Single Living and the “Homebody Lifestyle” Take Over China
Plus: Swarovski's brand ambassador hits the big time, a counterintuitive beauty trend, and a syrupy tech ballad.
Even before the coronavirus outbreak confined millions of Chinese to their homes, single living and the “homebody lifestyle” were emerging as trends in marketing. This was fueled by a rise in single-person households among young Chinese, who traditionally lived with their parents until marriage. The past five years have seen a sharp rise in the number of single-person households, from 58 million in 2015 to an estimated 77 million today.
And as China’s video streaming platforms vie to connect with the latest cultural phenomena, each of the major video streaming platforms announced plans to produce their own celebrity-filled reality series on the subject, following the observational model developed by popular South Korean shows such as “I Live Alone” and “Home Alone.”
Over the span of a few weeks in May, iQiyi, Youku, and Tencent Video went head-to-head with the debuts of their offerings on single living, each with slight variations on the theme. iQiyi’s “I Want to Live Like This” (我要这样生活) hews closely to the model of “I Live Alone” and has the largest number of celebrity guests (15). Youku’s “Not a Loner” (看我的生活) focuses more clearly on generational differences among its Gen X, millennial and Gen Z stars, while Tencent Video’s “Make Life Beautiful” (让生活好看) is the most youth-oriented.
Ratings on the review platform Douban have been generally favorable, ranging from a low of 6.9 for iQiyi’s show to a high of 7.6 for Youku’s.
Online programming has suffered a significant decline in brand sponsorship in the aftermath of the coronavirus, and despite drawing young and aspirational urban viewers, the new crop of solo-living shows has not been an exception. However, one brand stepped in to take the unusual step of sponsoring all three shows. Rio, the Chinese alcopop brand owned by Australia’s Bacchus Distillery, took the title sponsorship of both “I Want to Live Like This” and “Not a Loner.” Ice cream brand Gemice is the top sponsor on “Make Life Beautiful,” but it collaborated with Rio on a campaign to promote making dessert-like drinks using products from both companies.
Rio’s sponsorship of the trio is part of a broader marketing strategy that revolves around the idea of helping young people enjoy their alone time, with a recent campaign starring actress Zhou Dongyu timed to coincide with the debuts of the shows.
The streaming reality shows offer a very direct way of showing the product in action, with stars drinking both in social settings and while engaged in activities at home by themselves. And while it would appear unseemly if the three series depicted an excessive amount of alcohol consumption, Rio is continually promoted through other techniques, including creative on-screen graphics, branding of the sets, and mid-roll ads. Read more in Chinese from Pangjing Toutiao.
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Mentioned in today’s newsletter: Colgate, Fenty Beauty, Gemice, HeyTea, iQiyi, KFC, Minute Maid, Monster Energy, OnePlus, Oreo, Perfect Diary, Rio, Swarovski, Tencent Video, Youku.
Wang Yibo Brings A Sparkle to Global Brands
Last summer’s Tencent Video series “The Untamed” (陈情令) minted two of China’s hottest young stars, Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan, who were quickly tapped by a number of brands as celebrity ambassadors.
But while Xiao became embroiled in a fan-fueled controversy earlier this year that hurt his standing among sponsors, co-star Wang has emerged unscathed, signing 11 new endorsement deals in recent months. The continued interest shows that despite the risks associated with relying on idols and the fan economy, brands have become dependent on the heady buzz that young male stars can generate.
More than half of Wang’s recent deals have been with international brands, including Colgate, Monster Energy, Minute Maid, and KFC, and his core fan base consists of females born after 1995.
The 22-year-old’s Wang’s appearance as Swarovski’s celebrity ambassador ahead of the March 8 Women’s Day holiday marked a rare luxury brand partnership, which was accompanied by a successful Weibo campaign and limited-edition product drops.
Swarovski’s Women’s Day campaign, which included an inspirational video message from Wang, has drawn nearly 470 million views on Weibo and its hashtags landed on the platform’s hot search lists.
Swarovski released a line of crystal-studded jewelry, including charms with the letters Y, I, B, and O, which were quickly snapped up by fans.
