Three Top Marketing Trends for the Year of the Ox
Plus: Sotheby's adopts content-commerce, Kuaishou's blockbuster IPO, and Apple's family folk tale.
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As the biggest holiday on the Chinese calendar, the Lunar New Year (also known as the Spring Festival) is a major time for brands to cement their relationships with consumers with major marketing campaigns that reflect social traditions both old and new — from limited-edition products splashed in the lucky color red and incorporating the year’s zodiac animal motifs and content that explores the themes of family gatherings to digital cash giveaways and casual games created especially for the holiday.
As usual, every year marketers seem determined to outdo previous efforts through a dizzying array of creative and entertaining campaigns. This year, many brands are joining consumers to reflect on the whirlwind Year of the Rat that is coming to a close, with China shutting down due to the coronavirus pandemic on the eve of the last Lunar New Year and seeing a fairly full resumption of normal life for most of the latter half of the year, followed by the recent emergence of clusters of Covid-19 cases around the country that have threatened this year’s celebrations.
The extra leisure time and family-centered hospitality that accompany the holiday will drive consumption well into February, with the value of sales during the key “golden week” (January 24-30) forecast at around RMB 1.1 trillion ($160 billion). However, spending growth has been on the decline amid the more general slowdown in China’s economic growth — last year’s robust-sounding 8.5% increase in year-on-year retail sales was the first year of single-digit growth since the government began releasing data on the holiday in 2005 — which means that brands must compete more heavily to win consumers’ wallets. Below, we share some of the key trends of this holiday season, most of which will continue to have an impact throughout the year and beyond.
Support for Staying Home
The Spring Festival holiday period is also typically known as the world’s largest annual human migration, with as many as 3 billion trips made during a span of nearly six weeks surrounding the Lunar New Year, which falls on February 12 this year. For many of China’s roughly 300 million migrant workers, it is the only time they get to see their families.
But following a recent uptick in reported Covid-19 cases in various parts of the country, authorities at the central and local levels have called on citizens to give up their holiday plans and stay home. Some cities and neighborhoods where cases have been reported have been placed under lockdown, while the central government announced that travelers to rural areas would be required to undergo a two-week quarantine afterwards. Local officials are also offering financial incentives to keep people from traveling and encouraging or subsidizing businesses that keep employees on the job with overtime during this time.
Already, travel is down sharply. On January 28, the official first day of the holiday period, Chinese airlines cancelled more than half of their flights, while Bloomberg reported a 75% decline in trips this past Saturday compared to 2019 and 2020 levels. As a result of more people staying home, there is also expected to be less spending on dining out, entertainment, tourism, and gifts.
However, with bonuses in hand and nowhere to go, we may see increased consumption of personal goods, especially via digital channels, as housebound citizens seek to treat themselves during the two-week-long holiday period, and brands are scrambling to meet demand for “new” New Year’s goods such as meal kits, themed outfits for pets, and low-calorie wine. Consumers may also seek out hometown products online and nostalgia marketing can be especially impactful during this time.
The government is also encouraging TV networks and online content platforms to boost their offerings for the holiday, specifically requesting that video streaming platforms offer free limited-time subscriptions or movie screenings to help keep people entertained at home. IQiyi is answering that call by offering free premium content to viewers in Beijing and nearby Hebei province, while the Bytedance-owned Xigua Video will have the exclusive release of last year’s patriotic box-office hit “My People, My Homeland” (我和我的家乡) available free of charge.
Brands Exploit the Bovine Connection
Brands that can boast a connection to cows have a natural advantage in marketing for the Year of the Ox, and top dairy producers such as Mengniu are exploiting that to its fullest on multiple fronts. Mengniu launched one campaign together with the energy drink brand Red Bull to promote a co-branded gift box, with a humorous and inspiring film starring the mascots of both brands. Mengniu also announced idol Xiao Zhan as its newest brand ambassador, partnered with retired League of Legends gaming legend Uzi, and released a film that celebrates the “cow spirit of Chinese in various cities across the country (in addition to meaning “cow” and “ox,” the Chinese word niu, 牛, is also slang for “excellent” and “awesome”).
