As a Christmas promotion, Swarovski designed an “Advent Calendar” box allowing customers to discover a new product every day in the lead up to Christmas, accompanied by a WeChat campaign offering incentives such as a chance to win free prizes after participating in different games in the app. By promoting the QR code that connected to the WeChat campaign in its local store network, Swarovski managed to drive both in-store purchases and awareness of their WeChat platform. The campaign was launched using WeChat’s interactive campaign feature H5, a suite of mini apps that allows for more advanced functionality including click-to-purchase and games. Despite WeChat’s broad range of functionalities and brands like Swarovski showing us record-breaking results of their WeChat campaigns, most luxury brands are still experimenting with it. However, for brands wanting to make an entrance in China, WeChat’s 900 million person user base is one place to start.
Jacco
China E-commerce Calendar for 2018
1st of January: New Year
New Year celebrated in the night of December 31st and January 1st is not particularly important, compared to other national holidays in China. But as younger generations in China enjoy celebrating New Year more than their parents do, there are some ecommerce opportunities. We recommend you to use this occasion to bond with your customers by thanking them for their support throughout the year. Launch for example New Year promotions to clear up your excessive inventories, preferably with special deals for loyal customers. Since the younger generations usually celebrate New Year with friends at (corporate) parties, fashion and beauty products will attract the most attention.
15th of February: Chinese New Year (Spring festival)
Chinese New Year – also referred to as Spring Festival – is the most important holiday in China. Everyone travels back to their hometown to spend time with family and friends and eat traditional food. It is tradition that children receive ‘Hongbao’ from family members, which is a red envelop filled with pocket money. These Hongbao are often combined with other gifts, especially since online shopping has increased in China over the past few years. Food and beverages are the most common gift in this period, closely followed by electronics and games. The youngest family members receive toys as gift, and healthcare products (such as nutrition supplements) are often bought for the elderly. The travel industry is also extra popular during this time of year, as more and more families are traveling long distances during the Spring Festival.
In order to respond adequately to this festival, it is wise to plan your campaigns on time and organize your inventory in advance. A fact you might want to consider whilst planning your campaign, is that the older generations are often in charge of preparing food and gifts. As the elderly are often less familiar with online shopping than the younger generations, sending offline catalogues is a good way to boost offline sales. And lastly, you should be prepared to invest in delivery, as customers are very keen on receiving their holiday gifts and supplies on time.
5th of April: Tomb sweeping day
Every year in early April, Chinese people commemorate their ancestors by visiting and maintaining their graves and burning “sacrificial money” in honour of the dead. Nowadays, the festival has evolved into an occasion for people to go on short-distance trips and thus for brands to coordinate promotional campaigns accordingly. Promotions for this holiday usually start around the middle of March. In terms of products, especially promotions of short-distance travel packages, travel-related products and sportswear are likely to bring additional traffic.
1st of May: labour day
Labour Day in China is a cheerful family holiday in which fun activities are planned and people travel around the country. From a marketing perspective, comprehensive campaigns that include free shipping, promotion codes and discounts to promote your products are recommended.
20th of May: Wo Ai Ni
May 20, shortened as “520”, is celebrated as Valentine’s day in China, as the combination of numbers sounds phonetically the same as I (5) love (2) you (0) in Chinese. Different from traditional holidays such as Chinese New Year and Dragon Boat Festival, this Valentine’s Day was recently invented by Chinese netizens and is celebrated mostly by young adults and millennials. As Valentine’s Day is based on the tradition of men showing their love for women through gifts, the best audience for marketers to target are men born post ‘80s and ‘90s searching for the perfect gift for their women. During preparations for this holiday, especially promotional campaigns featuring fashion and cosmetic products are well received.
1st of June: Children’s day
Whereas in European countries children have either Santa Claus or Saint Nicolas from whom they can wish everything their heart desires, Chinese children ask for their dream gifts on Children’s Day. Although the majority of parents buy their gifts online, it is not uncommon for parents to take their children to the store to choose their own gifts. From a marketing perspective, it is therefore important to integrate online and offline strategies and to make sure all your school-related products, infant products and toys are included in your promotions. It will help your marketing campaign to emphasize the fact that your products are being imported from western countries, as Chinese parents associate this with good quality.