Wang hasn’t been seen on new series lately, in part due to coronavirus-related production delays, but he’ll see greatly increased exposure in the coming months, appearing as a host on the third season of Youku’s hit competition show “Street Dance of China” (这就是街舞) and starring in the criminal drama series “Being a Hero” (冰雨火), among others.
Brand Film Pick: OnePlus Comes Home to the Motherland
The Chinese smartphone brand OnePlus has long faced outward, with an estimated 70% of sales from overseas as of October 2019. But facing sluggish global demand, the premium brand is making a push to market more aggressively in China. CEO Pete Lau (Liu Zonghao) has been making media appearances, showing up on entrepreneur Luo Yonghao’s talk show ahead of OnePlus’s new product launch in April and joining Luo’s e-commerce livestream on Douyin.
To promote the new OnePlus 8 series, the brand also turned to branded content in the form of a music video with an original rock-tinged ballad performed by Zhou Shen. The video for “Pupil: Extraordinary”( 瞳,出类拔萃) combines philosophical lyrics with several levels of imagery to convey the connection between the human eye and digital screens.
The OnePlus brand is not mentioned until the closing of the video, which instead traces a butterfly’s fantasy journey through worlds created from 3D computer graphics, 2D animation, and the in-between “2.5” dimension, along with clips of Zhou singing in a recording studio. The butterfly figure alludes to the allegory from the classic Daoist text of Zhuangzi that questions how we perceive reality, while the eye and screen imagery are implicit references to the s “pupil screen” design of the OnePlus 8 model.
The video has received overall acclaim for its high production values and the song, produced by Tang Hanxiao and Luan Zuoxin, is capable of standing on its own merits. It has been viewed more than 6.3 million times on Weibo and another 542,000 times on Bilbili.
Five Successful Cosmetic Brand and Food Collaborations for Chinese Gen Zers
Food and beauty products may seem to be unlikely partners for brand collaborations at first glance, but the two categories are among the top interests of young Chinese consumers, whose appetite for innovative joint-branded goods knows few boundaries. Among the recent examples of successful collaborations that have given both brands a boost:
Fenty Beauty’s “peachy” campaign with trendy bubble-tea chain Heytea, one of several beauty and bubble tea collaborations, which included the release of a limited-edition makeup bag with a boxed cosmetic set and vouchers for a peach-and-cheese tea beverage.
C-beauty brand Perfect Diary collaborated with Oreo to release compacts that look like large sandwich cookies, and offered gift sets that included limited-edition Oreo flavors including the pink-and-green matcha sakura.
Read the full story on Jing Daily
News in English
Chinese reality TV is getting a luxury boost with Burberry’s participation in the upcoming season of Youku’s “Street Dance of China.” Global Times
How the Alibaba-owned department store chain Intime — one of China’s largest — used livestreaming and e-commerce to help offset the impact of store closures across the country earlier this year. CNBC
And Alibaba will enable livestreaming on the discount-oriented Taobao Deals platform, a competitive move against rival Pinduoduo. KrAsia
Turning to the future of livestreaming, virtual hosts such as the hugely popular Luo Tianyi could represent the next wave of e-commerce talent. China Skinny
A warning on fraudulent activities that plague the livestreaming industry, such as bot-filled audiences and purchase-return scams. Parklu
Singer Jay Chou signed a deal with Kuaishou to license his music and videos to the short-video platform and launch his first official account on mainland Chinese social media, drawing nearly ten million followers within two days. Caixin
Tiffany’s has appointed idol Jackson Yee as a brand ambassador for China, highlighting the jewelry brand’s commitment to expansion in the market despite looming global uncertainty. WWD
And China has minted its newest idol in Liu Yixin, who came out on top of iQiyi’s competition show “Youth With You,” which this season aimed to create a hit girl band. Global Times
Aspirational branding and colorful products ready for social media are part of the appeal for bubble tea and beauty collaborations. Business of Fashion
Alibaba reports that nearly 180 luxury brands are participating in Tmall’s 618 Shopping Festival this year, which is almost twice the number from Singles’ Day in November 2019. PR Newswire
Rising anti-China sentiment in India led to the creation of a popular app to detect and delete Chinese apps from user phones, but it has since been removed by the Google Play Store. CNN
Meanwhile, in the U.S., TikTok was forced to apologize for a “bug” that suppressed content with the tag #blacklivesmatter and protests against the police. Quartz
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