Brands are also creating their own bovine IP, such as in Gucci’s collaboration with Doraemon, which sees the Japanese robot cat reimagined as an ox by Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele. Burberry continued in the vein of last year’s Ratberry mobile game with a new game that encourages players to upgrade their creature from deer to sheep to cow by accumulating points for their social activity.
Brand Films That Resonate
The Lunar New Year typically sees an enormous outpouring of brand films designed to spread goodwill among consumers. Releasing short films is a tried and tested way for brands to connect with Chinese consumers in celebrating the country’s biggest holiday, and nowadays the competition is fierce to recruit top directors, A-list celebrities, and screenwriters to create compelling narratives.
This year many brands are taking note of the challenging circumstances surrounding what is typically a time for family reunions by speaking directly to consumers in the language of resilience and hope. Alipay’s “Expectation” (望) exaggerates the sense of distance that some may feel this year by showing a rural father attempting to get in touch with his astronaut son, while JD.com enlisted director Lu Chuan to pay tribute to those who cannot spend time with their families because they will be working.
Later this month CCI will feature a wrap-up of these and other favorites from the holiday season, so stay tuned for more.
- by Sky Canaves
Mentioned in today’s newsletter: Alipay, Apple, Bilibili, Bulgari, Burberry, Bytedance, Douyin, Douyu, Gucci, iQiyi, JD.com, KFC, Kuaishou, Lululemon, McDonald’s, Mengniu, Nike, Oreo, Red Bull, Sotheby’s, Spam, Xigua Video.
Luxury Look: Sotheby’s Takes a Content-Commerce Leap With Bulgari
by Avery Booker
The Covid-19 pandemic has seen virtually every major global brand accelerating their digital initiatives through e-commerce, with more seeking to add livestreaming into the mix to reach and sell to consumers who are still spending significantly more time at home. But while it’s not surprising to see digitally savvy consumer brands like Nike or Lululemon jumping on the “cloud living” trend, it has been interesting to see established brands —many of which previously resisted digitalization — getting on board.
Two prominent heritage brands, Sotheby’s and Bulgari, were the latest to leverage two vital content-commerce strategies, brand collaborations and livestreaming, for the auction house’s Masters Week auction and event, “Art Voices: From Bernini to Bulgari.”
As reported by Artnet, Masters Week, which concluded on January 30, took in $160.5 million this year, nearly doubling the $94.3 million proceeds from the 2020 event. This was largely thanks to the sale of a Botticelli portrait of an unknown young man that went for $92.2 million, making it the second most expensive portrait ever sold at auction (after Pablo Picasso’s “Dora Maar au chat” (1941)).
Ahead of Masters Week, Sotheby’s launched a multi-pronged marketing plan in honor of Bulgari’s Barocko high jewelry collection. It included a virtual event, “From Bernini to Bulgari: The Beauty of Baroque,” that brought together British art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon, Bulgari jewelry creative director Lucia Silvestri, and Sotheby’s executives Frank Everett and Margi Schwarz. The auction house also incorporated pre- and post-roll footage from Bulgari during the livestreamed auction, while Bulgari provided pieces worn by some of the auction house’s specialists at the event and Bulgari made its “Rosso Caravaggio” necklace, inspired by Caravaggio and Bernini, available for private sale.
“We were delighted to partner with Bulgari to present Masters Week livestream auction and the virtual event leading up to it,” Eléonore Dethier, Vice President, Global Head of Partnerships at Sotheby’s, told CCI. “By joining forces, Sotheby’s and Bulgari celebrate art and culture as continued sources of inspiration and creativity.”