18th of June: Dragon boat festival
Although there are many explanations for the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival, the most communicated explanation nowadays is that the Dragon Boat Festival is held in memory of the ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan, who drowned in the Miluo River in the 3rd century BC. The story goes that locals raced out in their boats to save him, and when they couldn’t find him, dropped rice dumplings in the water to attract the fish so that his body would not be eaten. During the Dragon Boat Festival, Dragon Boat races and the eating of ‘Zongzi’ (traditional rice dumplings) are important traditional activities.
Like many Chinese festivals, the giving of gifts is a key part of the celebrations during the Dragon Boat Festival and for brands a great marketing opportunity. For foreign food retailers, Dragon Boat Festival is an excellent opportunity to innovate upon traditional food. Starbucks, for example, combined the shape of the traditional Zongzi with stuffed ice cream and rolled it out during the festival.
17th of August: Valentine’s day (Double Seventh)
Double Seven Festival – falling on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month – is to the Chinese what Valentine’s Day is to western countries. For those of you paying close attention, it is indeed the case that in China Valentine’s Day is celebrated twice per year. From a marketing perspective, there is no substantial difference between both Valentine’s Days. Just make sure you don’t run exactly the same promotional campaign twice, as Chinese youngsters will notice and worse – get bored.
10th of September: Teacher’s day
Teachers are highly respected and honoured in China, which is why on the 10th of September, festive events are held throughout China in honour of educational specialists. The main purpose of introducing Teacher’s Day as an official public holiday was the desire of Chinese authorities to increase the prestige of the profession. On this day, students give their teachers small gifts to show their gratitude. As expensive gifts are inappropriate to give to teachers, make sure you feature non-expensive gifts such as cards, chocolates and flowers in your campaign.
1st of October: National Day
Every year on the 1st of October, China celebrates the anniversary of Mao Zedong’s great victory against the Kuomintang and the start of a new era in the history of China. Over the course of five days, the country holds different celebrational ceremonies, festivals, street performances and fireworks shows. There are no specific event-related marketing opportunities, but it’s not uncommon for brands to use the warm-up to the event for an all-round campaign promoting their products. Similar to Labour Day, National Day is a great opportunity to run a comprehensive campaign including free shipping, promotion codes, and discounts to promote your brand.
11.11 Single’s Day
Double Eleven, Single’s Day, or just the 11th of November – no matter what you call it, it is the ecommerce highlight of the year. People start shopping days before the actual date, and wait until 00:00 to pay for everything piled up in their shopping carts. Once ‘invented’ as a designated day for China’s bachelors, 11.11 later morphed into an event to celebrate all single life. In 2011, Alibaba made it into the record breaking ecommerce festival as we know it today. And with a total spending of 162.2 billion yuan this year, single life was celebrated well!
If you want to participate in the 11.11 madness – and we think you should – be sure to realise it takes more than just throwing up a promotion on Tmall. With 140.000 brands promoting 15 million products during the festival, smart marketing tactics are necessary to convince Chinese consumers to buy your products. Invest in engaging promotions, such as key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) running lucky draws with your product, to create a buzzing image around your brand rather than only giving discounts. And one last piece of advice: make sure you invest in delivery, as common issues occurring during 11.11 are slow delivery and lost packages.
12th of December: 12.12
Like Double Eleven, December 12 is a ‘Shopping Holiday’ invented by the Alibaba group. Whereas Double 11 seems to be firmly grounded in B2B and B2C markets, Double 12 focusses on the online to offline (O2O) market. Essentially, O2O aims to stimulate the demand for products online and to translate that demand into actual purchases in physical stores. During the warm-up to the event, brands often send promotions via Alipay wallet offering discounts in participating stores. By offering special O2O commerce deals at stores, brands aim to drive consumers to physical stores they otherwise probably wouldn’t have visited. Ecommerce giants like Taobao and JD.com offer deals as well, but the focus of the event centres more around activities outside, such as eating out, going to the movies, and, of course, shopping at the mall.
25th December Christmas
Although Christmas is not a traditional Chinese holiday, it is becoming more popular among the younger Chinese generations. That is why it deserves a spot on the China e-commerce calendar. Couples tend to celebrate Christmas as a romantic occasion, and friends exchange gifts for fun. As Christmas in China is more interpreted as a fashion festival rather than a family gathering, make sure your campaigns look trendy and luxurious. Imported goods sell best during this time of year, as well as luxury goods.
What to do now?
As you might have already noticed, there are more ecommerce holidays than you can count on both hands. This China e-commerce calendar is definitely not meant to convince you to participate in all these shopping festivals. We highly recommend to choose the holiday(s) that fit your brand’s message best, and forget about all the other days. There are more ways to reach the Chinese consumers’ hearts than running promotions and giving discounts. If you’re not sure which ways, we at AgencyChina would love to hear about your brand and help you determine how to promote your products in China.
