Chinese Consumers Obsessed With “Age Freezing” Celebrities
In recent years, the Chinese public seems to be fascinated by older celebrities who are able to maintain a youthful appearance, giving them the nickname “冻龄女神” and “冻龄男神” or “age freezing gods and goddesses”. Everyone wants to know their secrets, prying into their eating habits, skincare routines, and positive mindset practices.
Many skincare brands are capitalizing on this trend and promoting their products by appointing these age-freezing celebrities as their spokespeople, including Zhong Liti (钟丽缇), Lin Zhiying (林志颖) and Bao Wenjing (包文婧). Most recently, domestic facial mask brand MECMOR (名膜壹号) named Yuan Yongyi (袁咏仪) as its ambassador. Yuan (pictured above) is 47 years old and is famous for her skincare and “age-freezing” abilities. Working with her has proven to be a wise choice as the brand has gained a lot of attention – and new customers.
On top of this, MECMOR also appears to have a good PR team. The company was recently featured on a national news program on CCTV, where they reported that the brand’s products are safe to use, and are free of additives. The CEO of MECMOR even drank 75ml facial mask serum in front of the camera. The stunt garnered a lot of attention from consumers, and seems to have been an effective method to convince people of the products’ safety.
Read more: 49岁的“斩男鼻祖”重返银幕，霸占热搜，网友给跪了：哪里买的防腐剂？！
Let’s Not Forget Chinese Male Consumers
We hear A LOT about female consumers of all ages, but not nearly as much about the male consumer. In the past Chinese males didn’t pay as much attention to style and appearance because it was associated with being too feminine and not manly, but this perception is changing. From the massive sneakerhead economy, to the growth of the male skincare industry, this is a consumer segment companies should start paying more attention to. Fashion and style are becoming just as much of a status symbol as a house and car.
According to the “China Luxury Online Consumption” whitepaper, male consumers on average spent 6% more than females, and the number of males who made three or more luxury purchases in a year was also found to be higher than females.
Interesting takeaways about shifts in the male consumer market:
- As Chinese women’s salaries have gone up, and are the same, if not higher than the men they date, it’s not as easy for men to use their salaries or material items to attract women, and women have started to care much more about men’s appearance
- Women control the media. 80% of writers and editors of WeChat OAs are women, meaning that womens’ higher requirements for their male counterparts gets amplified by the media.
- In the past a “good husband” would be spending all his money on taking care of the family and spending money on himself was looked down upon, but as the standard of living has gone up, this has changed.
- Limited edition items from trendy brands have become social currency and status symbols for young men, from Supreme, to Air Jordans, to the recent Uniqlo x KAWS t-shirts, they are a means of self-expression, and a way to find belonging
- Peer pressure also plays a big role: compared with female consumers, males consumers are more likely to buy trending, must-have items, and are more likely to succumb to peer pressure if others in their social group purchase those items
What it takes to make a product popular among male consumers:
- Must be social currency, a status symbol – make others look up to them
- Whether price is high or low isn’t the determining factor. You must give them a greater reason to want the product
- Limited edition and beautiful design are important
- Provide increasing purchasing levels so they can grow with your brand
Read More: 优衣库 x KAWS、毒APP、CHAO社区爆发，为什么男性消费开始崛起？
Kuaishou Wanghong Makes 13M RMB Off of His Wedding
A couple years back when Angelababy got married, everyone was discussing how commercialized her wedding was. Well now making money off your wedding day is something that internet celebrities are doing too.
On June 12, Liu Yishou (刘一手), who has over 18M followers on Kuaishou and 3.58M followers on the live streaming platform YY, held a live stream on Kuaishou ahead of his wedding. During the stream, the host, Liu and other special guests sold over 30 products, including baijiu, French wine, and skincare products from the brand JLV.
While people were shocked that he was trying to make money off his wedding, even more shocking was his explanation why. He said he had no choice because he still needed to pay debts to YY for 23m RMB (not sure how this happened), and he also mentioned that he was not sure whether he could continue live streaming after that night. He said it will depend on that night’s sales. Whether or not this was all true it appears to have really motivated his fans to “help” him out.
