Baidu – the largest search engine in China

Rather than Google, in China a large chunk of internet traffic uses Baidu for its enquiries on the internet, which means that if you can use the platform to your advantage, you’re on to a winner. Unfortunately, many of the prominent site positions are retained by Baidu for its own sites, but there are still opportunities for you to market your business on the search engine. It can pay dividends to seek out an experienced Baidu SEO expert, as the search engine has its own nuances which are different to Google in some respects.

Enhance your e-reputation with digital marketing in China

Chinese internet users are known to be prone to researching brands well before making a buying decision. That means when targeting China it is very important to have a good ‘e-reputation’ – that could be positive reviews from Chinese users, press coverage gained within China, and an existing community of fans or followers.

WeChat

Some would argue that WeChat, the instant messaging platform with over 800 million users, is the biggest opportunity to engage with Chinese consumers. Strategic building of a community, the creation of an effective brand account, and savvy use of WeChat advertising to target particular demographics can all add up to a satisfactory return on investment from your outlay into a WeChat campaign.

Go mobile

There are several reasons why it might be beneficial to make mobile a central element of your digital marketing in China strategy, basing your efforts around a mobile ready website and a specially built, China-focused, smartphone or tablet app. You can also take steps to optimise your site specifically for Baidu.

Celebrity marketing

If you can link your product or service to a well-known face in Chinese culture, be it music, television or sport, there is a chance your promotion could have a lot more penetration. This could cost a lot of money, but enlisting the help of some brand ambassadors in the form of Chinese celebrities gives you the right kind of alignment to make a big noise.

Quality is key for online marketing in China

It is vital that the nature of the content you send out over the web gives value to consumers in China. Photos and videos stand a good chance of going viral compared to dry text, and there is also a case for telling a story around your brand, be it factual, fictional or tongue in cheek. Ensure that the video content you do produce and share ticks the boxes in terms of quality, as a grainy or under produced effort will not reflect well on your brand.

To discuss an online marketing strategy for China that meets your objectives, contact us today.

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Fan BingBing is most recognisable for her role in the latest instalment of the X-Men franchise, Days of Future Past, in which she played Blink. She is signed on to appear in four further films in the franchise, and also starred in Ironman 3 (source: Yahoo! Finance).

Yet despite her many accolades, Fan BingBing is relatively unknown in the West. Her wealth, fame, and influence is driven almost entirely by Chinese demand, making her the perfect case study for the power of celebrity endorsements.

Fan BingBing celebrity endorsements

Fan BingBing, like many Chinese stars, is the face of a whole host of different brands. The list of companies that she endorses include Cartier, Chopard, Mercedes-Benz, Moet, Chandon, L’Oreal and Louis Vuitton (source: Jing Daily). She is regularly invited to fashion shows by brands such as Armani, Dior, Valentino and Versace, and closed the 2012 Paris Stéphane Rolland Couture show. The following year she entered the history books as the first Asian actress to have a custom designed and made gown from Louis Vuitton, which she wore to the Cannes Film Festival.

eCommerce giant Alibaba ranks Fan BingBing as the most valuable celebrity in terms of generating sales on the site. By tracking keyword searches for her name, it has been estimated that she influenced $74 million worth of sales on the ecommerce website in 2013 (Source: Fashionbi).

Topping the Forbes list of most influential Chinese stars shows just how much impact Fan BingBing has had. She has been in the top 10 every year since 2006. The list doesn’t just take into account wealth; it is a measure of the influencing power of the celebrity. If the list was based entirely on wealth, Fan BingBing would actually be in fourth place.

Secret to success

Fan BingBing has found success thanks to far more than just her looks and her acting talents. Chinese consumers judge celebrity endorsements based upon the quality of the star’s character, not just their accolades and achievements. Fan BingBing has a reputation in China for being incredibly hard-working: she started her own production company in 2007 and starred in eight films in the same year.

She is also well-known for charity work, having co-founded Heart Ali, a project to help Tibetan children suffering from congenital heart disease. In 2010 she paid for 10 children with congenital heart defects to have surgery, and this year donated 1 million yuan to provide aid to victims of the explosion in Tianjin (source: International Business Times).

Fan BingBing has the same characteristics that we look for from a celebrity endorsement in the West – beauty and success – but it is her hard-working attitude and her generous character that have helped her to win the hearts of Chinese consumers, and therefore luxury brands across the world.

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To succeed in the Chinese market you need to have a clear strategy that is thoroughly implemented. Many brands have turned to celebrity endorsements, and China has the third largest percentage of companies using celebrity endorsements in the world (source: Academia). In terms of consumerism, the West has many values that the Chinese aspire to. But do celebrity endorsements work as well in China?

Chinese consumers more likely than Americans to identify with celebrity endorsed products

Endorsements featuring celebrity athletes are highly popular in China. A study that compared the attitudes of Chinese consumers to US consumers in relation to celebrity athlete endorsements found the Chinese consumers were much more likely to desire the products. They were more interested than US consumers in products which were endorsed by celebrity athlete, were more likely to want additional information about endorsed products, and also more likely to desire products endorsed by celebrity athletes (source: Journal of Management and Market Research).

Chinese consumers evaluate celebrity endorsements differently to those in the West

Although they belong to a masculine culture, as do consumers in the West, Chinese shoppers tend to evaluate celebrities based upon their virtues and the way they act, rather than their successes and accolades. Of course, their professional work is important, but one study of Chinese consumers found that they tended to describe the celebrities they admired in different ways to those of the West.

Chinese audiences often assessed celebrities in terms of their moral character. This is often a general assessment rather than in reference to a specific time in which they have demonstrated this. Other characteristics used to describe celebrity endorsers were whether or not they were of rural origin, how well they spoke English, and whether they were cheerful and virtuous. Chinese consumers also admired celebrities who were particularly hard-working (source: China Economic Review).

Celebrity endorsements particularly effective at influencing young demographics interested in sport

Young demographics make up 80% of the sporting market in China, and endorsements by celebrities are particularly effective when influencing young people. This is perhaps why GoPro chose to use popular 27-year-old Liu Yongbang, a professional rock climber, to endorse their Hero4 ‘Session’ model when it launched earlier in 2015. Retailing at 10 times the price of its nearest competitor – the YiCamera, which is backed by Xiaomi, one of China’s leading smartphone manufacturers – the ‘Session’ marketing campaign relied on Liu’s star appeal to justify the much higher price (source: Asia Sponsorship News).

Celebrity endorsements can be a powerful way of connecting with your target market. However, as research has shown, Chinese consumers perceive celebrities differently, and value different personality traits to those in the West. Make sure when you think about who you want to endorse your products you choose someone whose life and attitudes aligns closely with your brand values.

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