Who influences the influencers?
Although new KOLs are joining the scene every day, luxury brands tend to merely use a handful of leading fashion bloggers and influencers to play it safe. But as these big influencers are often known to collaborate with any brand as long as they pay enough money, brands using these over-exposed KOLs risk losing the authentic connection with their audience and sense of product exclusivity their brand is associated with. Jing Daily listed four types of influencers that exist outside of the more mainstream names, but manage to maintain a substantive connection with their followers in a sea of competition anyway.
Why Z-lennials will upend Western brands’ China strategy
Although Chinese millennials, with their increasing purchasing power, are considered as the most important consumer group for luxury brands, the next generation is one to watch as well! Z-lennials – those born after 2000 – are starting to reach adulthood next year and their spending power and behavior is expected to expand quickly. As this generation is bound to undergo changes in China’s social structure not experienced by previous generations, their consumption patterns are likely to be different from everything previously considered characteristic of Chinese consumers and will challenge luxury brands in whole new ways.
Online shopping a national pastime: survey
According to recent survey data from KPMG’s China branch, online shopping has become the favourite leisure activity of Chinese netizens. Stimulated by shopping festivals such as Single’s Day and Double 12, online shopping has officially become a national pastime. What doesn’t come as a surprise, in a country where people spend an extraordinary amount of time on mobile devices. “Nowadays in China, the first greeting isn’t whether you’ve eaten, but how many items do you have in your shopping cart”, said co-founder and vice-chairman of Alibaba Group Holdings Joe Tsai at an event for singles Day. And as seventy percent of millennials plans to spend even more on luxury goods and services in 2018, we cannot help but wondering what next year’s numbers will be.
The world of online (short) videos in China
Even though in 2016 professionally generated video content overtook user-generated video content, the advertising industry is still relatively hesitant in the use of short videos for marketing purposes. Some internet giants, however, have realised the potential and have already been expanding into the industry. Tencent for example invested $350 million in Kuaishou (a live-streaming app which began life as a destination for photo sharing), and Alibaba invested RMB 2 billion in the transformation of Youku Tudou from a large, formerly popular online video platform into a short video community.
If you are new to the world of online short videos, keep on reading for answers to five of the most common questions we get asked regularly. They are bound to help guide you through the basics of this rapidly growing online video industry.
What are short videos?
Short videos are usually shorter than five minutes, addressing Chinese netizens’ need for instant gratification and matching their short attention span for content. The videos feature all different kinds of people – from your favourite noodle maker to the most famous celebrities – telling engaging stories about topics ranging from sports and games to food and culture. The immense popularity of online short videos is partly due to this diversified content, as there is something interesting for everyone.
According to survey data from the CNSA, humorous videos are the most popular, followed by short videos covering news topics and introductions to movies.
Which devices do people use to watch these online videos?
The rise of short videos is easily the biggest change in the video industry over the past three years, and it has the popularity of smartphones and upgraded communication networks in China to thank for it. As mobile data in China is becoming more affordable, it is relatively cheap to watch videos on smartphones. As a result, 95% of online video users predominantly use their mobile phones to watch online short videos, according to the CNSA survey. A fact easily proven by looking around any Chinese restaurant, subway, or office during lunchtime!
Which platforms do people use to watch online videos?
There are numerous comprehensive short video platforms and apps in China where users can watch or record real-time short videos and share them with friends. According to CIWEEK, an internet content magazine, the previously mentioned Kuaishou is the most popular online video platform, closely followed by Miaopai and Meipai. All these platforms provide a one-stop user experience offering users the ability to apply various effects or choose different formats while filming and editing videos. And they offer a community where users can share their videos with friends. Besides these all-in-one platforms, there are also popular news apps that function more as content recommendation tools. These platforms, such as Toutiao, NetEase, and Tencent News focus on suggesting popular or professional videos to their millions of viewers.
Besides all these specialized ‘video based platforms’ displaying or referring short videos, social media channels do not want to miss the boat either. More and more social platforms are adding online short videos to their functionalities. Social media posts that feature a video are said to earn on average triple the engagement of those that do not, emphasizing that online videos are becoming a crucial part of the online entertainment ecosystem. A good example of a social platform turning to video is the famous dinosaur Sina Weibo. They managed to turn around the declining user numbers in 2016 by embedding short video platform Miaopai in their posts.
