Perfect Diary Koi Collection Designed to Bring Luck in a Year That Needs It

Over the past couple years, there has been rising interest among young Chinese consumers in domestic brands and products that incorporate Chinese traditional design style and elements, a trend dubbed GuoChao or “China Wave”. While some brands have gotten creative with their designs, many have been lazy. Take for example this image below of lipstick collections from four different Chinese cosmetics brands. 

While these items may do well, as this guochao trend matures, consumers are going to eventually become fatigued and brands will need to move away from some of the overused cultural symbols such as dragons and peonies and think a bit deeper about the meaning of the items they are putting out. 

A great example of this is the massively popular “Fancy Carp” (more accurately translated as koi) collection launched by leading Chinese cosmetics brand Perfect Diary in June, right ahead of the 618 shopping festival. The collection includes an eyeshadow palette, highlighter, and lipstick inspired by koi fish and was part of their ongoing series of animal inspired products in partnership with Discovery. 

But the choice of koi wasn’t chosen arbitrarily – koi has great significance in Chinese culture. 

The most popular fish motif found in traditional Chinese art and culture is the Koi fish. To Chinese people, Koi symbolizes wealth, strength and perseverance, and also a symbol for good luck and best wishes. 

The first half of 2020 has not been easy, yet despite the hardships, Chinese people have remained optimistic and  are trying to finish the rest of the year strong. By launching this koi set, it implies that Perfect Diary hopes to bring good luck and a message of optimism to their fans and consumers. 

Besides creating a well-thought out product, Perfect Diary ran numerous marketing campaigns to support the product launch:

East-West Collaboration

To kick off the launch, Perfect Diary worked with nine famous overseas makeup artists, including Hollywood celebrity makeup artist Kristina Vidic and 2020 Paris Spring/Summer Fashion Week makeup artist Chiao Li HSu, who each created their own Koi inspired makeup looks using products from the set. 

Perfect Diary also collaborated with several top-tier Chinese KOLs including @彭特务, a top-tier Beauty KOL in China, with 4 million followers on Weibo. @彭特务 created two looks, one very fiery and intense, and the other glowing and shimmery. To date, her Weibo post has received nearly 2 million views, 12k reposts, over 8k comments, and 50k likes. 

Popular Celebrities as Product Ambassadors

Perfect Diary then drove even more traffic to the campaign by inviting popular celebrities, for example Tianai Zhang (a Chinese actress and model), Yunxi Luo (a Chinese actor and singer) and Zhengting Zhu (a member of boy band Nine Percent), to become “Koi Star Ambassadors” (锦鲤星推官). This is a new trend in China, instead of only working with one celebrity as the brand ambassador, they reach larger audiences and diversify risk by having celebrities become ambassadors for individual product lines. 

Besides posting on social media, Perfect Diary invited the celebrities to join their Douyin live streams. The interactions between fans and stars during the live streaming helped to promote the brand awareness, and those fans subconsciously became loyal customers of the brand.

Weibo #PerfectDiaryLuckyKoiMonth# hot topic

On Weibo, Perfect Diary then encouraged users to create their own Koi looks and post pictures with the hashtag #PerfectDiaryKoiMonth# or #完美日记锦鲤月#. Inspired by the looks created by makeup artists and KOLs, many everyday consumers also wanted to participate in the Koi trend. To date, the Weibo topic has accumulated 150 million views, 713K comments, and 815 original posts. 

Key Takeaway

Adopting the slogan “If you see Koi, Luck will come”, Perfect Diary took the Guochao trend to the next level by incorporating a traditional Chinese luck symbol into their products right at a time when most people feel they could use a little extra luck in their lives!