Is post-pandemic nutrition a “new” opportunity? Last month 4 major dairy industry associations in China formed a set of guidelines for dairy and dairy product consumption for local residents in the hope of strengthening the public’s immune health amid the COVID-19 novel coronavirus outbreak. The industry associations claim milk and dairy products are an excellent source of protein and Vitamin B2, Vitamin A, calcium and other essential nutrients. This could be a further boon for China’s dairy sector, which still has a number of premiumization tailwinds.

On March 27, Weibo officially launched the “Weibo Shop” after upgrading e-commerce product functions last week. The Weibo e-commerce company stated that the Weibo shop will provide brands and users with a complete set of store management services, including the creation and management of products, core business data services, and promotion information settings. [full article in Chinese]

Louis Vuitton’s livestream debut on Little Red Book was further proof of the brand’s strategy to invest deeply in the platform while also trying out a new type of shopping experience to suit the virus crisis. Little Red Book is known as a community where people candidly share shopping tips, prices, and styling advice, so this informative session — with two influencers sharing their favourite items and styling tips — seemed appropriate. Within the hour-long session, consumers gleaned a wealth of information about LV products, which put them in a better position to buy those products later.

Research from JD, China’s second-largest e-commerce player, shows that over 70% of its customers have sleeping problems. Half of all customers born after 1990 had sleep-related issues, with overtime and work-related stress the main causes. Geographically, the highest sales of sleep-related products come from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, indicating that China’s major cities could also be “centers of stress”. JD customers are upgrading pillows and mattresses to get a better night’s sleep. The report points materials such as latex, coconut palm and buckwheat mattresses and pillows have explosive growth. How might your brand engage with sleep? Do you have a distinctive offer that could own a space of China’s ‘sleep economy’?

Nowadays, instead of solely competing among themselves, global beauty brands in China have to also compete with smart local companies. These local innovative brands have found new ways to directly reach their consumers. They understand that the best strategy is to focus on evidence-based skin analysis and safe and nontoxic products, while also integrating their skin labs into their direct-to-consumer product channels. These new beauty ecosystems were created because of China’s “skintellectuals” — a group of demanding and highly-intelligent consumers that has become the force behind the current global beauty boom — and they will do anything to satisfy their obsession with perfect skin and a delicate, youthful look. 

NEIWAI, born as an online lingerie brand best known for its wireless bras, it has since morphed into an online and offline retailer, with 73 stores in mainland China after eight short years. In the initial launch post of No Body Is Nobody, released at the end of February, each of the six featured women were rebranded from social stereotypes. This campaign wanted to emphasize the concept of ‘Body Diversity’.And NEIWAI’s representation of diversity is reciprocated by the many long comments underneath their two official WeChat posts, which collectively have garnered almost 100,000 views since the release. By shining a spotlight on the consumers themselves, NEIWAI has built strong emotional connections with its target audience, who share the collective struggle of accepting their bodies. In a public virtual space like WeChat, women started openly sharing their own insecurities that parallel the six NEIWAI women, which makes the campaign stretch beyond

This playbook navigates the dynamics of Social Retail, the current trends and practices of the leading players, and highlights the strategic transformation that brands can leverage in the social media era. Four key takeaways from the whitepaper that speak to fashion, beauty, and luxury industries are: 1) Consumer touchpoints become diversified and socialized, 2) Decentralized distribution channels trigger “social fission”, 3) Generating private domain traffic is crucial to maximize customer lifetime value, 4) Brands have to be specific, fast-paced, and flexible. How could your company apply these four key takeaways in order to better adapt to the Chinese market?

The luxury world is now very dependent on Chinese consumers, but the COVID-19 crisis is revealing the cracks in that once rosy relationship. Now that the Chinese government has locked down the Hubei province (keeping about 60 million residents indoors while encouraging even more to work from home).Chinese buyers can’t satisfy their consumption needs outside, so they must rely on digital platforms for their daily indulgences. In addition, since China has extended the Lunar New Year holiday, an increasing number of private companies “have cut wages, delayed paychecks, or stopped paying staff completely.” As a result, designer and factory digital outlets with lower price points and bigger discounts will be more attractive than top luxury labels that sell at full price in physical stores.