Qifen Zu (气氛组) appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Money Can’t Always Buy Happiness

You may notice that during Double 11, many brands include the word happiness (幸福感) in their product descriptions, promising that their products will improve life quality and bring the user happiness. 

Media outlet Tencent Entrepreneur (腾讯创业) searched “11.11” and “幸福感” on Xiaohongshu and found that the top 7 products were mainly small home appliances: 

• Washing machine
• Floor mopping robot 
• Projector 
• Intelligent toilet  
• High-speed blender 
• Vacuum 
• HJF (a brand of towel heater)

Although they promise to bring happiness, in fact, many people regret buying them. For example, the towel hanger, people are saying that even before the towel is heated, they gets burnt by the hanger. 

For the floor mopping robot, people are saying that those robots can’t clean well at corners and that they even need to pay more attention when the robot is working, and they also need to worry about the robot leaving home. 

Using the Keyword “Wanghong” Actually Turns People Off

Tencent Entrepreneur also found that using the adjective “wanghong” or internet famous, to describe your products actually turns people off. Only 13% of people feel that they want to buy it more after seeing the word, and the majority of the people (73.1%) said that it makes them not want to buy it. 

Other Reasons Why People Don’t Like Double 11 

• Double 11 usually begins at 0:00, which is not friendly to people who want to go to bed earlier. 
• Consumers need to pay a deposit first and pay the rest a few days later. The period is too long and people start regretting their purchases. With 11.11 broken into two sales periods this year, this actually became an internet buzzword called “尾款人” or people who put down deposits on a lot of items in the presale and then regretted it a week later when they had to pay the rest of the cost. 
• Instead of reducing the price, some brands will give samples as a bonus to consumers, but after receiving them, many consumers discover that the samples are not as good quality as the real products.

Are Reviews Important? Yes and No

Tencent Entrepreneur also found that during this year’s Double 11, 23% of people feel that they need to see other people’s recommendations first before ordering. If no one recommends the product, s/he won’t place the order. 

32% of people say that if they are not sure about a product, they go to see other people’s reviews. 45% of people don’t care what other users say about the product that they want to make their choice independently. 

Read more: 熬夜买买买的尾款人，是到手真香还是顺手交了智商税？

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Ecommerce livestreaming has become very popular in China due to COVID-19. According to a report published by Ali Research & KPMG China, in the first half of 2020, there were over 10 million live streams and the number of active live streamers exceeded 400 thousand. In total, the number of viewers was over 50 billion.

The report also forecasted that in 2020 the overall scale of live e-commerce will reach 1 trillion yuan and the penetration rate will reach 8.6%. In 2021, the scale of live streaming e-commerce will be expanded to 2.0 trillion RMB and the penetration rate will reach 14.3%.

As the industry has matured, we can see several key categories of consumers emerging based on different behaviors. Here are six of the key ones:

The Stockpilers

• This group is good at persuading themselves that if they don’t get it now, it is a loss for them. They also believe that those products will be used sometime in the future.This is actually the biggest consumer group on Taobao live stream. Most of them are females and moms.
• They are usually encouraged by offers such as “buy one get one free”, “the first one is ¥59, the second one is ¥39 and the last one is free”.

Group purchasing or Pinzu (拼组)

• For example, the live stream has a special offer, buy 3 sprays and get 1 free. So in total, you will get 4 sprays. But because you are too late, you didn’t get to buy them.
• So you go to this live streamer’s Weibo fan groups, and see there is another person selling the extra sprays that they don’t need. And you guys meet at a second-hand platform such as Xianyu (咸鱼) and you buy it from him/her, so in the end, you still get the spray, with a lower price than what is on the market.

The Fangirls

• There are two types. The first one is called “collective immigration”. Their idols are working with a brand and the idol appears as a guest in the live stream so they all come to watch and support. It is unlikely they will return to that live stream as they are only there to support their idol.
• The second type is permanent. For example, some of Austin Li’s followers watch his live stream simply because they like him. They have followed him for a long time as his career as taken off and they see themselves as his loyal fans and supporters.

Adventurers

• This group love the excitement that unknown things bring to them. For example, blind boxes.
• They are pursuing limited or hidden collections.

Sankeng Girls (三坑少女)

• Keng, in Chinese means traps. The phrase sankeng girls refers to three traps/obsessions common among young: Hanfu (汉服), Lolita clothes and JK or Japanese schoolgirl clothes.
• Girls who have the hobby of dressing up in these clothes, can’t help spending money on them or buying corresponding props, cosmetics, and accessories.

Point Collectors

• Most of them like playing online games and they imagine Taobao live streams as a game for them to collect Taobao user points.
• Alibaba has gamified live stream rooms so that viewers can earn points and move up in levels through purchasing items in the stream, watching the stream for a certain amount of time, commenting in the stream, etc.
• These points can be used for discounts, free items, etc.

Our takeaways:

The majority of viewer types we’ve mentioned are shoppers that are sensitive to prices and are easy for FMCG brands to target.

But for higher-end brands who want to avoid having their brand reputation cheapened by discounting, they can use other tactics such as offering free samples, personalization,12-months interest free payment plans. Limited edition or exclusive collections are also a great way to target the “Adventurers” group.

Talking about samples, it is usually easy to get them in western countries if you ask sales associates for them, but in China, this is not the case. Most of the time, consumers need to purchase them, or if you have good relationship with the sales person, s/he might give one to you. So free samples are are great bonus for consumers in China.

Read more: 当代年轻人直播购物迷惑行为大赏

The post 6 Types of Live Stream Shoppers You Need to Know appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

In China, a kind of toy is emerging and it is grabbing young people’s attention so well: blind box.

You know how this feels when you order something online and it is delivered, you know exactly what it is inside the parcel and you still get so excited about it. And for blind box, things are even more exciting. You know that’s a toy you like, but you never know which toy in the collection you will get.

Pop Mart is a very successful blind box brand in China. Although other brands are using the blind box tactic now, Pop Mart was one of the first brands to become extremely successful using this tactic so the term “blind box” has become almost synonymous with Pop Mart. On 2019’s Double 11, it surpassed Disney and Lego, ranking TOP 1 in the toy category. It is so fun to do this unboxing video, hope it can bring joy to you as well!

Check out the video and find out the brand and its brilliant marketing strategy. Maybe you will like to get one in the future after watching it

The post The Chinese Toy Brand Surpassing Disney and Lego? Meet Pop Mart! appeared first on China Marketing Insights.