Female-oriented games are the new collaboration trend

“Otome game”, also known as the female-oriented game, is a type of romance simulation game originating from Japan. It typically features a female protagonist who engages in romantic storylines with male characters, though some games also include female characters as potential love interests.

Heytea, one of China’s largest bubble tea chains, collaborated with “Light and Night,” a popular dating-themed game targeting female players. This collaboration has proven to be Heytea’s most successful campaign this year:

• On opening day, stores in tier-1 cities had 800 to 1,000 orders waiting by mid-morning with 4 to 9 hours of waiting time
• Fans gathered in large numbers, many dressing up in costumes
• Some fans dressed up in wedding attire and waited in line for hours to take photos with a life-sized cutout, complete with “marriage certificates“

Anime Goods help to revitalize offline shopping

The term “Guzi” (谷子) is derived from the English word “goods.” It refers to merchandise related to manga, anime, games, and idols. Specifically, it includes items like badges, standees, keychains, posters, dolls, and decorative items with anime or game character themes.

The Shanghai collaborative pop-up store between Chinese discount retailer Miniso and Japanese manga and anime series Chiikawa sold CNY2.7 million (USD370,000) of goods in 10 hours on opening day.  On Xiaohongshu, people said that it was common that they needed to wait in line for 1 hour to get into the shop.

Meanwhile, Xi’an Intime Mall successfully held promotional events with many cosplayers in Anya’s signature look. Anya Forger is from the popular anime series “Spy × Family”. The iconic look is matching pink wigs, black dresses adorned with gold trim, and black shoes.

The event attracted crowds who were actively taking photos and videos. User-generated content went viral online, bringing huge foot traffic to Xi’an Intime Mall. The Mall has become famous for catering to anime enthusiasts. Many people take Xi’an Intime Mall as a popular destination similar to Akihabara in Tokyo.

Brands that embrace anime culture can help to revitalize traditional retail spaces. Stores selling anime merchandise attract significant foot traffic, transforming struggling malls into bustling shopping destinations.

In Conclusion

Brands should put more effort into understanding and respect when collaborating with anime culture to succeed. Heytea exemplified this by introducing characters in order of their appearance and training staff to fully know each game’s characters’ backgrounds.

The key to successful collaborations lies in the brand’s attitude. Audiences value respectful and sincere engagement. When anime players perceive a brand’s genuine effort, they are more likely to support and purchase from it.

The post Brands are Embracing Anime Culture in China appeared first on WalkTheChat.

It captivates a wealthy, young urbanite audience, making it a key destination for luxury and premium brands.

Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) Overview

Little Red Book mainly targets a specific user group: young, female shoppers living in top-tier cities.

In 2024, Xiaohongshu’s Monthly Active Users(MAU) continuously increased, surpassing 300 million, with approximately 50% of Generation Z users and 50% from 1st and 2nd cities. The platform boasts over 80 million community sharers, with User-Generated Content (UGC) making up 90% of its content.

Little Red Book content has a strong focus on premium position brands, and content containing popular overseas brands usually can get stronger engagements.

Little Red Book’s design is very similar to Instagram: 3 to 6 pictures, with text descriptions usually between 20 to 200 characters. The content style on Little Red Book is usually persona, often with lots of emojis. The distribution of content is algorithm-driven. Users can engage with content via like, bookmark, share, private message, and comment.

Little Red Book’s brand marketing impact

Little Red Book plays an important role in the consumer purchasing process.

• Awareness: Little Red Book is a great channel to discover new brands.
• Interest & Desire: Little Red Book will continue to push relevant content based on users’ browsing habits. It’s a good channel to create multiple consumer touchpoints. Before users make a purchase, some users will open Little Red Book to read product reviews.
• Action: When making a purchase, usually users will go to e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, Tmall, JD.com, and Pinduoduo. Although Little Red Book has a native store system, the majority of brands choose to open stores on marketplaces where they could get more traffic.
• Loyalty: After converting a user into a customer, WeChat Official Account and WeChat groups are the best channels to create a closer relationship with customers. And when you have a loyal customer who would like to share product reviews and advocate for your brand, they could post comments on Little Red Book.

Little Red Book marketing limitations 

Compared to WeChat and Douyin, Little Red Book is a much smaller social media channel. The user demographic is also very skewed toward female and top-tier city users.

The top industries that are promoted in Little Red Book are skincare, baby care, and health and wellness. However, Little Red Book is not the perfect choice for industries like games and 3C (Computer, Communication, and Consumer Electronics).

Below is the amount of promotional posted on the platform in a month, it’s a good indicator to judge if Little Red Book is the right marketing channel for your brand.

Little Red Book Store

Little Red Book has a native e-commerce system. It has a few benefits:

• It enables users to make a purchase without leaving the App
• It supports cross-border payment and shipping, brand can operate a store with an overseas business license (with a Chinese entity as the guaranteed party, email info@walkthechat.com to learn more)
• Low cost: 5% platform commission & no technical fee
• Good user experience especially for Little Red Book live-streaming purchases

The commission on Little Red Book is much lower compared to major marketplaces. Comparatively, Tmall charges a 9,000 USD annual technical fee and a 6 % commission (1% for Alipay and around 5% industry-specific commission). Tmall still rules as it’s the largest e-commerce marketplace in China.

Should you open a Little Red Book store?

Little Red Book store is not for everyone.

Lots of large brands including Adidas, SK-II, and LANCOME, actually don’t have a brand store. Instead, these brands choose to sell on Little Red Book via distributors. You won’t need to have brand Red Store if:

• The brand already has a strong distribution network
• If the brand has less than 5k Little Red Book mentions

For other brands, the Little Red Book store is a cost-effective way to break into the Chinese market and expand the sales channel. You can consider opening a brand store on Little Red Book if:

• You have a strong Little Red Book performance
• Your brand does lots of Little Red Book live-streaming campaigns
• You sell mostly direct-to-consumer (D2C)
• You’d like to test the Chinese market with small investment and with a cross-border store

For example, Perfect Diary and apm MONACO are some of the best performing brands on Little Red Book. Both brands have a strong D2C channel.

On the other hand, a foreign brand can create a cross-border Little Red Book store to test the Chinese market. It doesn’t require a brand to have a Chinese business license, products could be shipped directly from overseas, and payment will be smoothly settled in foreign currencies.

Cosmetics, fashion and skincare brands are the best industries to launch stores in Little Red Book. These are often the high margin products that could easily afford a 20%-30% live-streaming commission.

Little Red Book Live-streaming

According to our source who worked at Little Red Book, 90% of Little Red Book sales come directly from live streaming.

Live-streaming is a very effective way to target sales conversion.

Xiaohongshu, commonly known as Little Red Book, is rapidly expanding its live-streaming e-commerce capabilities in preparation for its upcoming IPO. As of April 2024, compared to the same time last year:

• There has been a 5x increase in brands starting official account live-streaming.
• Customer orders during live sessions have surged by 12x.
• The number of brand stores achieving sales over 1 million RMB has risen by 7.4x.

For the 6.18 shopping festival, Xiaohongshu is offering discounts exceeding 0.1 billion RMB and increased traffic for Red store brands, reinforcing its dedication to growing its e-commerce sector.

The Role of Celebrity Live-Streaming

Celebrity influencers play a pivotal role in Xiaohongshu’s live-streaming success. Even with limited appearances, they generate significant sales.

Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui, for example, have achieved average gross merchandise value (GMV) per live-stream of 43 million RMB and 78 million RMB, respectively. These influencers primarily promote high-value products such as fashion and skincare, which align with the preferences of Xiaohongshu’s audience.

Despite their sporadic live-streaming schedules, these celebrity influencers drive high engagement and sales due to their star power. Zhang Xiaohui, for instance, has only streamed once in the past 3 months, compared to Douyin’s top celebrity Luo Yonghao, who hosted 131 shows in a month. Although fewer in number, these celebrity live-streams on Xiaohongshu produce impressive outcomes, contrasting with Douyin’s more frequent high-performing streams.

The average order value on Xiaohongshu is nearly double that on Douyin, emphasizing its premium product focus and attracting brands looking to market high-end items. The best-selling products on Red live-streaming are usually premium fashion and skincare products. While Douyin live-streaming is best for cheap skincare, cosmetics, F&B and electronics.

Brand Official Live-Streaming: Case Study of Fabrique

Brands are increasingly leveraging Xiaohongshu’s live-streaming platform. Fabrique, a retailer of affordable designer clothing, began its official live-streaming in March 2024.

In April, Fabrique’s live-streaming sales on Xiaohongshu reached 16% of their Tmall sales, with an average order value of 1100 CNY.

While Xiaohongshu’s official live-streaming sales are currently only 9% of Douyin’s overall store sales, there is significant growth potential. In off-season months like April, sales from social media platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu can account for up to 65% of total sales, illustrating the power of social commerce, particularly for premium fashion brands.

Little Red Book live-streaming could also effectively promote a brand.

We launched Rouje in the Little Red Book, the content was pushed to the top of the Red page, and the brand is able to grow to 41k followers in just 2 months. Comparatively, a large brand like Pandora which operates in Red for years only has 50k followers.

Live-streaming with one of the top fashion influencers Lu plays an important role in pushing Rouje viral. Lu did a live-streaming for Rouje after the brand launched. It’s also a continuous mention of the brand. Lu posted 2 live-streaming previews, and 5 follow-up videos after 2 weeks for continuous exposure.

