Author / Sims Qin
Edited by Denni Hu
Image credit: Christian Dior
With the increasing maturity of Internet e-commerce and content communities, as well as the sharp return of consumption after the epidemic, more and more brands have shifted their attention from traditional media to the Internet and created a series of new localization methods.
In 2022, when "traffic" becomes more and more expensive and users become more and more critical of creative content, the road of luxury brands to Internet marketing in China has also ushered in a new challenge. Head brands such as Louis Vuitton, Dior, Prada, Balenciaga, etc., have invariably begun to expand their existing media territory, focusing on more sinking platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou.
From traditional media to Internet platforms
Once upon a time, fashion magazines were a must for luxury brands, with different page numbers and sizes corresponding to varying prices, and despite their high prices, they were in short supply. However, the internet platform that came out of nowhere has changed all that. In the face of the increasingly diversified consumer groups, the brand has embarked on the road of "grasping with both hands": while placing advertisements in fashion magazines with absolute professionalism and authority, using the Internet platform to reach a wider public, and more directly conveying brand ideas to consumers.
In China, the development of the Internet can be divided into three phases: the first is the 1990s, known as the Web 1.0 phase. During this period, NetEase, Sohu, Sina have come out, the portal era has officially opened; at the beginning of the 21st century, the rise of desktop application software, the depth of the Internet possibilities have been developed, Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba three giants have grown at this stage; now, the rise of 5G technology, mobile Internet penetrated into all aspects of public life, with WeChat, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou and other Apps that combine e-commerce and content communities into one, these Internet platforms with personalized recommendation strategies, It has become the favorite of brands and consumers.
At the visual level, short videos with vivid pictures and high emotional concentration are more attractive than graphics and texts that stay in the two-dimensional plane, and can also display the brand's release show, advertising film or a certain product in a more three-dimensional way, and carry out in-depth planting and pulling grass for users.
Some analysts pointed out that increasing the proportion of Internet operations will help brands better and faster to grasp the psychology of young people's love of sharing and impulsive consumption. If you look at it from the perspective of brand marketing strategy, the user group of the Internet is more extensive, according to the "China Mobile Internet Development Report (2021)" released by the People's Network, as of 2020, the total number of 4G users in the mainland will reach 1.289 billion, and the scale of 5G users will also expand rapidly, and the number of terminal connections will exceed 200 million. The expansion of users will inevitably bring about an increase in browsing time, which means a significant increase in the conversion rate of luxury advertising, which is indeed a grasp that cannot be ignored for luxury brands that want to broaden market channels and expand consumer circles.
Little Red Book is just needed
Douyin and Kuaishou are traffic depressions to be tapped
With the blessing of science and technology, in addition to the exposure advantage of the Internet platform, it also makes luxury advertising have a variety of possibilities at the level of presentation and dissemination.
In the case of Little Red Book, when it was founded in 2013, the platform was just a community to share overseas travel and shopping experiences. With the improvement of user demand, in addition to fashion, beauty and skin care-related content, the vertical content of the community continues to increase, and the Little Red Book is also regarded by young people as an "encyclopedia" that can "plant grass with one click". Real-time push of graphic notes, high-quality KOLs and KOCs, actively engaged UGC groups, good fashion tone... There is no doubt that in the eyes of luxury brands, Little Red Book is a huge cake with an excellent environment for marketing activities.
In May 2020, jewelry brand Tiffany & Co. The pop-up store was launched on the Little Red Book Mall, which mainly promoted 520 global limited money chains. In addition to direct online sales, Tiffany & Co. It also stimulates consumption through open-screen ads, "#晒晒我的 Tiffany" hot talk pages, extensive graphic notes, and bloggers live streaming – unsurprisingly, the campaign was only three days online, the main products were sold online, and the brand's search volume increased by 35.5% compared with before.
In May 2020, jewelry brand Tiffany & Co. The pop-up store was launched on the Little Red Book Mall, which mainly promoted 520 global limited money chains. Image source: Little Red Book
After some of the first-time testers tasted the "sweetness", many luxury brands have entered the market one after another, coupled with the impact of the epidemic in recent years, the process of digital marketing in the fashion industry has accelerated in an all-round way. At the end of last year, Prada opened an official account in Xiaohongshu and released a short film shot by Cai Xukun for the event, which received nearly 30,000 likes. At the same time, Balenciaga also revised the Little Red Book account, revealing all the shapes of the Fall 2022 collection at once. Louis Vuitton has been stationed in The Little Red Book in 2019, and when we search for "Louis Vuitton" in the community, there will be exclusive tabs for some popular products.