But that’s not all. There were multiple streamers attending the wedding and people streaming at the wedding and they got into a bit of trouble due to one of the attendees. You see Liu had invited former popular Kuaishou live streamer Tianyou (天佑) to his wedding. Tianyou had gotten kicked off of Kuaishou for talking about doing drugs, so when Liu and Tianyou hopped on Liu’s wife’s Kuaishou account to live stream, the stream was shut down within a minute. And the same thing happened with all of the streams in which Tianyou appeared. That’s some rigorous censorship right there!
While selling out your wedding might seem tacky, it’s not a China thing. Check out this recent story that went viral in Western media: This viral “surprise” proposal shows the less glamorous side of influencing
Read more: “网红婚礼”生意经！快手千万粉丝结婚卖货，天佑露脸直播被封…
China Influencer Marketing Podcast Episode 50: How Mogu (蘑菇街) is Dominating Chinese Fast-fashion with Raymond Huang, SVP of Strategy at Mogu
Welcome to episode 50 of the China influencer marketing podcast!!!!
Today’s guest is Raymond Huang, SVP of Strategy, at the publicly-traded fast-fashion social commerce platform Mogu or, in Chinese, 蘑菇街.
If you’re like me and have a general awareness and understanding of Mogu but don’t really know what makes the platform unique, then this episode is for you. Raymond starts off by sharing a complete overview of Mogu, such as the apps content, the products it sells, and user demographics, and more.
Then we dig a bit deeper and learn what makes Mogu unique, from their tailored content algorithm, to their hundreds of homegrown influencers, to their regulations which prevent sellers from offering the same products as each other. We also discuss e-commerce live streaming and why adding this feature a couple years ago has been incredibly beneficial for the platform.
Listen online here, on iTunes here, and on Ximalaya FM here.
Mommy Blogger Mini-program Makes 120M RMB a Month and Only 20% of Traffic Comes from the Blogger’s Official Account
小小包麻麻 (Xiaoxiao Baomama) is a popular mommy-baby WeChat Official Account and a very successful ecommerce mini-program that earns 120 million RMB a month and has an 80% repurchase rate. But what is fascinating is that the company has managed to make this MP extremely popular, so much so that people are seeking out the mini-program on its own. Unlike many e-commerce MPs which rely on traffic from the corresponding OA, only 20% of Xiaoxiao Baomama’s traffic comes from its OA.
Growth strategies:
- The CEO of 小小包麻麻 Jia Wanxing (贾万兴) doesn’t think mini programs need to rely on WeChat Official Accounts. You can find ways to drive traffic to them just like independent apps.
- Strategies that Jia uses to build the MP customer base include group buying and earning credits. Group buying is nothing new, but that’s why he uses it, consumers already have this habit and it has proven successful
- Jia’s team selects specific products for group buy campaigns, specifically lower priced or trending items, because when it comes to these products, customers don’t spend too much time making purchasing decisions and are more likely to participate
- The credits system is their “secret weapon”. When old users bring new users to the platform, they earn virtual coins. Once they accumulate enough coins, they can get discounts, or sometimes win items for free
- After applying these two strategies, the MP’s user base grew from 100,000 to 4.3M from 2017 to 2019.
Understanding their customers:
- Platform claims to be strict about product quality, logistics, package, after service, making sure that users are respected when they are shopping.
- Direct and easy participation in discount campaigns. Don’t make the rules overly complicated like many platforms do
- Customers receive 3 messages after they purchase products on the platform. The first tells them payment is successful, the second is a shipping notification, and the final one is coupons. If a customer buys diapers, the team sends her other products’ coupons, for example, formula.
- When writing product descriptions, the team first identifies what emotions customers might have when they are shopping. Curious? Caring? Or in pursuit of authority?
- For example, when introducing international brands, the team expects customers might question the authenticity of products. Instead of telling customers how to identify real ones and fake ones, the team directly post group photos of the main KOL 包妈 and other execs visiting the brand’s factory
- They customize content depending on how much info they think the customer will need to see before making a purchasing decision. When it comes to products that customers don’t need to spend too much time thinking about, such as diapers, they choose words and images. When it comes to products that need more demonstration, such as food and toys, they use videos or live streaming.
Read more: 不靠公众号粉丝，这个月入1.2亿的母婴自媒体用什么变现？
