From Gucci to Dior: how luxury brands cleverly use social media like WeChat to engage the China market
Western companies are quickly adapting their online marketing strategies to connect with mainland millennials and Gen Zers so they feel more ‘involved’ in products
This article was originally written by Susanna Nicoletti for Jing Daily
The way fashion is consumed has changed significantly over the past decade.
A new era opened when social media gave customers and fans a voice – and brands were completely unprepared for it.
Previously, these brands were the market influencers and their power wasn’t challenged.
Yet with the emergence of the Chinese market, fashion brands need new marketing approaches to meet the needs of this new, hard-to-please target audience.
“Engagement” is the key in China. For a luxury brand to get Chinese consumers deeply involved – so much so that they feel they can’t live without its products – it will need a three-step process called culture marketing.
This process is based on: 1. understanding; 2. planning, and; 3. exchanging, and it requires an approach that’s different from the one-way exchanges of the past, where brands imposed a monolithic vision on their target audiences.
It’s a process that can be easily applied to any market, but it’s especially helpful in the China market where the demand for customer service is high and opinions spread quickly via Chinese social media.
The times when a ‘Made in Italy/France’ label necessarily equated with craftsmanship, heritage, lifestyle and refinement no longer exists