In the last few years, many companies and brands have shifted their consumer target to Chinese consumers, and who can blame them. China is now one of the strongest economies in the world, with Chinese consumers accounting for a considerable increase in the tourism-focused markets. In 2019, there was a total of 883,073 visits from Chinese tourist with a total spend of £1.71 Billion. Chinese consumers are now unequivocally recognised as the biggest consumers globally.
However, targeting Chinese consumers is not as easy as you think. Many companies have tried and failed, for example, Dolce & Gabanna. In 2018, Dolce & Gabanna released their “DG Love China” campaign, which was meant to attract Chinese consumers but instead, was met with criticism instead due to them not fully understanding Chinese culture and behaviour.
The campaign featured a Chinese model dressed in brand new red clothing (red traditionally representing good luck and good fortune) eating a variety of Italian foods with chopsticks. The campaign was criticised for stereotyping Chinese people as lacking cultural understanding of how to eat foreign foods, as the video campaign showed the Chinese model eating a Pizza, a large cannoli and spaghetti with chopsticks. It was also criticised for the narrators exaggerated statements such as “its still way too big for you?”. If Dolce & Gabanna did their research and understood China’s culture, traditions and ethics, they would know that these types of sexual innuendos are frowned upon in China.
(Video showing D&G campaign with English translations)
If you are considering to target Chinese consumers in 2021, here are 3 practices you should do to avoid any miscommunication.
1. Identify your target audience.
China has a population of over 1.4 billion with over 100 different cities. Cities in China are grouped into different tiers, tier 1 being the most developed cities like Beijing and Shanghai. If you plan to target Chinese consumers in China, you first must identify which city you want to target. Once you have decided, learn about the behaviours and lifestyle of the people living in that city. Doing so will ensure the message you put out will resonate with your target demographic.
However, if you plan to target Chines consumers outside of China, then you are looking to target Chinese tourists and students. Chinese tourists have been the target for several companies who want to target Chinese consumers outside of China. As mentioned earlier, in the UK alone there were nearly 1 million Chinese tourists in 2019. However, due to Covid-19, tourists might not be an option until things get back to normal. The next option would be Chinese students.
Pre-Covid-19, we have always told our clients to focus on Chinese students. China is known to be the biggest exporters of international students. In the UK alone, Chinese students are the number one international students. In 2018, the UK had already over 100,000 students from China. Even during the pandemic, Chinese students are still coming to the UK to study.
The reason we tell our clients to focus on Chinese students is that they stay abroad for a couple of years, usually a minimum of two years. Since Chinese students stay for a longer period, they are likely to immerse themselves in the culture and lifestyle of the country they are staying. They are also highly likely to tell their friends and family in China about brands and products they use while living abroad.
Source: UKCisa Graph showing the number of Chinese students in the UK.
2. Choosing the correct platform
China has blocked western platforms from being used. Therefore, it is important to learn and familiarise yourself with Chinese platforms, especially when targeting specific Chinese demographics.
We suggest looking into platforms like Baidu, which is their version of Google. Weibo, a micro-blogging platform identical to Twitter. XioaHongShu, which is a mixture of Instagram, Pinterest, and Amazon. Finally, WeChat, the most used and most complex platform in China. WeChat is essentially is a mixture of Amazon, Google, WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat and all the other social apps you can think of mixed in one. These are just a few of the popular platforms in China, they have dozens more which are worth considering such as DouYin (TikTok) and BiliBili.
3. Understand Chinese culture and behaviour.
This may be the most important point to consider if you plan to target Chinese consumers. Companies make the mistake of implementing the same strategy they use in the west in China. This is of course a big no-no. When creating a strategy targeting Chinese consumers, you have to make sure that the strategy is localised to Chinese culture. Otherwise, you end up making the same mistake as D&G.
If you are looking to target a new demographic for 2021 and would like to target Chinese consumers, give us a shout, we are more than happy to discuss and give you more insight on how to approach and communicate with Chinese consumers.