The collaboration with Bulgari represented an evolution for Sotheby’s use of livestreaming. The auction house tried the format out last summer with a digital auction event in June that replaced the May sales, which had been postponed by the coronavirus pandemic. Using London as the headquarters for the event, with specialists on hand in Hong Kong and New York, Sotheby’s broadcast the five-hour auction livestream on its website as well as via the video news network Cheddar (owned by telecoms billionaire Patrick Drahi, who took Sotheby’s private in 2019).
Sotheby’s has made an effective pivot to content-commerce to cater both to established collectors and budding younger buyers whose interests range from rare sneakers to street art. Last May, Sotheby’s saw an overwhelmingly positive response to its Hong Kong’s Contemporary Showcase series of pop-up auctions, which saw a combination of vinyl toys, manga drawings, Western contemporary art, and other limited edition collectibles go under the hammer. The Contemporary Showcase: MEET AllRightsReserved event was particularly successful, with sale prices for items such as a set of KAWS plush toys and a Doraemon sculpture far exceeding estimates.
Bulgari, too, has successfully incorporated livestreaming into its global strategy, particularly in China. As CEO Jean-Cristophe Babin recently told CCI, “We used livestreaming when we launched the Ambush collection on WeChat by collaborating with celebrities and KOLs to introduce the collection, linking to our WeChat Mini Program for conversion.”
With its recent collaboration with Bulgari, Sotheby’s has shown that content-commerce strategies can work across consumer and product classes, helping to sell art, fine jewelry and watches, collectibles, and archive apparel in equal measures. Far from being a flash in the pan, content-commerce is clearly a winning formula in today’s global (and globalized) consumer market.
How Will Kuaishou’s IPO Bolster China’s Livestream Landscape?
Consider this: Chinese mobile users spend a third of their time on video-based entertainment platforms. By 2025, China’s 1.1 billion users are forecasted to spend more than two hours a day shooting and scrolling on video apps. Given this trend’s trajectory — one accelerated by pandemic ennui and China’s 5G rollout — it’s little wonder 2021 is being heralded as the year of mega-IPOs for China’s video apps.
Speculation continues to swirl around ByteDance, creator of short-video sensations Douyin and TikTok; Millennial favorite Bilibili has announced a second listing in Hong Kong; and now, Kuaishou Technologies, operator of China’s popular video app and early adopter of livestreaming, is seeking to raise $5.4 billion through an IPO set to list on February 5.
Read the full story on Jing Culture & Commerce.
Brand Film Pick: Apple Picks Lulu Wang to Direct Annual Holiday iPhone Film
Apple is once again marking the Lunar New Year with a touching film shot through the lens of the latest generation iPhone, this time aiming to bridge the gap between China and Hollywood by tapping Lulu Wang to remotely direct a short feature created by the team that helped produce her award-winning “The Farewell” (2019) on the ground.
“Nian” (阿年) reimagines a traditional holiday folk tale as a coming-of-age story about facing one’s fears. An inquisitive young girl sets out into the woods to find the mythical creature known as the “nian” (年, Chinese for “year”), who is said to eat children. Instead, she befriends the fearsome monster, allowing it to become a part of her family.
At 12 minutes, “Nian” is the longest of Apple’s holiday offerings to date, reveling in the lush scenery of forests and mountains. And as with previous films, the iPhone brand is mentioned only via a note in the opening credits (“Shot on iPhone 12 Pro Max”), signaling to viewers the professional movie-making capabilities of the device and setting the stage to send a strong brand message. In a “making of” video, Wang discussed her personal connection to the narrative and how her team worked with iPhone features such as Dolby Vision to capture cinematic images.
Though agreeing that “Nian” is visually stunning, viewers have been less impressed with the story and its treatment, finding that it doesn’t resonate emotionally as much as the previous years’ films. Wang’s “The Farewell” similarly failed to find a receptive audience in China, despite its critical and box-office success in the United States.
News From China
Bilibili’s power list: Gen Z’s favorite video platform held a virtual event on January 30 to celebrate its third annual list of top creators (aka “Uploaders”), the “Bilibili Power Up 100,” based on factors such as creativity, influence, and word of mouth. The platform also collaborated with the literary magazine Story Collections (故事会) for a special issue on the creators.