Sales conversion on Little Red Book store

The major drawback of the Little Red Book store is it has little organic traffic.

Most users still use Little Red Book as a social media and product review platform. Most users will switch to a marketplace to make an order. According to Quest Mobile, after uses close Little Red Book, 77.1% of the e-commerce purchase goes to Taobao. Thus brands with Tmall flagship store don’t have strong need to open a Little Red Book store.

Little Red Book influencer strategy

A typical Little Red Book influencer spending schedule looks like this:

Display ads: used to promote the most popular influencer post, expand the reach. 10-15% budget allocation.

Gifting/seeding: lots of micro-influencers accept product seeding, it’s a very effective way to work with a large number of influencers with a small budget. 20-30% budget allocation targeting tier 4 influencers with average post view below 10k. Agency and MCN companies provide gifting and seeding services, price ranges between 50 to 150 USD per micro-influencer depending on quality and size. Contact info@walkthechat.com to learn more on product seeding services.

Influencer campaign: larger influencer and more promotional content will require payment. A pyramid style is the most typical model, often working with top tier influencers (10k USD per influencer), then more influencers in tier 2 and tier 3. with 50%-60% budget allocation.

This allocation structure enables brands to work with the most amount of influencers during campaigns. It’s common to work with 50-200 influencers during a couple of weeks for a campaign. Some of the most popular content is created with micro-influencers, thus playing numbers games increase the chance of producing the best content.

Brands could targe a few product/brand-specific keywords during the promotional campaign, thus create a trendy keyword to further attracts traffic.

Recently, Little Red Book launched a new feature: “guaranteed” exposure for sponsored content to help brands and advertisers reach their expectations while working with influencers.

How to find Little Red Book influencer?

Pugongying

Little Red Book provides an official Key Opinion Leader (KOL) platform called Pugongying.

Pro:

• It’s actuatly displays the influncer’s cost
• You can use the platform to find influencers by industry, tags, follower demographic, and price
• It’s the official channel to place an order with KOL

Cons:

• Pugongying charges 10% service fee.
  Little Red Book encourages all KOL collaboration to go through Pugongying, otherwise the post could risk being blocked or limit in traffic distribution. Although brands often take the risk by working with influencers directly to save the 10% platform fee. If the content looks native and personal, it could often fly under the radar. Around 90% of campaign in cosmetics industry goes through Pugongying, and only around 50% of campaign in fashion industry goes through Pugoingying since the content could look more native.
• Some influencers and celebrities are not listed on Pugongying if they do not have an official agreement with Little Red Book.
• Limited level of search query compared to Qiangua

Qiangua

Qiangua is a 3rd party social monitoring platform for Little Red Book.

Pro:

• More search options. For example, it could filter influencers by more specific tags
• More influencers are listed on Qiangua
• Easy to tell amount of active followers, judging by the engagement rate of the content
• Able to give a reasonable estimate cost of an influencer. This could be used as the benchmark against the real price.

Con:

• It cannot display the actuarte price of an influencer.
• Some of the features requires a paid account, cost start from 250USD per month

Influencer seeding process

Seeding means gifting products to influencers in exchange for free posting. It’s an important Little Red Book marketing method. Here is why brands should do product seeding on Little Red Book:

• It is the most cost-effective way to work with influencers and celebrities
• It’s a good way to build a strong relationship with influencers, we suggest brands gift high-quality influencers during every new product launch
• Seeding is a good way to measure the impact of an influencer before official collaboration
• Seeding could increase consumer touchpoint, especially if an influencer is willing to share your brand multiple times
• Influencer seeding is a market survey to define your hero product. The most popular picked product by influencers could be the hero product of the season
• Does not limit to the size of the influencer

This is our seeding process:

For many seeding products, the influencers and celebrities will not include a sales link in the post. Thus using the brand’s social media account to engage with the post as soon as the post is released is the key to bring tangible sales/marketing impact to the brand.

Another key is to reuse the pictures and videos created through seeding. Not directly because seeding photos usually don’t have commercial use copyright. Using other personal accounts to comment under a product or posting on social media is a great way to repurpose the content.

We usually mostly focusing on the quality of the photoshoot during seeding, instead of designing the user conversion path like what we will do in a paid influencer campaign.

Depending on the goal of the brand, we will have different seeding strategies.

Market entry seeding survey

During the first month of brand/product launch, we often seed high-quality and median-size KOL. The goal is to ask the KOL to choose their favorite products, thus giving feedback to the brand which is the most potent product in their Lookbook.

Monthly seeding to product content and create branding

Vitaly is creating great localized content with musicians and rock bands via product seeding on Little Red Book.

Hunter Boots gifts out at least 4k USD worth of products per month, and in exchange KOLs is able to create over 20k USD worth of marketing posts. A sweet deal to create amazing content while minimizing the marketing cost. Especially the product cost is usually a small percentage of the retail price.

Micro-influencer seeding

For skincare brands, cosmetics, health supplements, F&B, or electronics, we will target the micro-influencers, often with around 1000 followers. It’s a lot more difficult to get free product seeding with brands in these industries because if it’s not a product that could fit in with the KOL’s outfit, it will appear a lot more promotional to post this content. Instead, brands can pay a small amount (usually between $30 to $100) to individuals on Little Red Book in exchange for guaranteed posting. The goal will be to focus on the quality of photos and videos. Since if the content quality is high, it’s still possible for a post to go viral even if it’s a small account.

Celebrities seeding

Working with showrooms and stylists is also a great way to work with celebrities. Celebrities often borrow products to style in a photo shoot or going on a TV shoot. Usually, the stylist or showrooms will borrow a lot of products from brands. If we are lucky, brands could get free exposure.

Below are celebrities that wear products seeded by WalktheChat.

These celebrities usually charge between 80k USD to 140k USD for posting just one promotional content. Although they will not post-seeding brands, the fans will usually post on Weibo. In this case, it’s crucial for the brand to use its own official account to engage with the fans.

Note all the collaboration photos and videos are Copywrite protected. The brand is able to use these photos to post on social media channels. However, these photos could not be used in the e-commerce store, or as display ads material.

A smart way to use these copyright-protected photos is to post under product review using a personal or KOL account. This way brand is not directly using these photos, but the content gets to be distributed widely.

Jewelry, shoes, and clothes are easier to be picked for celebrity’s stage styling. Bags, cosmetics, and sunglasses are usually a bit harder. Some other categories such as skin care products are almost impossible for seeding. Consult info@walkthechat.com to learn more about if celebrity seeding is the right service for your brand.

Little Red Book Influencer campaign

Little Red Book influencer campaigns often target building brand awareness and creating engagement. It’s difficult to track the sales conversion from the Little Red Book platform, however, a good campaign can create strong purchase intention, and directly impacting sales.

Unlike seeding which we mostly focus on the quality of the content, when it comes to paid influencer campaigns on Little Red Book, we have much stricter selection criteria.

1. Strong engagement ratio

The engagement ratio is an important indicator demonstrating how active is the KOL account. The influencer profile page shows the total follower amount and total engagement amount. The higher ratio the more engaging are the followers, thus more likely to respond to promotional content. We usually only work with influencers that have a ratio higher than 2.

Engagement ratio = Engagement amount / Followers

2. Identify the real KOL

Little Red Book has quite a lot of fake account and zombie followers.

A real KOL usually receive comments from real users. A real comment usually contains specific product information. The user name and profile picture should also look like a real person.

Another way to check if the influencer has fake followers is by using Qiangua, a 3rd party App. It can provide an estimated % of the active follower of an influencer and % of zombie followers.

We usually choose influencers with over 50% of active followers.

Zombie followers are defined as followers who started to follow the influencer in the last 90 days, and who do not have any activity on Little Red Book. Usually, we choose accounts with less than 20% of zombie followers.

3. Average post engagement should be over 200

For mid-tier and top-tier influencers, it’s important to choose influencers that have strong daily engagement. Internally we prefer influencers with over 200 post engagement, these are often the influencers with strong follower loyalty.

Note for smaller influencers, it’s common to have a very uneven engagement performance across content. Smaller influencers are also more likely to agree to work on seeding basis.

4. Strong follower growth in the last 3 months

In the Pugongying backend, you can monitor the follower growth curve. Make sure the influencer you choose is active in the last 3 months. If the influencer is trending, it will boost campaign performance.

5. Follower demographics

Pugongying also shares the follower demographic. You can compare it with the brand’s own follower demographic to find a good match.

6. Influencer campaign social monitoring

An effective way to choose influencers is to monitor the competitor’s influencer campaign performance. Qiangua enables you to export brand keywords, this way it’s easy to sort through the best performing influencer campaigns of your competitor. You can choose only to work with the influencer with the strongest engagement.

This is export file could contain information such as engagement performance, follower amount, influencer location.

We also suggest brands monitor their own influencer mention. Especially if your brand has a large amount of organic user-generated content. This could help you to identify the most influential customers, and brands could reach out to these fans. Either to gift new season products or to make them the brand ambassador.

Things to do during an influencer campaign

Once you’ve identified the right influencer, it’s important to apply the same checklist that creates great Little Red Book content:

1. Choose the right cover picture
2. Match the content with the influencer’s personal style
3. Make sure throughout the campaign, target 1 or 2 keywords that’s both memorable and specific
4. Monitor the campaign for any viral content, make sure to use display ads to amplify the best performing posts
5. Make sure to communicate with the influencer on posting time, use the brand’s official account to engage with the influencer as soon as the content is posted to attract traffic to the brand’s account
6. If performance is not as expected, communicate with the influencer to try to get more resources. Usually brand can ask for a repost or some soft-exposure

Little Red Book Advertising

In some ways, Little Red Book ads work just like Instagram.

