Inside East Asia: How does marketing communications work in China?
While most states are still longing for the pandemic to end and the economy to get “back to normal”, China has recovered rapidly since the second half of 2020. According to government figures, the Chinese economy increased by 2.3% in real GDP growth in 2020. However, since the outbreak of COVID-19, many brands in China have also been forced to adjust their short-term business plans. This raises the question of how brands in China can continue to communicate with and engage their target audiences to maintain their interest and achieve business success. Michelle Liao, Practice Director East Asia at PIABO, offers a few insights on this front.
Speed & agility – The Chinese mindset
In China, the business world is fast-paced and competitive and the general mindset is geared towards growth; that is, how quickly brands can grow their market shares. With this mindset, Chinese brands need to be able to move fast, which is why they require agile processes that enable them to set up and implement changes easily and quickly. How do they do that while developing products satisfying the market and having a large enough number of users to sustain products’ growth and profitability? For example through learning more about the consumers’ feedback by creating seamless content across multiple platforms that is temporarily relevant in two weeks of time, adapt the communication topics, and try to air the content immediately.
Meanwhile, brands in China test product-market fit on social media, which can be a lightweight solution that saves brands a fortune.
Emotional or rational storytelling? Both!
When creating content, Chinese brands co-create with their consumers. They aim to create a viral and engaging experience that consumers want to participate in. Emotion is crucial to building brands but so is rationality. How can these two factors be reconciled?
As so often in the age of digitization, data is the answer to that question. Gathered data makes it possible to gain insights into target groups, use these to put out fitted marketing communication and create emotions and desires in consumers.
For example, while young women over the age of 27 remaining unmarried has become quite common in China, they are also being labeled Sheng nu –– what we would translate as “leftover women”. In 2016, the skin-care brand, SK-II, debuted a four-minute ad that explored the social pressures faced by unmarried women that led to wider discussions beyond the topic of feminism and social change. The campaign has generated nearly 2.4 million views on Youtube.
And where do brands get their data from? In China, 55% of the average time of Chinese consumers is on Tencent property, such as WeChat, a super App and an ecosystem built with tons of consumer insights. It has gathered so many insights that by using these, brands can create better consumer engagement, and excitement around their products, and weave that fabric of the experience into product promotion. Therefore, they create a story that is more than just promoting product features.
Mobile first and the frequent use of social media
The Chinese economy is considered a mobile first economy. Chinese consumers use their mobile phones almost everywhere, for everything –– particularly because of the super app WeChat. Chinese users reportedly spent 20 percent more time on their phones during the extended Lunar New Year holiday period, with usage of social media platforms like Weibo and Douyin growing by 31 percent and 102 percent respectively.
Nowadays most international brands are active on core Chinese social media channels like WeChat and Weibo. However, given the diverse content ecosystem in China, there are also a couple of alternative channels that should be considered by B2C companies as well to grow their visibility. One example would be Xiaohongshu (also known as RED, a social shopping recommendation platform with user-generated content), the other is called Douyin. In Europe, the latter goes by the name TikTok.
Furthermore, Toutiao – Chinese for “Today’s Headlines” – is a news aggregator and content platform with an estimated 240 million daily active users. Toutiao’s industry-leading artificial intelligence curates each user’s news feed based on everything from their social media activity to the device model. It is also a prime destination for B2B company press releases, product announcements, and content marketing.
Let’s also not forget Zhihu, a Q&A platform similar to Quora, and the 12th largest website in China. It offers sizable reach for marketers of all kinds. People can ask or answer questions, then the answers are voted up or down. Brands use Zhihu to educate users by answering their questions with positive and accurate information. Chinese consumers also often check it at various points during their purchase journey.
When entering the Chinese market, we at PIABO offer insights into the competitive marketing channels and communication landscape. We provide our clients with the right go-to-market communication strategy that gets them engaged with their desired audiences and supports the long term success of their businesses.
