Winning in China Marketing

Just after the Spring Festival in China, a large number of Douyin’s users rushed into Watsons’ stores.   It was an online-to-offline marketing campaign which created more than 320,000 user-generated short video clips and 1.5 billions playbacks in just 7 days. Recently, Douyin (or TikTok outside China) just passes 1 billion global downloads, according to Reuters. If you want to enter the China market but you have never heard of Douyin, you may miss a good opportunity to promote your products.   Douyin is a super short videos of everything from make-up tips, selfies to amateur dancing, often set to catchy music and animations.   People generally use it to produce and browse quick-fire short clips.   Its editing functions have tapped into young Chinese users’ preference by adding interesting effects, music themes, filters, animated stickers and more.   It’s so addictive that some people even watch mind-numbing clips for an hour without d...

A friend of mine from Vancouver Canada was so excited to hear that cross-border e-commerce is a good opportunity for foreign brands to enter the Chinese market even without setting up a local business entity in China.   Stacey is the Chief Scientific Formulator of Planet Earth Supplements (or PES) which is a healthcare brand selling extremely good in North America and Europe. She told me that the health supplements, made with pure and natural ingredients, are planted on their own organic farms - probably the only natural supplement company in the world to develop products in such traditional way. She expressed strong confidence that natural herbal remedies should be well accepted by Chinese people. A good product sells itself? It is widely believed that merely making one’s brand available to China’s enormous consumer base will automatically translate into sales. This perception is often based on the outdated idea that the Chinese consumers are eager to buy any ...

A welcome news to many foreign brands - Tencent recently made a change that allows overseas business to set up their own WeChat Official Account to reach mainland Chinese WeChat users.   Anyone who has set foot in China will be aware that China’s super app WeChat is the top of the priorities for brands hoping to enter China market.   WeChat now counts 1 billion monthly active users (MAU) worldwide.   Chinese users spend over three hours a day on WeChat versus just 20 minutes Americans spend on Facebook.   No wonder WeChat official accounts continue to increase in importance and effectiveness in brands' marketing strategy in China. The most frequent inquiry I’ve had over the past few years is “can I set up a China-accessible WeChat Official Account if I’m a foreign company outside China?” Many foreign brands have long been forced to go to the extent of registering a China-based entity, or hire a ‘trusted partner’ in China who effectively own...