We suggest promoting the best performing content, ads can further enhance the reach to achieve the best result.

However, when it comes to targeting and retargeting, Little Red Book’s advertising system is nowhere as sophisticated as Instagram:

• Little Red Book offers only limited level of targeting category (less than 20 interest groups!)
• No way to retarget or track followers
• No integration with an other platforms, data is limited
• Only 3 types of ads format
• Traffic is also limited since Red only has 100 million monthly active users (WeChat has 1.2 billion)

Due to the limitation, ads are only a supporting feature for brand marketing. Thus we recommend spending no more than 15% of the budget on Little Red Book ads.

3 types of Little Red Book Ads

Newsfeed ads for personal account

These are the only ads available for personal accounts. It’s called Shutiao (薯条). Personal ads are more expensive compared to brand ads. For example, CPM could be 11 USD, almost 5 times more expensive compared to brand ads. Personal ads also only enable leading traffic to a personal account. The upside is Shutiao will not display as “promotional” content, so the content could appear more native.

Newsfeed ads for brand account

Brands can place newsfeed ads on Little Red Book.

Here is the average price for different industries (CPM/USD) as of June 2021:

• Beauty 2.5  
• Cosmetics 2.8
• Mother & baby 2.5
• Fashion 1.9
• F&B 2.2

This is cheaper compared to other channels, Douyin’s CPM is around 3 USD while WeChat Moments Ads could be over 15 USD.

The average click-through rate on Red is strong, between 2% to 5% depending on the industry.

Newsfeed ads have relatively larger traffic compared to other types of ads on Little Red Book. Thus we recommend allocating 70% of your ads budget to this.

The biggest issue with newsfeed ads is the lack of specific targeting options. Brands can only choose from less than 20 interest groups, and the groups are very general. For example, under fashion outfits, users are only separated into 3 categories: All, clothing, shoes & hats.

It’s just embarrassing how amateur the Little Red Book ads backend looks.

Since targeting is broad, ads optimization on Little Red Book is all about optimizing the asset. Make sure to have an attractive title with trendy keywords, and make sure the cover picture is right.

Keyword Search Ads

This is the only type of ad on Red that enables brands to be more specific in targeting since you can bid on keywords.

It’s generally more expensive compared to newsfeed ads. Here are some cost benchmarks in different industries as of June 2021 (CPM/USD):

• Beauty 13
• Cosmetics 17
• Mother & baby 8.7
• Fashion 2.3
• F&B 3

However, due to traffic limitations, it’s not easy to spend with specific keywords. For example, we are only able to spend around 100 USD on the keyword “rain boots” per day.

How to Create Little Red Book Content

Little Red Book is a great channel for medium to long-term marketing plans. Content has a longer lifespan compared to WeChat.

Many Little Red Book post still gets traffic after 1 month. The amount of exposure a post gets is determined by algorithm, which has to do with keywords and the post engagement score.

Comparatively, WeChat’s content lifespan is shorter: usually under 7 days. Content is only pushed to WeChat official account followers, so it’s hard to get organic traffic.

6 ways to increase content performance on Little Red Book

Follow the hot topics and AI trends

The integration of AI in advertising has revolutionized the industry, allowing brands to expand the boundaries of creative planning with AI’s involvement. 

Brands on Xiaohongshu are using AI-generated CGI to create eye-catching ads that blend virtual and real elements. 

This approach sparks discussions, increases brand visibility, and enhances the user experience. By integrating AI into advertising, brands are pushing creative boundaries, making CGI a popular choice for engaging and innovative campaigns.

WalktheChat continuously invests in the latest AI technology and explores emerging trends to ensure brand content remains at the forefront of digital innovation. WalktheChat helped Marimekko to launch its first CGI content on social media. The creative perfectly aligns with the brand’s identity, goals, and audience needs, ensuring content is not only engaging but also deeply resonant.

Choose the right cover picture

Cover picture will strongly impact the click rate of your Little Red Book content.

A clear product picture usually works better compared to a blurry product picture. A picture that looks like it was taken by a real customer can also attract more clicks.

Localized content usually performs better on Little Red Book. It’s a community, thus people prefer genuine content to professional commercial content, such as a professional-looking caucasian model shoot.

A good method to create localized content is by gifting products (instead of paying) to influencers and letting them post content. In general, we find a lifestyle photo will often perform better than a professional model shoot.

Sometimes it’s a bit random, don’t worry, keep testing

You can post an unlimited amount of content in a day, so brands can test out different types of content. In general, a brand account would post 1 or 2 posts per day.

Below are 3 pieces of very similar content, all about matching tips for shoes. We optimized the keyword in the 2nd post, including adding the word “business casual”. The 2nd post performed 20 times better than the first one. We also took a similar approach for another account, and the post went viral.

It’s hard to tell what exactly makes a viral post on Little Red Book, but brands should also keep testing out different content styles. Copying the best-performing content in your industry is not a bad start.

Tip: content sometimes becomes viral due to promotional events. It’s much likely to create viral content when the brand is simultaneously running an influencer campaign.

It’s like a search engine, make sure to optimize the keyword, and avoid censored keywords

Little Red Book content is algorithm-driven, the performance is strongly connected to search volume and post engagement. Thus optimizing the keywords in your post title is a shortcut to success.

First, do research on the best-performing content in your industry. Below is a research we did before working on a French shoe brand. We use keywords like “French style”, “shoes for men”, and “leather shoes”. You can record the top-performing post titles in the last 3 months.

These titles give the best examples of types of content that work best in your industry. You can reuse some of the keywords, and try to create similar content. Examples of good Little Red Book titles are:

• How can short people choose outfit to look skinny and elegant?
• 8 beige colors for French sandals recommendation this summer

Just like a search engine, Little Red Book’s trendy keywords change all the time, impacted by the number of search queries and the popularity of top-performing posts.

Keyword ranking = Number of search queries X Engagement of top posts containing the keyword

You can use 3rd party keyword monitoring tool to find the top ranking keyword in your industry, and use these keywords in your Little Red Book content. The tool we use is called Qiangua. It’s a paid service costing around 500USD per month. For example, the top trendy keywords in the fashion of the day are: OOTD, work outfit, whiten skin, skinny outfit.

Copywriters also need to avoid censored words and forbidden words. These words will impact the traffic.

Words could be sensitive due to many reasons. For example, the Chinese advertising law forbade the use of “best”, “No. 1”, “most” to avoid misleading content. Any political words could cause your content and even the account to be blocked. Any indication of trying to redirect traffic to other platforms, such as WeChat or Taobao is sensitive enough to block the spreading of your traffic.

Here is a free tool to check which are the sensitive or forbidden words in your content: http://ci.lingke.pro/

Lucky draw could bring traffic fast

Little Red Book has an official system for brands to launch lucky draws. Users could participate by following, bookmark, and like the content in order to win a gift. It’s a very good way to quickly push a new account to a larger audience.

The first participating users are usually low-quality users who are only in for the gift. But as more users engage with the lucky draw post, it could easily go viral and eventually reach your target consumers.

For Vitaly, a Canadian jewelry brand, a lucky draw was able to bring over 600 new followers. And since the lucky draw prize is a 500 RMB gift card for its cross-border WeChat Mini Program, the brand also draws attention to another sales channel.

DeMellier is a niche bag brand that just entered the Chinese market. The lucky draw attracted over 2,000 new followers. For a new account, this is quite significant. Over 500 users who were attracted by the luck draw asked how to buy the product.

Since WeChat and Tmall are sensitive words on Red, we used private messages to share the sales channel with the users. The prize was a newly launched bag: a free product is usually more attractive compared to a gift card.

Conclusion

Little Red Book is a great platform for brand marketing and creating multiple consumer touchpoints. Red content can be manipulated via specific tactics just like SEO. An influencer campaign is the most effective way to drive traffic and convert sales. We suggested only a moderate amount of ad investing. E-commerce conversion happens via live-streaming and directing traffic to other marketplaces.

Mastering Little Red Book marketing could be the key to quick raise in the Chinese market.

Other information on Little Red Book 

What is Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu)?

Xiaohongshu, encourages a “safe space” for like-minded consumers to write reviews and share their shopping experiences good or bad.

The App contains an “Explore” section enabling to explore user’s content on topics such as fashion, food and travel. However, the most popular category on the App remains beauty & cosmetics.

The App is often used when a user is investigating a new cosmetic product they would like to try, and are curious about the experience of other customers.

The App also as a “Nearby” section that users can use while traveling. While on business trip to Hong Kong, Little Red Book would point me to food, experiences or shopping opportunities around me.

When reading a post, users usually add “hyperlinks” to the page of the brand which can contain an e-commerce section. There can therefore be a smooth transition between content consumption and e-commerce.

Xiaohongshu change from a social platform to an e-commerce platform

Before becoming today’s social and e-commerce hybrid, Xiaohongshu started out as a drafting tool for Chinese users to make fashion and beauty shopping lists before traveling overseas, with an interface similar to Pinterest. Essentially, it was just a content sharing platform, targeting Chinese shoppers’ unmet desire of discovering and sharing shopping experiences.

