Kim Kardashian Leverages Top Streamer Viya’s Popularity
Kim Kardashian sold 15,000 bottles of her KKW perfume in just a few minutes during a livestream with Taobao’s top-ranked live streamer Viya Huang on Wednesday, drawing 13 million viewers to mark her entry into the China market via cross-border e-commerce site Tmall Global.
Why is this significant?
- Last year Kim opened an account on Xiaohongshu/RED and it was a big flop because the content was not localized or customized for the platform; this live stream came across as much more natural and demonstrated increased effort to interact with Chinese audiences
- I’ll say it once again, e-commerce livestreaming is gaining momentum and is only going to get bigger. The number of products purchased through Taobao livestreaming soared 430% year-over-year in 2019 to 2.36 million from 445,000, totaling RMB 470 million.
Read more: Tmall Global Wants To Build An Ecosystem Of Global Influencers
International Cosmetics and Skincare Brands Dominate this year’s 11.11 Presales
Some stats:
- 7 makeup brands achieved more than 100m RMB sales within 10 minutes
- Customers are crazier than last year. Origins took 1 minute to surpass the sales that it did on the same day last year; Lancome took 2 minutes to do so; Sisley, La Mer, and L’Oreal took 3 minutes; SK-II, OLAY, Jo Malone took 7 minutes.
- 10 minutes after the presale started, Estee Lauder, Lancome, L’Oreal, Shiseido, Helena and two other brands achieved sales over 100m RMB.
- Estee Lauder had a really good year. Within 25 minutes, it sold 500M RMB worth of products, equal to the amount of what it did on 11.11 last year.
Interestingly international brands seemed to dominate the presales with little competition from domestic brands or even South Korean brands. Eye cream and serum were the hottest products this year.
Presales seem a bit absurd to me…it turns 11.11 into a month long event and gives consumers even more opportunities to get used to purchasing products at a discounted price. But the numbers are impressive. Chinese consumers sure do love a good discount!
Read more: 雅诗兰黛25分钟销售额近5亿，双十一预售成了欧美日品牌天下
Estee Lauder’s Impressive Double 11 Presale Performance Likely Due to Brand Ambassadors and Influencers
Estee Lauder was the biggest winner of the Double 11 presale battle, selling 400k eye cream sets within 36 minutes. The sales amount of this single product alone was over 200M RMB.
Setting aside Estee Lauder’s high quality products and strong reputation in China, what drove such strong sales? Let’s look at the brand’s ambassador strategy.
At the moment, in China, Estee Lauder has three ambassadors, Yang Mi(杨幂), Li Xian(李现) and Xiao Zhan(肖战). I wrote about the popularity of Li Xian and Xiaozhan in our last newsletter. Together, the three of them have over 120M followers.
As if that wasn’t enough, to get the full fan economy effect, Estee Lauder announced that Xiao Zhan was its ambassador only 4 hours before presales went live while simultaneously announcing his limited edition collection would be sold in the presale. Fans unite!
Other than celebrities, Estee Lauder also collaborated with top Taobao livestreamers. Li Jiaqi(李佳琦) sold out his stock of 410k eye cream sets with a buy one get one free offer. Viya(薇娅) sold 20k serums as well, with her own exclusive bonus offers.
Estee Lauder’s massive budget for big name stars and top tier influencers was impossible for domestic and smaller international brands to compete with. Did they make much of a profit? Probably not. Did get a lot of consumers to try their products for the first time? Probably. And they’re getting a lot of press. Haha.
Read more: 深度｜雅诗兰黛双11预售首日冲破5亿，是代言人的功劳吗？
China Influencer Marketing Podcast Episode 53: A Chinese Millennial’s Thoughts on 11.11
The podcast is back! I disappeared on what has been an unexpectedly long hiatus from the podcast and am very appreciative that you have stayed with me!
In this episode I chat with our recurring guest and my assistant, Kejie, a Chinese grad student, to get her and her peer’s impressions of the upcoming 11.11 Alibaba shopping festival.
We chat about how her feelings on 11.11 have changed over the years, the Alibaba shopping game that her friends keep trying to get her to play, and what she and her friends are buying this year.
Listen on iTunes here Online here or Ximalaya FM here
Ta for Ta Podcast Episode 27 Featuring ….Me!
What does it take to become a star livestreamer in China, and in what direction is the booming industry trending now? Lauren Hallanan, who garnered over 300K followers on the livestreaming site Momo, provides some insight into the growing, multibillion-dollar industry. Currently, she is the Head of Marketing at Chatly, and a Chinese social media marketing expert.
Listen Here