This year’s list, which was released earlier in the month, was somewhat controversial among some of Bilibili’s OG fans. One analysis found that 49 of the 100 creators who made the list were appearing for the first time, reflecting a shift in Bilbili’s content makeup over the years. While 2018’s list had more creators focused on gaming, music, and meme videos, a genre known as guichu (literally “ghost beast”), the latest edition shows the growth of content on more mainstream, lifestyle-oriented topic such as food, fashion, and personal vlogs.
Some fans expressed concern at the presence of creators who are under contract with Bilibili, such as singer and internet celebrity Feng Timo, who was lured away from Douyu in late 2019 for an undisclosed sum, part of the platform’s march towards more widespread adoption.
In China’s fast food wars, the latest battleground is on-trend localization. Both McDonald’s and KFC have launched a slew of new menu items over the past few months and show no signs of letting up.
KFC has long been the market leader in China, thanks to a cultural preference for fried chicken over Big Macs, and it has aimed to innovate with its local menu as much as it has on the content-commerce front. In October, it launched its new Kaifengcai line of self-heating foods, which included the most viral dish of 2020, luosifen (螺蛳粉), snail rice noodles with a pungent sour aroma. And last month, it debuted another of last year’s most popular dishes, Wuhan-style hot dry noodles, which drew nationwide attention during the country’s coronavirus outbreak as citizens engaged in sympathetic eating to show a sense of solidarity with the city at the center of the epidemic.
Rival McDonald’s, meanwhile, has had a rougher go recently. Its Spam-Oreo burger drew global media coverage (and not because it sounded good), while in China it was seen as an example of extreme collaboration culture gone wrong. As part of its Lunar New Year campaign, it introduced a take on what’s known as the “Chinese burger,” roujiamo (肉夹馍), a steamed bun stuffed with shredded meat, drawing consumer complaints over the scanty amount of filling. The roujiamo release coincided with the announcement of a “creative menu” for 2021, with a free item available to McDonald’s members on one day per month. January’s item was a chili sauce-topped ice cream sundae, a treat popularized on social media, with future items to be revealed each month.
News in English
New regulations covering a range of tech matters from livestreaming to monopolistic practices to data privacy could ultimately be good news for brands. Business of Fashion
Luxury brands are collaborating with influencers and celebrities on special collections for the Lunar New Year, but is it enough? SCMP
How Cartier worked with Alibaba to boost its digital presence in China, from offering bespoke services via Tmall Luxury Pavillion to livestreaming VIP launch parties. Alizila
Gucci and Calvin Klein lead consumer search growth on WeChat ahead of the Lunar New Year, with Balenciaga, Burberry and Moncler also seeing increased interest. Vogue Business
Fresh off its New York IPO, online luxury retailer Mytheresa will use some of the proceeds to fund expansion in China. SCMP
Bytedance is aiming to challenge Tencent’s dominance in the gaming sector, and already has around dozen game studios, 29 gaming subsidiaries, and more than 2,000 employees dedicated to the task. China Money Network
Despite talk of “decoupling,” it would be a mistake for global companies to consider withdrawing from the Chinese market, given its ongoing potential for growth. Fortune
China’s internet watchdog has issued new rules on public social media accounts, which could have a far-reaching impact on small-scale independent publishers that have flourished on WeChat and Weibo. SCMP
The supreme influencer: Xi Jinping was photographed sporting a $1,000 Arc’teryx parka, sending the price of parent company Anta’s up by more than 9% that day. Inkstone News
Ford apologized for mixing up the animals in the Chinese zodiac after it marketed its new Mustang Mach-E model as being made in the Year of the Horse. Global Times
WeChat overtook Ferrari to become the world’s strongest brand, with a score of 95.4 out of 100 in the Brand Finance Global 500 ranking. China Internet Watch
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