Having accumulated a huge amount of social and consumption data from a largely urban female user base, Xiaohongshu has since developed a closed shopping cycle on the cross-border sale of luxury items.

Instead of choosing a marketplace model like most Chinese e-commerce sites, Xiaohongshu maintains partnerships with foreign brands and keep their own inventory for added quality assurance, shipping directly to users from their warehouse.

Xiaohongshu may be the best platform for shoppers to reach a large group of like-minded individuals, who are most likely to engage with their posts (known in the app as Shopping Notes).

Users don’t have to make their personal experience completely public (like on Weibo, China’s Twitter), or visible only to a closed circle like on WeChat. On Xiaohongshu, Shopping Notes are written by and shared with a relevant crowd that also enjoys and are eager to get informed about shopping and lifestyle.

How little is Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu)?

Little Red Book is one of the largest and fastest growing social e-commerce apps in China. The women-focused shopping platform, co-founded in 2013 by Charlwin Mao and Miranda Qu. Xiaohongshu is now:

• Valued at USD 3 billion in its Series D round June 2018
• Supported by the most prestigious investors including Alibaba, Tencent, Genesis Capital, ZhenFund and GGV Capital
• Over 100 million registered users
• 30 million monthly active users, a 40% increase in end of 2017

Xiaohongshu was ranked as the #1 App in the cross-border e-commerce App category with 15.4 million MAUs during Black Friday 2017  according to Analysys. The #2 App Kaola only had 5.3 million MAUs during the same period.

According to a different source, iiMedia, Xiaohongshu makes up for 5.6% of the total cross-border e-commerce market. Notice it’s one of the only platforms that’s gaining more market share in Q1 2018.

Xiaohongshu’s user demographics

In a nutshell, most Little Red Book users are post-90s urban females who value quality, with relatively high consuming power, and premium taste.

It’s one of the fastest growing e-commerce platform.

According to Qianfan, Xiaohongshu has a predominantly female audience (88%). It also has a rather young population: more than 60% of its users are 30 years old or younger.

57% of the users live in top-tier cities, the traditional centers of wealth. In fact, a closer look at their spending behavior reveals a large proportion of the users have relatively high consuming power.

This makes the platform the ideal channel to target young, affluent female shoppers that have the intent and ability to consume branded products.

User content that informs purchase decisions

High-quality shoppers demand high-quality pre-purchase information. Driven by candid product reviews (aka Shopping Notes), authenticity is at the core of Xiaohongshu’s user posts.

It is like an illustrated textbook that teaches you to shop (covering such topics as which up-and-coming brands you need to know, how to spot fakes and the best time of the year to shop for the best deals etc.)

Users can make purchases through a shopping note, ensuring a smooth and efficient shopping process that takes place entirely within the platform.

To maintain quality and effective communication, Xiaohongshu’s recommendation algorithm encourages users to interact with topics they are interested in. Profanity, explicit self-advertisement and verbal abuse are all effectively censored.

Also, it is worth noting that there is no forwarding or sharing features on Xiaohongshu. Users can like, comment on, and add Shopping Notes to their own collection.

This in a way prevents users from getting spammed, and to let Little Red Book organically push to users the content they believe will be most relevant and useful to them.

Celebrities’ favorite sharing platform

Xiaohongshu is one of celebrities’ favorite social media platforms in China, and there are plenty of stars sharing their latest shopping picks and lifestyle hacks there every day, mixing snaps of their not-so-glamorous side of life.

Consumers feel like they share an intimate bond with celebrities through their personal, light-hearted Shopping Notes. This has created a unique UGC (user-generated content) circle made up of well-known influencers with a massive following.

On a platform like Xiaohongshu, celebrity endorsements come with a special authenticity. Fan BingBing is a classic case of quality over quantity. Dubbed “queen of sales” on Chinese social media, she once brought down the server of Xiaohongshu after endorsing a beauty product on the platform.

Currently, with 9.9 million followers on the platform, every face mask she ever endorsed on the platform is reported as sold out. Even the actress joked about quitting the platform, so she can find her favorite products in the store.

Marketing on Xiaohongshu

For products that are listed on its e-commerce platform, Xiaohongshu has different sales campaigns to generate sales, stores and brands can sign up. It also runs a 4-hour count down sales events 3 times per day platform-wide. These discount events are focused on cosmetic product, health product, food, household items, formula. It also runs a “Stylish girl” event which hosts cosmetic product only.

Smaller brands can benefit from Xiaohongshu’s growing network of celebrity users to drive brand recognition through KOL campaigns. A simple way to begin partnerships is to send products to influencers that are within the brand’s niche, and have them authentically post their thoughts.

Is Xiaohongshu a good investment?

So is Xiaohongshu worth the money? It is, but not only as a sales platform: as an information platform.

Chinese Luxury customers make exhaustive research before purchase. They have the largest number of touch points before making a purchase decision, and especially if you’re in the beauty space, Little Red Book will be one of them.

Even niche cosmetics brands can have thousands of mentions on Little Red Book, and customers who see your products on Xiaohongshu might very well end up buying it on Tmall or WeChat a few hours or days later.

In short: Little Red Book is worth it. But with its huge engagement rates and significant organic traffic, you should see it as a marketing channel rather than as a sales platform.

Conclusion

As part of the e-commerce revolution for purchasing better products, Xiaohongshu’s unique positioning as a trustworthy, celebrity-approved distributor of overseas products is a great channel for brands that look to capitalize on the social commerce trend.

The nature of Shopping Notes makes it not only authentic, but also useful to potential consumers. Driving brand recognition and sales aside, a well-established presence on Xiaohongshu allows a business to track customer sentiment over a test period, which can then be used to inform future marketing strategy.

Want to learn more about Xiaohongshu KOL marketing, content trends, and successful cases? You will find the below articles very helpful:

• How fashion brands leverage Red (Xiaohongshu): Content, KOLs, and Strategy
• Red (Xiaohongshu) trends in 2022: emerging trends in fitness, fashion, and beauty
• Red (Xiaohongshu) pushes “Account-Store Integration” to drive in-app conversion
• Little Red Book new feature: “guaranteed exposure” for sponsored content

Have some unanswered questions about your Red/Xiaohongshu strategy? Simply fill out this one-minute chart and we will be in touch with you!

We have also created a webinar on Little Red Book, here is the webinar recording, and webinar slides.

The post 2024 Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) Marketing – A Complete Guide appeared first on WalkTheChat.

​Allgrey fashion trend, or 格雷系 in Chinese, which involves the layering of items in different shades of grey, was the major fashion fad in the last months of 2023 going into 2024. Originating amidst the winter season, this trend has seen an extraordinary rise in popularity, growing MoM 29.53X on average from November to January and captivating over 300 million views in relevant topics on Red/Xiaohongshu.

In this edition of our micro trend report, we provide a thorough overview of:

• Introduction of the Allgrey Fashion Trend: assessing key characteristics and data of this China fashion trend.
• Demographics: understanding the key regions and age groups engaging with this style.
• Origin and Promotion: how it became a trend.
• Sentiment Analysis: what consumers praise about Allgrey and why it has been widely adopted by the average consumer.
• Social Marketing: the role of influencers and brands in promoting this trend.
• E-Commerce Impact: how brands are leveraging the hype on Tmall.
• Future Prospects: how is Allgrey faring as we enter spring season, and what’s next in China’s ever-evolving fashion?

The analysis is empowered by Doris, WalktheChat In-house A.I. Social Listening Tool.

Remember the red-brown tones of Maillard style that “sizzled” Chinese fashionistas in fall of 2023? As Maillard’s popularity faded and winter’s chills sniffed in, the calm and neutral shades of grey became the new “it color” on Chinese social media such as Red and Douyin.

Using grey tones as the primary base color of an outfit, Allgrey refers to layering of items in grey shades to create a simple yet elegant ensemble.

The Allgrey China fashion trend primarily appeals to the younger audience, especially those between 18-24 years old, who form the largest demographic group, closely followed by the 25-34 age bracket.

Interestingly, despite its association with elegance, only 3% of the Allgrey enthusiasts belong to the 35-44 year age group. This could potentially be attributed to the novelty of the Allgrey style, which might not have yet resonated with the more mature demographic.

Additionally, it’s notable that audiences from Guangdong are leading this trend, surpassing those from traditionally fashion-forward provinces like Shanghai. This shift highlights Guangdong’s emerging significance in shaping contemporary fashion trends.

Allgrey was initially known by generic terms such as “grey color scheme fashion” (灰色系) and “classy grey fashion” (高级灰) before Red platform launched an official #Allgrey campaign, catapulting the Allgrey concept into the limelight.

In addition, Red invited influencers and celebrities to host themed livestreams, further popularizing the trend. This strategic social media push demonstrates the power of digital platforms in shaping fashion trends in China.

The pursuit of an affluent and refined appearance has been a long-standing and growing desire among Chinese consumers. This trend has spurred the popularity of search terms such as “sophisticated fashion” (高级感穿搭) and “Old Money style” (老钱风).

Enter the Allgrey trend, the latest embodiment of quiet luxury in China’s fashion domain. This trend captivates with its minimalist charm and understated luxury, appealing to those who favor sophistication without ostentation. Influencers and fashion enthusiasts laud its intellectual and old-money aesthetic, highlighting its slimming effect and effortless style. This monochromatic movement represents a growing preference towards simplicity and quality in fashion.

