Louis Vuitton sees big interest on Kuaishou as fashion show live-stream outperforms Douyin, Weibo and Tencent Video

A live-streamed menswear show from the French fashion house reached 49 million viewers on Kuaishou, a rival of Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok
Kuaishou’s association with lower-tier cities has caused some call Louis Vuitton ‘unstylish’, but it could lead to interest from other luxury brands

Kuaishou

Yaling Jiangin Shanghai

Published: 6:00pm, 24 Jan 2022

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French fashion house Louis Vuitton (LV), a popular luxury brand in China, has found a huge new audience in an unlikely place: Kuaishou Technology, the short video-sharing platform known for its appeal with rural and small-town residents.

Live-streamed and playback views of the brand’s autumn/winter 2022 menswear show last Thursday had reached 49 million as of mid-day Monday on the platform, China’s second largest short video app behind Douyin, the domestic version of TikTok that is also owned by ByteDance. Kuaishou users accounted for nearly half of the event’s total viewership, far exceeding views on other internet platforms.

The show was also streamed on Douyin, microblogging platform Weibo, and Tencent Video, where views reached 26.5 million, 20.7 million and 8.7 million views, respectively, according to LV.

Louis Vuitton’s autumn/winter 2022 menswear collection, presented during Paris Fashion Week on January 20. Photo: Louis Vuitton

While this was LV’s first time streaming a fashion show on its official Kuaishou account, it ran a trial for its spring/summer 2022 men’s show last June in partnership with Nylon China, which streamed the show on its account. That show reached 39 million views on the platform.

Given its association with users from lower-tier cities and rural areas, Kuaishou would appear to be an unusual place for luxury brands to market their goods. LV’s association with Kuaishou has even led some commentators to refer to the brand as “unstylish”. LV is currently the only luxury brand maintaining an official presence on the platform.

This presence is not likely about direct sales, however, given users’ limited spending power. Instead, it could be a means of keeping a broad marketing base, according to Vicky Li, managing director of the China office of Digital Retex, a marketing agency that counts European luxury brands Saint Laurent and Valentino as clients.

“Luxury brands run different social accounts to cover as many consumers as possible, although they may not be the brand’s directly targeted consumers,” Li said.

“[The live stream] was more about creating marketing buzz,” she added. “Compared to consumers in first-tier cities, those from third- or fourth-tier cities lack the channels to buy and understand luxury goods.”

02:01

What is Kuaishou? Understanding China’s video-sharing app

LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the parent of LV, has marked China as one of its most important markets for a post-Covid-19 recovery, highlighting its strong performance across the group’s fashion, beauty and beverage groups in its latest financial report.

With both user numbers and time spent on the app growing, Kuaishou represents an untapped opportunity for luxury brands to expand their reach. The platform’s monthly active users reached 572.9 million in the third quarter last year, up 19.5 per cent from the same period in 2020. Users also spent an average of two hours per day on the platform.

The record numbers for Kuaishou come as the company tries to shed its “unstylish” reputation. If LV is successful, it could also encourage other luxury brands to embrace the platform, according to Digital Retex’s Li.

“With a luxury leader such as LV on the platform, along with the platform’s support, it is expected that more luxury brands will consider live streaming, but it’s unlikely that they will sell directly via the channel,” Li said.