Can short online videos be viewed free of charge?
Yes, and no. Most apps specialized in online videos can initially be used for free via a regular “free forever” account. But more popular or exclusive content is then only available to paying users. Even though Chinese consumers have been used to getting most of their video content for free, users are becoming increasingly willing to pay for their favourite video content. The CNSA survey revealed that more than 40% of online video users are paid subscribers to some form of video service, and 25.5% of those who haven’t paid before would be willing to pay for good content. The main reasons are to get exclusive content and to skip advertisements.
How can my brands make use of short online videos?
Because the production cycle of short videos is quick with great flexibility, they tend to fit well into brands’ marketing plans. To help you find your way in the world of online videos, here are some key points about the use of online videos for marketing purposes:
- Short videos can be used for various types of promotional materials, such as brand introductions, product reviews, and the announcement of promotional activities. When used for delivering specific brand messages, make sure the content is interesting and meaningful. Content quality is often referred to as the key to the effectiveness of a campaign
- Video blogging and related livestreaming by online influencers (KOLs) can be one of the most powerful channels to bring your brand, products and services to life. 470 Million internet users in China follow celebrities and KOLs, and these online influencers are now producing the most popular content. Campaigns that cooperate with celebrities and KOLs often achieve great results.
- Through audience interactions and User Generated Content, short videos can offer your brand an opportunity to better understand your (potential) consumers’ preferences and subsequently improve your user experience. One upcoming channel for such interactive content is Douyin.
Important message to take home
In a nutshell, short videos should definitely be part of every company’s outbound communication plans, but be aware that more videos does not automatically mean more engagement. According to L2’s recent Intelligence Report, 56% of brands with video on the homepage actually experience shorter visit times, fewer average pages per visit and higher bounce rates than brands without video on their homepage. Which brings us to the most important ‘message to take home’:
“Online short videos are a great way for brands to expand their digital marketing in China, but only when designed and executed well.”
If you’re not sure where to get started, we at AgencyChina would love to hear about your brand and work together to ensure you maximize the opportunities of online videos!
Christmas in China: delusions and differences
Filling the period between Singles’ Day and Lunar New Year, Christmas has been embraced by Chinese consumers as another festival associated with shopping discounts and themed promotions. Many Chinese cities have been illuminated with commercially-funded twinkly lights and neon decorations, and in the last month, 600.000 Christmas trees were bought on Tmall alone. For brands, Christmas provides the perfect opportunity to position themselves as an international, modern brand that’s appealing to China’s millennials. And as there is an opportunity for commerce in China, there will also be the ever-present key opinion leaders more than willing to help brands spread that message. Like many things in China, Christmas has become a fascinating occasion to observe.
How China’s luxury ecommerce market will evolve in 2018
In 2017, Western luxury brands embarked on a migration in to Asia, and China in particular. While the rest of the world’s luxury purchases have slowed, Chines luxury consumers are spending more on luxury goods than they ever did before. And luxury brands are starting to take advantage of this. Over the past months, several high-end brands opened e-commerce stores to sell directly to customers in China. As luxury brands are beginning to establish a direct presence in China, they are taking control over a market that was once dominated by counterfeiters and grey market. What can we expect in 2018 from the evolving luxury e-commerce industry in China?
5 Types of influencers for marketing to millennial Chinese moms
Millennial Chinese moms grew up during an age of prosperity and technical change, leading to different lifestyles and ways of thinking than previous mom-generations. They are trendy, value self-expression, are experienced online shoppers and tend to have a higher spending power than the average Chinese citizen. According to PARKLU, the real opportunity for brands right now lies in China’s third and fourth-tier cities, as the mommy-baby market in these cities is growing fast and market leaders are yet to be defined. Collaborations with mommy influencers can be an excellent way for brands to promote their products and spread their brand’s message in these cities.
How to do social media marketing for your B2B business in China?
While social media marketing has gained in popularity when it comes to B2C marketing, using social media to market services or products to other businesses can be an extremely difficult process. Whereas giveaways and discounts, for example, are effective incentives for B2C companies to get people to follow their WeChat official accounts, what B2B businesses should focus on is to create powerful content instead. And while consumers often decide to follow an official account after the first interaction, the CEO’s and CFO’s who B2B businesses want to attract will likely have to interact with contents on multiple occasions before deciding to follow an account. You can find these and other insights in Technode’s four keys to a successful social media campaign.