Since Allgrey is a color-centric style, it is formulaic and relatively simple to replicate for the average consumer. An “Allgrey look” can be achieved either by donning entirely grey items, or mixing grey essentials with an accent color such as blue or red.

With this layering technique, consumers yearning to look fashionable in the winter can stay warm, and the style is also versatile for commute and casual scenarios.

The ease of implementation, combined with its warmth, versatility, and inherent elegance and minimalism, serves as the cornerstone of the Allgrey style’s widespread adoption among fashion enthusiasts.

The concept of Allgrey, while not widely popular by its specific name in Western circles, has seen the color grey take center stage in the Fall/Winter 2023 fashion scene. Prestigious luxury labels like Miu Miu, Prada, Max Mara, along with designer brands such as The Garment, frequently emerge in conversations about Allgrey on Chinese social platforms.

Influencers are leveraging the prevalence of grey pieces in these runway shows to reinforce the legitimacy and influence of the Allgrey trend within the global fashion landscape.

Miu Miu stands out as one of the most frequently mentioned brands in discussions about the Allgrey trend, thanks to its compatibility with the trend and the burgeoning popularity of #MiuMiuStyle. However, not all outfits categorized under Miu style are from brand Miu Miu. Consumers are also turning to mass market alternatives from COS and Zara to achieve the look.

In the lead-up to the Chinese New Year, the Allgrey trend took a festive turn, with influencers showcasing their stylish Allgrey ensembles paired with vibrant red accessories like socks, bags, and gloves, symbolizing auspiciousness and fashion-forward thinking.

This thematic adaptation stirred considerable buzz, generating 106,300 engagements on Red and amassing views exceeding 41 million on Douyin.

Apparel brand GANNI tapped into the trend by promoting their CNY festive collection in Allgrey styling through a blend of branded content and influencer collaborations. This positioned their Chinese New Year drops as both trendy and culturally relevant.

The hashtag #KoreanVibeAllgreyBoys emerged as the leading topic within the Allgrey trend on Douyin, ,accumulating over 95 million views in total.

The popularity of Allgrey on social media has been equally relevant in e-commerce, with searches for the keyword “allgrey” experiencing a remarkable 274% increase on Tmall during January.

Recognizing this trend, brands like Nike, Mardi Mercredi, and Arket have promptly incorporated the keyword into their product listing titles to harness the search traffic.

What’s the outlook for Allgrey? What will be the next big trend in 2024?

As we transition into spring, the Allgrey fashion trend’s stronghold on China’s fashion scene is showing signs of retreat, with mentions on the social media platform Red plummeting by 66% in February. This suggests that Allgrey may have been a temporary craze, likely to be dethroned by the next emerging fashion style.

Social media platforms like Red and Douyin are at the forefront of inventing new trends, turning viral moments into commercial triumphs through savvy live streaming strategies that drive sales.

Looking ahead, 2024 is expected to bring about fresh, color-based themes, following the success of Dopamine, Maillard and Allgrey in 2023. The secret sauce for any social media-inspired fashion trend to achieve virality seems to rest on its ease of adoption and replication, with straightforward, easily emulated styles gaining traction most swiftly.

WalktheChat is an AI-powered China Marketing Agency supercharged with an industry-leading AIGC and tech team.

: selina.wang@walkthechat.com

Follow us on LinkedIn for more news and insight about China’s digital marketing and luxury landscape.

More reports available upon request.

The post China’s Top Winter Fad: Allgrey Fashion Trend Captivates over 300 Million Views on Red appeared first on WalkTheChat.

Chinese New Year marketing engagements include both brand and organic content.

Luxury Sector Chinese New Year Marketing Summary Insights 

1. The presence of offline artistic installations have increased significantly compared to last year during this Chinese New Year marketing season, indicating a more substantial investment in physical presence and engagement.
2. Online interactions, especially through WeChat H5 games, have become more prevalent, with innovative red envelope (red packet) mechanisms being introduced to engage consumers.
3. Marketing efforts have become more localized, as evidenced by the use of Chinese New Year-themed short films, which resonate more deeply with the local culture and traditions.
4. There’s a noticeable reduction in collaborations with IP characters, particularly compared to those related to the Year of the Rabbit, likely due to the significant differences between Chinese and Western interpretations of dragons, which often spark discussions.
5. Some brands have opted not to use dragon imagery in their campaigns, a departure from the previous year where rabbit motifs took dominance in Chinese New Year marketing campaigns and products.
6. A deeper exploration of traditional Chinese culture beyond the obvious symbols like dragons and the color red

Offline artistic installations

The recent Chinese New Year marketing campaigns by luxury brands have showcased a significant uptick in the deployment of offline artistic installations, a testament to the brands’ heightened commitment to immersive customer experiences. This year, the venerable Louis Vuitton orchestrated an ephemeral pop-up space for its Spring/Summer 2024 Menswear collection in Shanghai and Beijing, drawing inspiration from the sun element—a central motif of Pharrell’s debut series as the brand’s Men’s Creative Director. This thematic choice reflected in the collection’s warm hues and ornamental luminosity was brought to life through these physical spaces, reinforcing the connection between the brand’s aesthetic narrative and its architectural manifestations.

Simultaneously, Louis Vuitton’s home in Chengdu’s Taikoo Li presented an even more eye-catching installation for the Year of the Dragon. Set against the backdrop of the millennial Daci Temple with its two standalone buildings and an open courtyard, the installation featured a commanding dragon that encapsulated the charm of the “Land of Abundance,” resonating with both cultural significance and contemporary relevance.

Moreover, Italian luxury brand Fendi seized the festive period as an opportunity to launch a collaboration featuring the iconic Pokémon franchise and Japanese streetwear designer Hiroshi Fujiwara’s Fragment. The Fendi x Fragment x Pokémon collection integrated beloved dragon-themed characters from Pokémon with Fendi’s highly recognizable Peekaboo and Baguette bag designs, merging them with the classic FF motif. This creative synergy was celebrated with a unique flash store in the East Square of Chengdu’s Taikoo Li, showcasing the innovative interplay between iconic brand symbols and pop culture elements.

These installations exemplify how luxury brands are increasingly investing in elaborate, tangible art pieces to elevate their in-person engagement, crafting an intertwined narrative of tradition and modernity that not only captures the imagination but also creates distinctive, memorable experiences for consumers.

Evolving digital engagement and WeChat mini-programs

This Chinese New Year marketing season, luxury brands significantly leveraged WeChat mini-programs for heightened user interaction, offering exclusive red packet covers, wallpapers, and emoticons. Unlike the direct claim methods of previous years, more brands now require entry and registration via mini-programs, capturing valuable consumer data for future marketing endeavors (e.g., targeted SMS campaigns). The engagement strategies have evolved, incorporating keyword searches, link sharing, and interactive games to unlock exclusive content, enriching the user experience. WeChat’s latest module template enabled brands to integrate ads, lucky draws, and product promotions seamlessly, maximizing engagement.

Van Cleef & Arpels introduced a Chinese New Year marketing interaction that included dragon-themed emoticon packs, the collection of lucky wallpapers (with a chance to win a hidden red packet cover upon gathering all four designs), and a new year avatar update feature (where users could upload their portrait to generate a themed avatar).

In terms of private domain marketing, after retaining user information, luxury brands like Balenciaga are sending text messages to users, increasing consumer touchpoints.

Other brands, such as Hermès, utilized the limited edition red packet covers as a tool for sales associates (SAs) to connect with clients, with SAs sending them directly to customers via private messages.

This approach not only enhanced direct engagement but also leveraged personalized communication to strengthen brand loyalty and consumer relationships.

Localized storytelling in New Year campaigns

This year, luxury brands have continued the tradition of crafting New Year campaign films, focusing on themes of “hope and expectations,” “prospects and the future,” and “identity,” particularly addressing the existential concerns of contemporary youth. Post-pandemic, these narratives extend beyond the timeless New Year themes of “homecoming” and “reunion dinners,” aiming to resonate emotionally through localized storytelling that simplifies complexity, showcasing respect and sincerity towards cultural nuances.

Bottega Veneta’s “The First Sunrise with You” captures the essence of new beginnings and the relentless pursuit of life’s journeys through the lens of traditional reunion themes, interwoven with the anticipation of dawn’s first light. This narrative not only aligns with the cultural significance of greeting the New Year but also addresses the aspirations and anxieties of modern Chinese society, showcasing a deep respect and understanding of local sentiments.

Though not a luxury fashion brand, Ganni’s campaign, inspired by the traditional “dragon boating,” is a noteworthy one. It connects with Chinese cultural heritage while highlighting themes of female empowerment and collective strength. By depicting athletes overcoming limitations through unity and determination, the campaign resonates with the contemporary Chinese values of resilience and community, reflecting the brand’s commitment to embracing and honoring Chinese traditions and the evolving identity of its people.

Declining IP collaborations and cultural interpretation challenges

In the Year of the Rabbit, fashion brand marketing frequently featured collaborations with designers and iconic cartoon characters, such as Coach x White Rabbit, Chloé x My Melody, Givenchy x Lucky Rabbit Ozwald, and Moncler x Roger Rabbit. This year, however, there’s been a noticeable decrease in such IP collaborations. Even those that have launched face scrutiny, particularly regarding their relevance to the “Chinese Dragon.”