At the end of last year, Prada opened an official account in Xiaohongshu and released a short film taken by Cai Xukun for the incident. Image source: Little Red Book
Unlike the Little Red Book, which features graphic notes, Douyin and Kuaishou are competing fiercely on the short video track.
As today's two major traffic highlands, Douyin and Kuaishou, which focus on sinking user groups, still attract many luxury brands. According to the "Luxury Light and Shadow under the New City Well Business: 2021 Kuaishou Luxury Industry Data Value Report" released by Kuaishou, in the first half of 2021, the advertising revenue in the field of Internet short video reached 50.37 billion yuan, and the short video platform has become an important breakthrough for luxury brands to leverage marketing growth.
It is worth mentioning that as early as last June, Louis Vuitton and the trend media Nylon broadcast the 2022 Spring/Summer Men's Wear Show on Kuaishou, with the final number of viewers reaching 38.64 million; in November of the same year, the 2022 Spring/Summer Women's Wear Show reproduced in Shanghai was broadcast live on multiple platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaomi TV OTT, etc., with 158 million viewing data; and Louis Vuitton broadcast the men's clothing show for the first time on platforms such as Kuaishou platform, Douyin, Weibo and WeChat in January this year. The brand said that Kuaishou's live performance was the best among multiple platforms, followed by Douyin and Weibo. In addition, Dior, which also belongs to the LVMH Group, also broadcast the release show of the Fall/Winter 2022 women's wear collection on Douyin on March 1, which attracted nearly 40,000 people to watch.
Last June, Louis Vuitton's Spring /Summer 2022 menswear show debuted on Kuaishou. Image source: Little Red Book
The release of fashion shows on Douyin and Kuaishou will undoubtedly reach a wider audience - according to reports, the daily activities of Douyin currently exceed 60 million, and the daily activities of Kuaishou have exceeded 100 million. Dare to be the "first person to eat crabs", so that luxury brands harvest the platform traffic dividend, but also let more brands willing to try to enter the game.
Obviously, luxury brands have completed the process of "planting grass" by doing official accounts and node marketing activities in Douyin Kuaishou, and the process of "pulling grass" is still ultimately completed in the offline stores of luxury goods.
Catch up with lower-tier cities
"Structural Consumption Upgrade"
According to GroupM's data, the current second- and third-tier luxury goods consumption is in the process of "structural upgrading", and such consumers undoubtedly have a great degree of overlap with the users of Douyin and Kuaishou. According to GroupM data, "the enthusiasm for luxury bags is mainly driven by second-, third- and fourth-tier consumers", while "post-00s" and "post-90s" consumers in second- and fourth-tier cities currently have an average of 3 luxury bags. Luxury bags are still the "cash cow" product of most brands.
However, in the minds of the current second-, third- and fourth-tier consumers, although brand category cognition has been established, it has still not yet established a complete brand mentality. So what brands have to do is to convey the full brand story to them, and the most effective way to reach them at present may be through the social media platforms of these sinking markets.
Judging from the platform data, there is a enthusiasm for such content among users. According to Kuaishou's data, the number of likes of luxury-related videos increased by 104% compared with the mid-to-late 2021, and the number of shares increased by 217%, and Kuaishou also had more advantages than Douyin in terms of male users: It is reported that the proportion of male users of Kuaishou reached 59.04%. However, from the current point of view, Kuaishou, which has always taken the sinking route, its ecological environment is not suitable for the long-term growth of luxury content, and its attractiveness to the brand is naturally less than that of Douyin and Xiaohongshu.
Image credit: Louis Vuitton
But as the pace of "structural upgrading" of second-, third- and fourth-tier luxury consumers accelerates, brands will have the opportunity to increase the penetration of high-end products here. GroupM analysis believes that brands need to pay attention to combining the characteristics of the audience when communicating with cross-category marketing. Obviously, marketing activities relying on the Internet still attract many access-level consumers, and they have opened up multiple monetization links.
At present, the intention of brands to enter these platforms is more of a promotional nature, rather than the traditional sense of profit with goods, so the current initiatives of luxury brands are still conservative temptations.
From another dimension, there are currently a large number of live sales of second-hand luxury goods on Douyin and Kuaishou, of which the GMV of the second luxury category of Douyin in 2020 has reached about 3 billion, so the brand's concerns are also obvious: when they appear in the same information stream as second-hand luxury products, this may not be the best brand exposure.
From offline to online, from reality to virtual, the way luxury advertising is delivered and displayed is always changing. Now that they are focusing on internet platforms, where will they go in the future?
However, no matter how the medium changes, the essence of luxury will not change, the Internet is only a platform, and the metacosm is only a concept – how to tell a good story may be the key.
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