Dior’s partnership with Japanese contemporary artist Otani Workshop produced a green monster TANILLA. Upon release, many criticized it for not representing the “Chinese Dragon,” with feedback ranging from its appearance being “ugly” and “abstract” to outright “ghastly.”

Products featuring this design, including jackets with a burnt color effect, prints that obscure the face, and dragon scarves with an unclear motif, have been particularly disparaged. Some netizens dubbed the design as a “zombie dragon,” neither festive nor auspicious, predicting it to quickly become discounted stock.

This backlash underscores the unique emotional connection Chinese people have with zodiac symbols, expecting the Chinese dragon to embody power and protection, not the characteristics of a “dinosaur” or a “European-style evil dragon.” This mismatch in cultural expectations likely contributed to the reduced number of IP collaborations this year, as brands aim to avoid controversy and more deeply respect traditional Chinese sentiments.

Creative approaches beyond literal dragon imagery

This year, in contrast to the rabbit-themed marketing saturating last year’s campaigns, several brands have strategically refrained from directly incorporating dragon imagery into their Chinese New Year products. Seeking a more creative and thematic approach to zodiac marketing for the Year of the Dragon, these brands have found innovative ways to honor the dragon theme without resorting to explicit depictions.

Bottega Veneta utilized its sophisticated weaving techniques to mimic dragon spines and scales, subtly celebrating dragon culture through craftsmanship rather than literal representation.

Givenchy, in collaboration with Juanzong Bookstore, released the 2024 Dragon Scale Scroll, drawing upon the classical Chinese bookbinding method known as dragon scale binding, named for its pages that fan out resembling dragon scales.

Loewe tapped into the Chinese appreciation for jade and its symbolic meanings. The brand commissioned jade carving masters to create three limited-edition jade pendants. Additionally, each jade-color-inspired Flamenco Mini clutch bag comes with a special pouch containing a jade piece in a matching color, symbolizing good fortune for the new year.

Cosmetics Industry Chinese New Year Marketing Ranking

Compared to 2023 Chinese New Year marketing, most international brand rankings for Chinese New Year do not show big changes. Young cosmetic brands have exhibited remarkable growth, including brands like TIMAGE, First Impression, and JUDYDOLL. The rankings for established brands such as Chanel, Dior, and Giorgio Armani show relatively stable positions with minimal changes.

There is a dynamic and rapidly growing market for brands that are relatively young in the market, which are becoming increasingly competitive and are resonating more with local consumers.

Douyin’s cosmetics sales are growing at a strong rate, with a 111% GMV growth in Jan 2024. Comparatively, Tmall’s cosmetics category has a 12% decrease during the same time, showing that it is losing traction to Douyin.

Shu Uemura plays with Nostalgia Marketing and cultural alignment

In the Chinese New Year marketing campaign by Shu Uemura, contrasting outcomes from collaborations with two distinct celebrities highlight an important strategic consideration. The brand’s engagement with Wang Yibo, a prominent figure with substantial influence among younger audiences, indeed generated significant short-term traffic. However, this approach, often characterized by hefty endorsement costs, may not ensure a sustained interest in the brand itself, as the followers are typically more celebrity-driven rather than brand-loyal.

Conversely, the partnership with Carman Lee (李若彤) tapped into a more profound cultural and nostalgic vein. She is an actress revered for her portrayal of Xiaolongnü, the ethereal ‘Dragon Girl’ from the famed ’90s TV series “The Return of the Condor Heroes”.

Her association with the character Dragon Girl deeply rooted in the cultural fabric, presented an authentic alignment with the brand’s campaign theme, resulting in higher engagement and bookmarking figures. The Little Red Book post featuring her got over 7000 engagements with a much higher comment rate and bookmark rate compared to that of Wang Yibo. This suggests a more enduring connection with consumers. Carman Lee’s influence comes at a likely lower cost, yet it appears to resonate on a more substantial level, potentially leading to a lasting affinity with the brand beyond the campaign’s run.

With a 12% annual decline in China’s cosmetics sales in 2023, the reliance on tier 1 celebrities for quick traffic surges might not be the most prudent financial commitment. Brands should consider a balanced approach that combines the widespread reach of popular figures with influencers who have a more resonant cultural or niche appeal. This dual strategy could optimize marketing budgets while fostering a deeper and more sustainable relationship with consumers, steering clear of transient trends and instead building a loyal customer base rooted in shared values and cultural relevance.

Conclusion

Luxury brands have adeptly navigated the festive Chinese New Year marketing period, unveiling a blend of innovative physical and digital marketing strategies. By emphasizing offline artistic installations, alongside the smart use of WeChat mini-programs for interactive digital engagement, brands have created immersive experiences that establish multi-touchpoints with consumers. Coupled with a shift towards localized storytelling and creative interpretations of zodiac themes, luxury brands show commitment to marrying tradition with modernity, ensuring cultural relevance and fostering deeper consumer connections without leaning on explicit or potentially culturally insensitive imagery.

In the cosmetics industry’s Chinese New Year marketing, a notable shift favoring Douyin’s digital platform. The remarkable growth of brands like TIMAGE and Douyin’s 111% sales increase underscore the changing consumer dynamics. Additionally, Shu Uemura’s nostalgia-driven campaign with Carman Lee highlights the power of culturally resonant marketing.

Overall, Chinese New Year marketing reveals a sophisticated interplay between tradition and innovation across the luxury and cosmetics industries. By integrating artistic installations and digital interactivity, embracing localized and culturally nuanced content, and strategically leveraging nostalgia and celebrity influence, brands have demonstrated a nuanced understanding of the Chinese market, setting a precedent for future marketing strategies that prioritize cultural sensitivity, creativity, and authentic connections, ensuring the continued relevance and appeal of luxury brands in a rapidly evolving consumer landscape.

__________________

WalktheChat is an AI-powered China Marketing Agency supercharged with an industry-leading AIGC and tech team.

Follow us on LinkedIn for more news and insight about China’s digital marketing and luxury landscape.

More reports available upon request.

Contact us at: info@walkthechat.com

The post Chinese New Year Marketing: Luxury and Cosmetic Brands Are Redefining Strategies for the Modern Chinese Consumer appeared first on WalkTheChat.

Why Red is perfect for sports fashion brands

Red is the perfect intersection for brands between sports and fashion. It has 200 million Monthly Active Users, and more than 70% are female users. People are actively talking about fashion, fitness, lifestyle, beauty, etc, and looking for brands offering good quality products that can wear as daily fashion items.

Lululemon is still the No.1 yoga brand, while Maia Active tries hard to narrow the gap

Lululemon is still the unchallengeable No.1 brand in the yoga category. Even the well-funded Chinese brand Maia Active, which triples its sales revenue in 2 years, still has a long way to catch up with Canadian brand Lululemon. Why is Lululemon so successful?

Lululemon has a more solid grass-root foundation than Maia Active

We looked into Red posts mentioning Lululemon and Maia Active in the recent 90 days (September to December).

74% of Lululemon’s mentions come from ordinary users and KOCs (MAIA Active only 48%), indicating more popularity and grass-root organic sharing. In China, Lululemon is known as “the Hermès of Yoga.” The elevated brand positioning and a strong sense of community make consumers eager to share reviews on social media.

Maia Active is betting on primary and mid-tier KOL with follower numbers between 10k to 500k. Red KOLs of this follower range can produce quality content while still not too expensive like the top KOLs, so they are a cost-effective choice for brands.

During the same period, Lululemon got mentions from 8 celebrities and 18 Top KOLs, and Maia Active got only one celebrity and 10 Top KOL mentions. On Red, Top KOLs can work just as well as a mid-tier celebrity. Although both brands haven’t invested much in fame or PR – they don’t have any stars as official brand ambassadors, but instead focused on educating KOLs and KOCs to be their organic “brand ambassadors.”

Lululemon works with a variety of KOLs, while Maia Active focus on Fashion KOLs

Besides the tiers of influencers, both brands also have different considerations regarding what kind of KOLs they choose.

We looked at the TOP 20 best-performing Red Official campaigns (going through Red’s official PuGongYing platform to place the collaboration order. Red will charge a 10% commission but can provide official data tracking abilities. If you need help with how this works, contact us, and we are happy to help!).

Among the TOP 20 official campaigns, 79% of Maia Active campaigns collaborated with fashion KOLs (e.g., OOTD, outfit of the day). Although positioned as a yoga wear brand, Maia Active focuses more on the fashion feature than the sport and fitness side. Most KOLs concentrate on the extra warmth feature of the yoga pants (it’s December when we did this research, and it could get pretty cold in central-north China) and showcase how to mix and match with their winter closet to complete the fashion look. 

As for Lululemon, they work with more diversified types of KOLs, including fashion (60%), sports & fitness (25%), work & life, travel, etc. As a well-established brand in the yoga and activewear vertical, Lululemon strives to affiliate more girls from all walks of life to grow further. 

Conclusion

For international brands in the growing stage, it’s crucial to define your product’s key selling point, stay strong in your vertical, and create story-telling around this core. All the content marketing and KOL marketing efforts should be aligned, just like how Maia Active focus on the positioning of Fashionable yoga pants and choose Fashion KOLs to promote it.

For mature brands with existing awareness in China, consumers will be more patient to listen to your value proposition. Brands can divert more budget by trying different types of KOLs, and other platforms (Douyin, Bilibili, etc.) and reach out to a broader audience to keep growing their marketing funnel.

Want to take a further look at troubleshooting your China strategy? Reach out to us through the button below, and we will get back to you soon!

The post A Look into Lululemon and Maia Active’s KOL Strategy on Red (Xiaohongshu) appeared first on WalkTheChat.

This article will give four practical tips to optimize your Red account operation.

Let’s start by understanding how the Red (Xiaohongshu) algorithm works. Red’s recommendation algorithm has a scoring system that measures users’ engagement data during the first few hours after publication and decides if push this content to a bigger traffic pool. The actions by order of importance are: follow > comment > collect (bookmark as favorite) > like.

Therefore, Red content needs to deliver value (for example, outfit ideas, new trends for this Fall/Winter season, basically giving a reason to follow your account) to be featured and attract a follower base. The classical didactic or informative editorial line will not generate engagement. For example, 69% of Red users are young people born after the 1990s: they don’t need to be “educated” or “informed.” Instead, they are looking for equal communication, practical information, and genuine sharing that can bring value. 

1. Write longer content with SEO mindset

The red system will extract keywords from your content, such as topics, geographic location, key phrases that appeared several times, etc., and push the content to users who might be interested, according to their actions on the platform. Therefore, brands need to write content with an SEO mindset. It’s wise to mention the key phrases several times throughout the article so the system can better detect your intention. Still, we need to keep it as natural as possible so the content won’t look too commercial.

How long should a post be?

It’s wise to write longer content (no more than 1,000 words) than just a few lines. The longer your article is, the more probable you will cover more valuable keywords so that the system can extract them more accurately. Even some celebrity content with short texts (which could work well on Weibo) may not work on Red, as the example shown earlier.

What kind of keywords should I cover?

Here are a few different angles to come up with related keywords for your brand:

• scenario or season: daily wear, outdoor ootd (outfit of the day), autumn OL (office lady) look…
• style: Japanese/Korean/French style, elegant, cool girl…
• category: handbag, crossbody bag, tote bag…
• audience: OLs, students, young parents…
• quality or function: premium feeling, classic, minimalistic, photogenic, easy to match…
• trend-related keywords: pick one or two trendy keywords is enough, otherwise the content may sound too “commercial”
• brand-related keywords: keywords related to the brand or brand+product

For niche bag brands, here are more detailed insights that might give you more inspirations.

2. Regular content planning

Maintaining a regular content posting frequency on Red for your followers and for the sake of the system algorithm is crucial.

How often should I post on Red?

Usually, we recommend posting every 3 to 4 days on Red. For new brands, it’s better to start with 12 posts per month to get momentum. But if the resource is limited, you’d rather compromise the posting frequency (for example, reduce to 1 or 2 posts per week) without interrupting the posting rhythm. Irregular posting will harm your brand account in the eye of the algorithm.

Besides, it’s better to use multiple pictures in one Red post as consumers are used to swiping several times, expecting more than just one picture. As a result, creatives might run out faster on Red than on other platforms. So having mid-long-term content planning is crucial.

When should I post on Red?

Generally speaking, Thursday and Friday are when people are more active on Red. As weekends approach, many open Red to search for ideas, activities, restaurant, etc, to plan how to spend the weekends.

During the day, there are also a few peak hours: around noon (lunch break), around 19:00 (off-work commute time), and before going to sleep. Brands can either follow these peak hours or be smart and post a bit ahead of the peak to avoid too much competition.

3. Optimize the first image and title

The first image and title need to capture the user’s attention and will be crucial in improving clicks and CTR.

Usually, pictures in bright colors, with simple but aesthetical visuals, will perform better. Besides, vertical images with a dimension of 4:3 is a better choice than horizontal pictures because visually, they will occupy more space in the feed and therefore has a better chance to grab attention.

As for the title, we recommend keeping it straight to the point within 20 Chinese characters. It’s also wise to include some trendy keywords.

The title and first picture should be connected so that people can instantly know what’s the product. If the content is too uncommon or obscure, users will probably directly swipe away instead of spending time to figure out what it is.

4. Use hashtags

We recommend adding 3-10 hashtags at the end of your post. We can include hashtags about your brand, the product, relevant industry, and recent trendy hashtags related to your business, similar to the selection of keywords.

Besides, Xiaohongshu will regularly summarize and share recent trendy hashtag topics for content creators. Adding hashtags covering different aspects can help the post target users more accurately.

Still want to learn more about Red (Xiaohongshu) marketing? You will find this article useful:

• Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) Marketing – A Complete Guide

If you have met challenges in your brand’s Xiaohongshu content, engagement, or general marketing strategy, feel free to leave us a message below. We’d be happy to learn more about your context and see how we can help you improve your current performance. Let’s get started now!

The post 4 Tips to Optimize your Red (Xiaohongshu) Content Marketing appeared first on WalkTheChat.

Chinese marketing data & analytics company Endata (艺恩) recently published a Red Marketing Manual for Handbag Brands. So in this article, we will go through:

• Overview of Fashion Bag Trends and Keywords on Red
• Opportunities for Niche Handbag Brands
• Our suggestions for fashion and handbag brands: how to get started and stand out from competitors 

Handbag Trends and Hot Keywords on Red (Xiaohongshu)

When it comes to handbags, Red users are brand-sensitive. 

According to Endata’s report on searches made from May 2021 to April 2022, the hottest keyword searches are about top international brands, luxury bags, and other premium brands. For example:

• LV bags (491k searches, ranking No.3)
• Chanel bags (423k searches, ranking No.4)
• GUCCI bags (309k searches, ranking No.6)
• Charles Keith bags (245k searches, ranking No.8)

For foreign brands in an early stage in China, brands need to establish a solid visual identity to stand out from competitors. Brands must also consider how the products can address consumers’ pain points. For example:

• Is it easy to match?
• Is it “photogenic”? 
• Considering the color, design, material, etc., is it suitable for summer or winter?
• Is it comfortable to go to work carrying a laptop? 
• Is it more for holidays?

For a new foreign brand to succeed in China, you need to have a recognizable brand identity and design, actively engage with Chinese consumers, and cater to consumers’ needs.

Most Trendy Bag Brands on Red (Xiaohongshu)

Tier 1 and tier 2 foreign brands occupy the list of most trendy bag brands on Red regarding new mentions generated from 2021 May to 2022 April.

Healthy growth in social mentions can reflect a solid product-market fit in China. Engagement is also an important indicator of market interest, as potential buyers bookmark the content or ask questions before purchasing.

For new foreign brands entering China, we recommend building awareness and creating buzz by KOL (Key Opinion Leader) seeding. We can gather initial feedback from the influencers and keep improving our offer and performance.

Opportunities for Niche Bag Brands with Red (Xiaohongshu) Marketing

Besides consumers’ pursuit of well-known international luxury brands, Red users are also eager to discover niche brands.

For example, many independent designer handbag brands and other niche brands perform well on Red. Niche brands such as Bulgarian brand BY FAR, and domestic brand AMAZING SONG have higher average engagement than tier 1 international brands such as GUCCI.

Wondering if Red could be a good fit for your brand? Just fill in the simple form below, and we will get in touch with you!

In terms of vertical, content about smaller products such as wallets and purses occupy 30% of the total bag category. 

Wallets and purses are usually cheaper than big bags, so consumers are more willing to try them. It’s also easier to create content and share it as a “plog” (Photo bLOG, meaning a blog primarily used to display photos.

Our Suggestions for bag brands for Red (Xiaohongshu) marketing

• Foreign bag brands should consider the occasion and seasonality of Chinese consumers’ needs and define their potential hero products catering to these expectations. 

• Brands should start creating some buzz by working with influencers months before an important sales event because the effect of seeding will take time to show. 

• Chinese consumers are brand-sensitive when it comes to bags. Therefore, we must build solid branding with a recognizable design to succeed in China. 

• There are opportunities for foreign niche bag brands, as Red users love to explore new trends and new brands. 

Looking for more about Red/Xiaohongshu marketing? You will find the below articles useful:

• How Fashion Brands Leverage Red/Xiaohongshu: Content, KOLs, and case study
• RED (Xiaohongshu) Trends 2022: emerging trends in Fitness, Fashion & Beauty
• Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) Marketing – A Complete Guide
• Xiaohongshu/Red Pushes “Account-Store Integration” to drive In-app Conversion

The post Red(Xiaohongshu) Marketing: Opportunities and Suggestions for Niche Bag Brands appeared first on WalkTheChat.

Chinese marketing data & analytics company Endata (艺恩) recently published a Red Marketing Manual for Fashion Brands. So in this article, we will go through: 

• Overview of Fashion Trends and Keywords on Red
• Fashion KOLs and KOCs on Red and how to efficiently leverage influencers 
• Our suggestions for fashion and handbag brands  

Fashion Trends and Hot Keywords on Red (Xiaohongshu)

Red users pursue a trendy and quality lifestyle, so fashion is naturally one of the hot topics. We can observe that: 

• There are more seeding posts about fashion style under two situations:  
  • 1. season change (for example, the number is high in March because Chinese consumers search for what to wear in spring) 
  • 2. before important sales events (for example, people start searching for what winter clothes to buy during Double 11 in October and November)

• Besides trendy keywords such as OOTD, outfit, fashion categories, etc., more niche and long-tail keywords deserve our attention. For example: 
  • Specific fashion style: elegant; gentle; vintage; “Haute” vibes; Korean style, etc.
  • Address niche needs: for instance, fashion outfits, mix-and-match ideas focused on short girls, etc.   

Need some help to understand if your brand will work well in China? Simply fill in this form, and we will be in touch with you.

Fashion KOLs and KOCs on Red (Xiaohongshu)

Red is a UGC (User Generated Content) platform, so ordinary users publish most of the fashion-seeding content, followed by long-tail influencers. 

In terms of followers, there are abundant numbers of fashion influencers with 1-5k followers, whom we usually address as KOCs (Key Opinion Customers). KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) with 10-100k followers also account for a large percentage of fashion influencers. 

Successful Case: Urban Revivo

Urban Revivo is a leading Chinese premium fast fashion brand, also known as “UR.” Let’s look at what they did right. 

From 2021 May till 2011 April, Urban Revivo accumulated 43k new mentions on Red and has reached 340k+ in total. During the same period, around 21.5k Red users posted about Urban Revivo and generated more than 13 million new interactions. 

Among the new content, only 0.12% is commercial content (paid collaboration). This low percentage means that most posts genuinely share their purchases and outfit ideas. (source: Endata)

Urban Revivo is a well-established Chinese brand founded in 2006, so the brand has accumulated high awareness over decades of operation. 

For foreign brands entering the Chinese market, it takes time and patience to accumulate more mentions on Red. Ordinary consumers are more likely to purchase and share experiences when seeing more existing posts on Red. So we need to start with influencer seeding, and then the organic sales will follow.

Our Suggestions for fashion brands entering China

• Foreign brands should consider the seasonality of Chinese consumers’ needs and start creating some buzz by working with influencers months before an important sales event. 

• We must be clear about our positioning and competitive advantage for any new brands entering China. We suggest brands consider your strong category that could address Chinese consumers’ specific pain points. It’s wise to identify potential hero products (best-selling styles) and focus your marketing efforts there. 

• Brands need to build an influencer mix strategy containing different tiers of fashion influencers for various objectives. For example, you can leverage large numbers of KOCs to share OOTD (outfit of the day) and create a word-of-mouth affect. But working with a few larger KOLs who have real influence in their niche circle is also essential.

Want to know more about Red/Xiaohongshu marketing? You will find the below articles useful:

• RED (Xiaohongshu) Trends 2022: emerging trends in Fitness, Fashion & Beauty
• Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) Marketing – A Complete Guide
• Xiaohongshu/Red Pushes “Account-Store Integration” to drive In-app Conversion

The post How Fashion Brands Leverage Red/Xiaohongshu: Content, KOLs, and case study appeared first on WalkTheChat.

However, Red is no longer satisfied being only the UGC platform where people look for information. In August 2021, Red announced the “Account-Store Integration” to push for a closed-loop in-app conversion. More than half a year passed, so has Xiaohongshu made any progress on this?

Context about Xiaohongshu / Red Account and Store

Before 2021, Red had been operating its own store called “Welfare Community” (in Chinese: Fu li she, 福利社), mostly selling foreign brands and products via cross-border eCommerce. At that time, foreign brands didn’t need to operate a Red account. So you can collaborate with the platform to sell to China through a B2B approach. Red would buy the stock from foreign brands, keep it in bonded warehouses and ship it to end consumers when people place the order. (source: Sohu)

However, this approach didn’t work as well as expected. Chinese customers didn’t find this sales channel as attractive as the established ones like Taobao and Tmall. There are mainly two reasons: 

1. Tmall had more events, shopping festivals, discounts, and promotions that kept consumers’ attention; 
2. Since the brands didn’t invest in brand building, marketing and operation on Red, Chinese consumers didn’t feel connected with the brands selling through “Welfare Community.” 

Over the years, most Chinese people still consider Red a content platform while doubting its eCommerce capacity.

What’s new about Xiaohongshu / Red Account-Store Integartion?

The Account-Store Integration means that:

1. Any Red account can apply for Red Store. Any brand or individual/KOL can create an account on Red and start selling with a store, which is integrated with the Red account and accesible through the account page.

2. There is no Red store if you don’t have Red account. For brands that look for a long-term strategy in China, you have to invest in content creation to build awareness and tell a brand story, and community management to engage with your followers and potential customers.

3. Red also offers a discounted platform commission for merchants. For store with less than 10,000 CNY (~1,470 USD) monthly revenue, there is no platform commission; for monthly revenue above 10,000 CNY, the commission will be 5% (Source: Mr. Milu Sky)

Need any help managing your Red account, or wondering if you should open a store on Red? Simply fill in this one-minute form and we will be in touch with you:

Why is Xiaohongshu / Red pursuing for Account-Store Integartion?

Nowadays, Chinese consumers heavily rely on social content to make their purchasing decision.

Over the years, Chinese consumers have been overwhelmed with choices from both domestic and international brands. When you are free to select products of similar appearance or functionality among 100 brands, the human connection becomes more important. That’s also why Chinese people rely more on recommendations from KOLs and KOCs, especially when they purchase a new brand for the first time.

New brands entering the Chinese market have to find a niche or a differentiating strategy to succeed. Social media content can help to amplify your differentiating strategy.

On social media such as Red and Douyin, the platform algorithm can efficiently deliver the right content to the right audience group, depending on their interactions and interests shown on the platform. The social content can come from KOL and the brand itself, but both channels are necessary and need to align with each other.

What can do you on Xiaohongshu / Red to drive sales?

Xiaohongshu / Red provides multiple marketing tools to help brands and influencers. For example, you can host live streaming, and use “Shutiao” (similar to boosted content on Instagram) to boost your potential viral posts. For merchants, you can also run paid KOL campaigns through Red’s official influencer collaboration platform Dandelion (in Chinese: 蒲公英/Pugongying), and run performance ads.

On the other side, KOLs can also activate the “Little List” (in Chinese: 小清单) function to help merchants drive sales. “Little List” is similar to KOL’s recommendation list or shopping list. KOLs can select products from different merchants available on Red Store and add them to “Little List.” Followers can subscribe to KOL’s “Little List” to receive updates; this KOL will also get a commission if users purchase through “Little List.”

Looking for more details about Red / Xiaohongshu marketing? You will find this guide very useful:

• Red/Xiaohongshu Marketing – A Complete Guide

What do I need to invest in for a Red / Xiaohongshu Store?

The model of Red Store nowadays is similar to a marketplace, so brands also need to invest in operation. Some typical tasks will be product upload, store refresh, sign up for platform events, customer service, communication with KOLs, live streamings, and others. The workload will depend on the frequency of new-in, how popular is the brand, and the volume of daily sales.

Red plays an important role in consumers’ purchasing decisions, especially in the consideration and research phase. If Red manages to keep the users in the research phase and encourage them to purchase in-app, Red Store will be a promising social commerce channel.

The post Xiaohongshu/Red Pushes “Account-Store Integration” to drive In-app Conversion appeared first on WalkTheChat.

Have some unanswered questions about your Red/Xiaohongshu strategy? Get in touch with us!

Why do we need Performance Optimization Mode for Xiaohongshu marketing?

Except for the user’s spontaneous search, the performance of a post on Red/Xiaohongshu highly depends on the recommendation algorithm. Therefore, even a top-tier influencer’s performance can fluctuate from time to time. The reason is that Red is a UGC platform where people value genuine sharing and reviews. Sometimes, official sponsored content might not perform as well as expected. 

Working with Red influencers is common for domestic and international brands operating in China. If the influencer’s post is organic or through seeding, meaning not an official sponsored content, you can use “Shutiao” (in Chinese: 薯条) to boost the post. However, for specific regulated industries such as supplements, cosmetic medicine, or other functional products, it’s better to go through Red’s official influencer collaboration platform “Dandelion / Pugongying” (in Chinese: 蒲公英) and make it a sponsored content. This is to avoid being judged as an “illegal advertisement” without notifying the platform. For a sponsored post, you cannot use Shutiao to push it, so this is when “performance optimization mode” becomes relevant. 

How does it work?

You can select “performance optimization mode” when booking the KOL collaboration through the official Dandelion platform. 

Within 15 days after publication, Red will help boost the content until it reaches 80% of the system’s estimated exposure. The KOL’s recent performance determines the estimated impressions in the system. (source: Ebrun)

In a word, you cannot decide the target impression, but the platform will guarantee that your sponsored post reaches the average level of the selected KOL. According to the same source, 70% of the influencers present on Dandelion platform already have this function active. (source same as above)

How much does it cost?

The price for using “performance optimization mode” will be 20% of the KOL’s quotation. For example, if the KOL’s quotation is 5k USD, the commission to be paid to Red will be 1k USD. Without the performance optimization mode, the standard platform commission will be 10% which is 500 USD.

Is it worth trying?

This feature ensures sufficient exposure during important branding events such as IP Collaboration, Limited Edition Release, Rebranding, etc. However, it doesn’t ensure CTR, clicks, or engagement. If you want to guarantee a baseline impression for your sponsored content, “performance optimization mode” is a great tool to avoid failure. 

In the Dandelion platform, you can see the estimated impression before confirming the collaboration with the KOL. However, if the KOL’s recent performance is poor, this feature will not do the magic and turn it into gold. 

Want to learn more about Red/Xiaohongshu marketing? You will find this article useful:

• Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) Marketing – A Complete Guide

The post Little Red Book new feature: “guaranteed” exposure for sponsored content appeared first on WalkTheChat.